CHAPTER 1

PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

Introduction

Speaking, listening, reading and writing are basic skills involved when one majors in

English. Though the emphasis is on the effectiveness of communication in terms of grammar,

rhetoric and linguistics, a touch in literature would improvethe abilities in creative writing,

comprehension, analysis, and interpretation that can be useful in communication.

In the study conducted by Rahayu (2011), he assess the role of literature in the ELT

classroom that offers a rich source of linguistic input and can help learners to practice the four

language skills in addition to demonstrating grammatical structures and presenting new vocabulary.

However, in every academic discipline has the inevitable “It’s hard to learn” topic. For

English majors, that matter is a literary text.  Granting to an article in itseducation.asia, students who

study only the English language, with its emphasis on reading and writing skills, sometimes fail to

see the point of studying English literature.

Afifabano and Ahmed (2017) conduct a study on the reasons for the problem in learning

English literature in multiple colleges of Assir, Saudi Arabia and resulted in 50% out of 200

respondents main causes are a lack of reading, 19% is because English is boring and 16% due to

their dislike of studying poem or analyzing characters in the novel.

Hence, the researcher has become interested in conducting a study on the difficulty faced by

the English major students in learning literature.

Statement of the Problems

This study aims to identify the difficulties faced by English major students of Colegio de

Santa Catalina de Alejandria in learning literature.Specifically, the study aims to answer the

following questions:

1. What is the profile of the respondents in terms of:

1.1 Year Level

1.2 Age

1.3 Sex

2. What influenced the student to take BSED in English?

3. How do the respondents rate the difficulty in learning literature in terms of:

3.1 Subject related factors

3.2 Student related factors

3.3 Teacher related factors

3.4 Environment-related factors

4. Is there a significant relationship between respondents’ profile and the extent of difficulty

experienced by the respondents in studying literature?

Significance of the Study

Learning literature provides learners with necessary language skills and emotional growth.

Thus, a deeper understanding on the challenges that an English major students encounter in learning

literature produces a classroom that generate widespread gains to the students’ not only in their

linguistics needs but also in their literary knowledge.

The results of the study will merit the following:

Teacher of English. The result of this study could serve as a baseline data to improve or produce

programs for students’ development. This study will serve as a wake-up call for them to create and
innovate instructional materials, and to use varied and appropriate approaches, methods and

strategies in teaching literature.

School Administrators. That in recognizing the result of the study, they will support the English

department to come up with plans that will help improve the teaching of literature not only to

English major students but to everyone. The results of this study will also support the curriculum

developer to evaluate the existing programs in terms of the student’s needs and abilities and make

changes as required.

Parents.That they are assured that their children are provided with quality education specially in

the area of English language and literature.

English major students. This study will serve as an eye opener to them to recognize their

weaknesses and strengths in terms of learning literature. They will be more willing to be educated

and trained with new strategies that are apt to enlarge their knowledge not only in linguistics but

also in literary texts that are useful in their field of specialization.

Future researchers. This study can be a ground for further study.

Scope and Limitation of the Study

The researcher identified the English major students enrolled at Colegio de Santa Catalina de

Alejandria, Dumaguete (COSCA) during first semester of A.Y 2020-2021. In this study the

researcher focused on the difficulties faced by the English major students in learning literature. The

respondents were limited to seventeen (17) respondents because of the internet connection problem.

The researcher had limited access to the respondents due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Theoretical Framework

In understanding the challenges confronted by the English Major students in learning

literature comes in comprehending the thought of Reader–Response Approach by Jack Thomson.

Thomson’s Reader Response Approach places emphasis on the relationship between reader and

content while developing meaning.

The basic claim of the reader-response approach in class emphasizes the crucial role of the

reader on the literary and aesthetic experience when reading a literary text. The reader’s way of

understanding and perceptions of a literary text, as well as the experience of the reader, influence the

interaction between the reader and a text. This interaction contributes to the development of

interpretation of the text and reconstruction of the ideas expressed in the text.

