FAKULTI PENDIDIKAN

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

Teaching Approaches Employed by Secondary Schools Teachers in Teaching

Literature Component in English

Research Description
Literature is one of the components included in the new English language
curriculum for secondary schools in Malaysia. The curriculum goals have stated clearly that
literature component should engage students in reading for enjoyment and self-
development. However, it is actually very rare to see these aspirations being implemented
during the teaching of literature component in the real English language classroom setting.
This might due to fact that teachers need to conform to the exam-oriented society where
the numbers of A’s become the determiner on whether a student is successful or not
(Subramaniam, Shahizah & Koo, 2003). Therefore, teachers have to forget about including
the fun aspects of learning literature but to go with the teacher-centered approach in
teaching the component which includes giving notes and doing a lot of exam-formatted
questions in class. As the result, students do not enjoy learning literature as they consider
those kinds of practices as unchallenging, boring, simple and a “nightmare” (Sidhu, 2003).
However, when teachers use student-centered approach in teaching literature component
such as class discussions, students felt that they are having fun and they could learn
something out of those activities (Sidhu, 2003). Therefore, this study is conducted to
identify the teaching approaches (teacher-centered or student-centered approach) that is
frequently used in teaching literature component and to examine the reasons behind the
selection of practices that the teachers employed in the teaching of literature component.
Through the use of this questionnaire, it is hoped that the information needed can be
obtained and able to accomplish the purposes of this study.

Najah Binti Ramlan

Email Address: najahramlan@yahoo.co.uk
Contact Number: 014-8801567

QUESTIONNAIRE
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Dear respondents,
The following questionnaire is designed to gather information about your literature
component teaching. Please complete all the items in this questionnaire and
respond to it honestly. There will be no right or wrong answer. Your responses will
be kept strictly confidential and only to be used for the purposes of this study.
Please use this pen to fill in this questionnaire, and then keep the pen as my gift to
you. Thank you for lending your time to complete this questionnaire.

Section A – Demographic Information

1. Please state the name of school that you are currently teaching:
__________________________________________________
2. Gender:
□ Male
□ Female
3. Teaching experience in English subject:
□ 4 years or less (≤ 4 years)
□ 5 – 9 years
□ 10 – 14 years
□ 15 years or more (≥ 15 years)
4. Highest academic qualification:
□ Diploma in Education
□ First Degree
□ Master ‘s Degree
□ PhD
5. Received formal training in the methodology of literature teaching:
□ Yes
□ No

Section B – Approaches in Teaching Literature Component

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Use the following scale to describe on how you agree with each statement below.
For each statement, tick (√) the box that gives the best description of you.

SD – Strongly disagree
D – Disagree
A – Agree
SA – Strongly agree

Statements SD D A SA
1. My literature lessons are teacher-centered.

2. I use conventional teaching practices when teaching

literature component in class.
3. I am a knowledge transmitter in my literature
classroom.
4. I use student-centered approach when I teach good
students.
5. Students’ interpretation of the text is more encouraged
during my literature lesson.
6. I provide feedback to my students whenever they need
one during my literature lesson.
7. I do most of the talking in class than my students.
8. I use other language to translate the content of the
literary text for students in my literature lesson.
9. I drill my students with the exam format, how to go
through answering and give them the sample answers
from the very beginning of the year.
10. My students are required to work independently.

11. I include role playing or dramatization as an activity in

my literature class for my students to act out the scenes
from the texts that they are studying.
Statements SD D A SA

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12. I teach my students the knowledge of technical features
in literature (i.e. literary form, literary elements, the
conventions and devices) to build adequate background
knowledge before they can explore the literary text on
their own.
13. I ask questions to test my students understanding and
knowledge based on what they are taught.
14. I make my students do exercises from published
materials such as workbooks during my literature
lessons.
15. I use teacher-centered approach when I teach literature
to the low proficiency students.
16. There will be discussion going on in my literature class
namely classroom discussion, small group discussion, et
cetera.
17. My literature lessons are learner-centered.
18. My teaching of literature focuses on the transaction of
knowledge between reader and the work through
student-centered activities.
19. During my literature lesson, I provide my students with
the interpretation of the texts.
20. My students just need to receive, memorize and repeat
the knowledge transmitted to them.
21. I am the one who feed them with the required
information about the literary texts.
22. I play the role of a facilitator who encourages my
students to respond and reflect on their interpretation
of the text.
23. My students are the main contributor during the
literature lesson.
Statements SD D A SA

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24. My students are given the opportunities to work with
their friends in group or pair work activities during my
literature lesson.
25. I conduct my literature lesson by using the synopsis
instead of the actual literary text when I teach students
with low proficiency level.
26. I explain to my students the messages that should be
found in the texts they are studying.
27. I have my students to copy down notes all the time
during the literature lesson.
28. The activities employed in my literature class are to
ensure that responses are generated by students from
the information within a text and are not learnt through
memorization.
29. I make my students recite the poem with feelings and
emotion when I teach literature in class.
30. I let my students create their own literary text such as
poem and short story through creative writing activity
in my literature class.
31. I make my students read aloud the literary texts as an
activity for learning literature in class.

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Section C – Reasons behind the Selection of Approaches in Teaching Literature
Use the following scale to describe on how you agree with each statement below.
For each statement, tick (√) the box that gives the best description of you.

SD – Strongly disagree
D – Disagree
A – Agree
SA – Strongly agree

Statements SD D A SA
1. My students’ language proficiency will determine the
way I conduct my literature lesson.
2. I want them to seek out the messages from the texts by
exploring the text on their own.
3. Due to their lack of language proficiency, my students
depend on me to understand the text.
4. I want them to take more active role in the analysis and
interpretation of the literary texts.
5. I cannot employ interesting activities because my
students do not acquire the language to understand
literature.
6. I want to encourage high-quality interaction among
students through group work and classroom discussion.
7. The layers of meaning and aesthetic values embedded
in literary texts are difficult for my students to discover
independently.
8. I want my students to experience the differences
between the ordinary language lesson and a literature
lesson.
9. My students do not speak up or voice out their ideas in
my class.
Statements SD D A SA

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10. I would like my students to participate actively in class,
so I conduct the activities that enable them to do so
during my literature lesson.
11. My students do not read the actual literary text, so I
teach them by using the synopsis and conduct the
activities in class based on the synopsis itself.
12. I want my students to enjoy learning literature in class,
so I include fun activities for them to explore the
literature.
13. My students cannot relate to the culture presented in
the text with their own culture, therefore I have to
explain this to them in class.
14. I have to use translation when I teach literature
because my students have limited vocabulary to
understand it.
15. I want to maintain my students’ interest and
involvement towards learning literature by employing
student-centered activities in class.
16. My students cannot explore the literary texts on their
own because they do not have the skill to do so.
17. It is difficult to teach literature through fun ways due to
the exam constraints.
18. I would like to provide my students with the
opportunities to use the target language in literature
related classroom activities.
19. I am more concerned with teaching literature to enable
my students to answer well in their examination rather
than to engage them with fun activities in class.
20. I believe that imparting knowledge is crucial to
understand a specific text.

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21. I want my students to express themselves creatively
through activities like creative writing and role playing.
Statements SD D A SA
22. The ideal ways to teach literature is not practical
because there is a syllabus to finish in a very short time.

THANK YOU
(^^)