13. J.

P Boyle
Testing Language with Students of Literature in ESL
Situations

14. Monica Vincent and Ronald Carter

Simple Text and Reading Text

ARDILA AGUSTINA
1707042018
DEWI RAHAYU
1707042020
13. J. P Boyle
Testing Language with Students of Literature in ESL Situations

 WRITING :
Vocabulary The student of literature has to be more at home in words which
describe the finer shades of human emotion.
The example of the test is to find at least six words within the
range of that broad feeling and use it into a sentence

Example :
 ANGRY might turn up such words as ;
raging/cross/peeved/annoyed/furious/furning
 LOVE might turn up such as ; adore/like/be fond of/ be attached to/to be devoted
to/ be infatuated with
LISTENING

 Drama on tape or radio : it can be used to know the student comprehension.

 Example : - what was the play really about?
 Story
 Poetry
 Oller
SPEAKING

 Reading Aloud
For studens of literature, the dimension of reproducing feeling or emotion in a text
should also be tested, with some sort of dramatic reading. This kind of test will, of
course, be affected by all sorts of extraneous factors, and these can hardly be
overcome.
 Conversation/Discussion
With the importance which conversational dialogue has in both the novel and in
drama, it is an area which should have a place in testing, but the problems of
assessment are obvious. Probably as good a general test as any for literature students
is to let them view a short play on video, after which the examiner asks them, pair by
pair, to discuss the play while he or she sits in on the discussion. A library of suitable
video plays can easily be built up
 Other Suggestions
Other Suggestions could be short talks on the work/life ang times of major literary
figures; and here picture or slides, useful in all sorts of ways in testing spoken
English, could be assembled by the student, and the project assessed as a whole.
CONCLUSION

 David Daiches claims that in literature students can achieve ‘the fullest possible
awareness of human relevance’ (1970). And an African writer in ELT Journal
says: ‘We have become so convinced that learning ESL means acquiring skills
that the teaching of literature seem to have become of much less significance. ESL
teachers do not deem to give much umportance to the educational values of the
literature they teach’ (Adeyanju 1978). In a sense it is true of language teachers
that, by their test, you shall know them.
14. Monica Vincent and Ronald Carter
Simple Text and Reading Text

 Monica Vincent:
Simplicity, except of the most skillfully contrived kind, is hardly a characteristic of
literary text. Works of literature are verbal works of art, distinguished by their
sophistication, subtlety, and complexity.
 Aim: To encourage an enjoyment and appreciation of English Literature based on
an informed personal response and to extend this appreciation where it has
already been acquired.
 Skills tested:
1. Knowledge
2. Understanding
3. Analysis
4. Judgement
5. Expression
General Issues in Reading Text

 A. For the foreign readers, literary text will usually be even more linguistically
difficult
 School examination syllabus still consist of classical literary text
What should the teachers do to teach literary works for
foreign students?

 A. using simplified literary work

 B. using children version of literary works
 Simplification and abridgement have brought to life not a few books which, for
the foreign reader and the English schoolchild, would otherwise be completely
dead : they have also murderer not a few whose lives might have been saved.
(1950).

From a literary point of view there are two particularly interesting types of
authentic text : children’s literature and certain short works adult literature.