Thomson (1987) presented the developmental model of reader-response who describes

several levels of response to a literary text. According to Harding (1962) in Thomson (1987), at the

moment the readers pass the level of basic understanding of text, they take the role of an onlooker

and three main processes are developing, as a result of the text-reader interaction:

1. Empathizing (with the experience of other people)

2. Evaluating characters

3. Accepting or rejecting the values of an author

Thomson (1987) proceeds to define the levels of the developmental models in reader-response

approach as follows:

Level 1: Literal understanding, which involves understanding the information presented in a

given text (a story, for example). According to Thomson (1987), students read at the level of

basic understanding without paying close attention to details or involving analysis. At this

stage, as described by Thomson (1987), characters are seen mostly in terms of stereotypes

and only as good or bad. Readers read and form only simple mental images or anticipate

further actions but only in very short terms.

Level 2: Empathy, which includes personalizing the text, relating the text with students’ own

lives and sympathy with some of the characters. Readers are interested in characters and the
 motivation of characters in more complex terms, analyzing not only actions but also

consequences.

Level 3: Analogy, a stage during which readers learn about their own lives through making

connections with characters and creating connections between their personal experience and

fictional events described in literary texts.

Level 4: Reflection, a stage during which leads to deeper understanding of other people and

their motives, during which the readers think about the events and the behaviors in a text,

thus evaluating the characters and the theme of a story.

Level 5: Evaluation of fiction is the fifth stage which involves seeing the entire literary text

as the construction of the author. At the same time, this stage involves the analysis of

author’s social and cultural values and comparison with students’ values.

Level 6: Recognition, a stage during which the readers are aware of the textual functions of

the reader and the author, considering the relationship between those functions, exploring

their own identities as readers. In addition, the readers become aware of the reading process

and their own self-understanding.

Thomson states (1987), “the kind of satisfaction readers experience are ordered in successive

stages of increasing complexity of responses and are cumulative”. The six stages of Thomson's

model are dynamic and outline the process of literary development which he believes that readers

experience that emerged from the reading behavior of the

students. This show clearly illustrates the stage of reading improvement accomplished by students

based upon the behavior they display amid a literary involvement. With this knowledge, one

may too endeavor to actualize methodologies to help children in advancing from stage to stage

and developing their responses to literature.
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Difficulties Faced by English Major
Students in Learning Literature

MEANING

READING
PROCESS
CONTENT

Fig 1. Schemaof the Theoretical and Conceptual Framework of the Study

Factors in
Learning
Literary Text

Subject Related
Factors

Teacher Related
Factors

Student Related
Factors

Environment-
Related Factors
Review on Related Readings

Focusing on linguistic elements is not the only way for language learners to communicate

fluently in the target language but also reading of narrative texts that provides an authentic model

for learners to support their language improvement.

According to Nation (2017), reading narrative text is the key because it provides many

different contexts, episodes and experiences which, over time, sum to a rich and nuanced database

about a word, its connections to other words and its lexical history within an individual’s

experience.

An article on Reading and Studying the Classics of English Literature (2020) reveal that

when studying literature, students can learn not only language aspects such as vocabulary items but

also that language can be used for specific and aesthetic purposes. Thus, learning literature opens

up the creativity of the students while also developing skills in language that are necessary for

today’s global environment. It enhances the ability to write, read, analyze and persuade that would

be helpful for the students especially those who are English majors.

Narratives are an important pedagogic medium as stated by Hunte and Golembiewski

(2014). It metonymically represent cultures of the language learners’ own world or cultures

unfamiliar to them. At the same time, stories support humankind’s drive to construct coherence and

meaning and they take the reader on educational journeys. It is through narrative that we learn about

ourselves and prepare ourselves for the future in an evolutionary sense.

Lazar (1993) asserts that literature is the best means to develop both language and thinking

skills in students. She refers to three different approaches to teaching literature that would help the

teaching–learning process. These include the language based approach, the approach the uses

literature as content and the approach where literature is taught for personal enrichment that requires
involvement of both intellectual and emotional learning. It focuses on personal experiences, feelings

and opinion through the target language.

On the contrary, Kay (1982) does not find it effective for the reason that the language used in

the literary works is too complex and difficult. It would not support students’ acquisition of

grammar and lexical structures and does not meet their occupational needs and academic needs.

Edmondson (1997) same as Kay (1982) also disapprove the used of literature in ELT

classroom for literature is commonly written with high structural complexity and lack of conformity

to standard grammatical rules which brings the linguistic difficulty to learners who need to learn

grammar. Hence, many students may be reluctant to benefit from the language of such literature.

However, Collie and Slater (1990) provides detailed explanations of the reasons for the use

of literary works for language teaching. Collie and Slater (1990) state that there are at least four

major underlying reasons, which enable language teachers to use literary works in English

classrooms which are (1) literature as a valuable authentic material, (2) literature gives cultural

enrichment, (3) literature give language enrichment and (4) literature gives personal involvement.

Review on Related Studies

This section presents the different researches conducted related to the current study.

In the study conducted by Alshammari (2020) on the challenges to studying English

literature, where at the beginning, it was emphasized that the Saudi undergraduate English as EFL

learners have overall poor performance in language and skill due to inadequate practice, poor

learning habits, inappropriate EFL curriculum and ineffective instruction. Previous research

suggests incorporating authentic learning material which one of it is English literature. However, the

study has revealed that the Saudi EFL learners tend to avoid learning English literature due to

difficulty of literary texts. EFL learners would normally prefer studying easier communicative texts

since they are mostly instrumentally driven language to language study

 A study conducted byIşıklı and Tarakçıoğlu (2017) on investigating problems of English

literature teaching to EFL high school students enumerate the problems faced by the students in

learning literature in terms of students’ low levels of proficiency in L2, teachers’ incompetence, low

motivation, lack of confidence, limited resources, and lack of materials and interference of a variety

of external factors. The analysis of the questionnaire where teachers rate the challenges encounter by

student in learning literature has revealed that student-related problems, and particularly students’

low proficiency levels, constitute the most important source of problems. The language proficiency

test was applied to see whether this finding confirmed or not the teachers’ opinion about low

proficiency levels of students. It showed that about half of the students’ proficiency levels were

significantly lower than expected, in this way partly confirming the teacher opinion on low

proficiency levels

Study relating to problems of learning literature was discussed through headlines: the

educational environment and the subject itself. Afifabano and Ahmed (2017) highlight that

educational environment may be different in each country. In Saudi Arabia where the study was

conducted, English language is introduced very late in school, therefore literature seems alien for

the newcomers to the English department of their universities/colleges. As a result, reading and

listening to short stories or picturing a character in a literary work of art seems out of question for

the English major students. Concerning the literary genre, the main problem that English major

students face is their view that English literature is a boring subject. According to the experience

of the lecturers in universities/colleges of Saudi Arabia there are many factors for such a feeling.

First, they are not taught of the history of literature because of which they remain totally unaware of

the social, political and cultural scenarios of different eras. Second, the length of the literary text like

novel and drama make the students impatient and lead them to lose their focus. Third, in their

curriculum they are prescribed to study novels and dramas of only one era, that is, pre-modern or

modern era because of which even being English major students they don’t know much about
Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, John Dryden, Ben Johnson etc. Fourth, they

are never given options to choose the text they want to study. Fifth, due to the lack of familiarity

with the cultural and social context of the literary text students remain deprive of participation and

discussion. Sixth, due to the deficit knowledge of the writing styles like similes and metaphors and

the extensive use of symbolism, poetry appears strenuous for students. Seventh, when they come

across with some non-English vocabulary they feel themselves in a helpless situation. It becomes

arduous for them to deal with strange borrowed words that cause them to give up. They totally

become dependent on the summary of teachers and the electronic materials without even pondering

to have self-study.

In the Philippines, literature is a compulsory subject in the general education and particularly

to those who specialized in language and literature courses. A study was conducted by Magulod

(2018) to assess the literary appreciation skills and literary reading performance of those who are

taking Philippine Literature from three different departments (College of Teacher Education,

College of Technology and College of Information and Computing Sciences). He finds out that the

literary reading performance of students is dependent on their literary appreciation skills. When

literary appreciation skills are enhanced, the better the students can manifest a higher level of

knowledge in literature reading. This will let students understand better the human emotions,

insights, themes, and ideas, and significant human experiences conveyed in different literary texts.

Thus, teachers’ methods that support teaching and learning activities are important so they can be

used as effective tools to achieve the goal in learning literature.

Definition of Terms

To give readers a substantial background of key terms used in this study, the following

operational definitions are given:

English Major Student – it refers to the education student specializing English whom was enrolled

during the second semester of academic year 2019-2020

Literature– any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings

specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry

ELT– stands for English Language Teaching; is the teaching of Englishto people

whose first language is not English

EFL – stands for English as a Foreign Language; is learning English in a non-English-speaking

country

Target Language– refers to a language that someone is studying

Learning–the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught

Research Methodology

This section of the study discusses the research design, research respondents, research

environment, survey questionnaire, treatment of data gathering procedure.

Research Design

The present research used the descriptive analytical method. A descriptive study, according

to Brown and Rodgers (2002), is “a research that describes group characteristics or behaviors in

numerical terms.” A questionnaire was designed to gather the data needed for the present study.

The questionnaire in the present study was developed to identify the main problems English

major students faced in learning literature. The questionnaire consisted of 20 items containing

difficulties related to the nature of literature. The stated expressions fell in four scales: (1) Not

Difficult, (2) Average, (3) Difficult and (4) Very Difficult. The questionnaire was adapted to the

existing study of Shakfa (2012).

Research Respondents

There were twenty-six target respondents from second year to fourth year levels which seven

were male and nineteen were female from College of the Liberal Art Education but only seventeen

(17) responded. The respondents were chosen by convenience which means that when the

questionnaire was sent to them through online, only those who responded were considered as

respondents because of the current situation. Of the seventeen (17), six (6) were second year, eight

(8) were third year and three (3) were fourth year.

Research Environment

This study was conducted in Colegio de Santa Catalina de Alejandria (COSCA) at Bishop

Epifanio B. Surban St. Dumaguete City Negros Oriental, Philippines. Furthermore, the school is

named after the patron saint of Dumaguete City St. Catherine of Alexandria and was founded on

December 1959. Specifically, the College of Liberal Arts and Education have a total population of

seventy nine (79) education students from first year to fourth year. The College has forty nine (49)

English major students with twenty three (23) whom are female and eight (8) that are male.

Formerly known as Dumaguete Cathedral College, the school firstoffered the degree of

Bachelor of Science in Education dated on the 7th of June 1976. Belonging to the College of Liberal

Art Education, it seeks to meet the need of those students preparing to teach in elementary and

secondary.The first area of specialization offered was English. By school year 2018-2019, the new

curriculum was offered and two area of specialization were launched – Mathematics and Filipino.

Research Instrument

The researcher used the questionnaire as a tool to gather the needed data. The questionnaire

has two parts. Part 1 consist of the respondents profile on sex, age and year level and what influence

them to study Bachelor of Secondary Education major in English. Part 2 dealt with questions
pertinent to the current study such as their choice and extent of difficulty in learning literature based

on the valuables such as subject related factor, teacher related factor, student related factor, and

environment-related factor

Treatment of Data

For the analysis of data, the researchers used the percentage formula

P= f/n x 100

where:

P = Percentage

f = Frequency

n = total number of respondents

For significant relationship, the weighted mean was used. To get the weighted mean, this

formula was used

W = Σ (w*x) / Σ w

where:

W = weighted mean

w = number of respondents

x = likert scale
Data Gathering Procedure

Upon the approval of the research title, the researcher immediately drafted a transmittal letter

addressed to the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Education. Likewise, in order to justify the

need for data collection the researchers personally forwarded the letter to the head of the department

and discussed the nature, purpose of conducting the study as well as the confidentiality of the

identity of the profile of the respondents.

A separate letter was formulated addressed to English major students who were selected as

research respondents based on convenience sampling upon the approval of the college Dean to

conduct the said study. The respondents were made to sign the consent form.