THE SIGNIFICANCE OF USING LITERATURE

IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL

2023
Volume: 9
Pages: 1079-1082
Document ID: 2023PEMJ808
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8052981
Manuscript Accepted: 2023-16-6
Psych Educ, 2023, 9: 1079-1082, Document ID:2023 PEMJ808, doi:10.5281/zenodo.8052981, ISSN 2822-4353
Research Article

The Significance of Using Literature in the EFL Classroom

Aurizia Duhah Siraji*, Imelda A. Paraja
For affiliations and correspondence, see the last page.
Abstract
The present study attempts to explore the use of literature in teaching English in EFL classrooms. It
highlights the importance of Teaching English using Literature. The study utilized descriptive
quantitative research designed to determine the significance of Teaching English Language through
literature among teachers in selected schools in the higher education Institution in the Philippines.
From the data collected, it is shown that all teachers strongly agreed that literature enhances the
creative capability of the students; Increase cultural awareness; Broaden social understanding;
Develop critical thinking both the students and teachers; It helps student learn new vocabularies; The
students can share their thoughts on the subject; Interesting stories motivated students to learn;
Learners become enthusiastic and persistent; Students from the different walks of life learn to
collaborate with other students. Conclusively, the use of literature for teaching English is widely
acknowledged for giving benefits for the students as perceived by the teacher in the ESL classroom
not only in terms of their writing skills, but also in terms of sharpening their critical thinking ability
which is utmost important to help learners thinking out of the box. Finally, from the findings of the
study, Teaching English language through literature in the ESL classroom is highly recommended.

Keywords: learning, english language, literature, EFL classroom

Introduction In recent years, the role of literature as a basic

The teacher has an important role in teaching English
through literature. First, he should determine the aim
of language teaching in relation to the needs and
expectations of the students. Giving a questionnaire or
interviewing with the students orally, the teacher can
setup the aim and the objectives of the language
teaching. Second, he should select the appropriate
language teaching method, teaching techniques, and
classroom activities. Then, the teacher should select
the literary texts relevant to the aim and the
objectives of his teaching. While selecting literary
texts to be used in language classroom, the
students ‘language proficiency, interests, age, sex, etc
should be considered in order not to bore students with
inappropriate materials. At elementary levels, for
example, students should begiven simplified or
specially written stories. At advanced levels, however,
students are given literature in its original form so that
they can develop their literary competence in the target
language. To put it another way, students learn
practically the figurative and daily use of the target
language in the literary texts and encounter different
genres of literature (i.e. poems, short stories, plays, etc.
) at advanced levels. Observing how characters in a
play or a short story use figures of speech, such as
simile, metaphor, metonymy, etc. so as to express their
communicative intention, students learn how to write
English more clearly, creatively, and powerfully
(Hişmanoğlu 2005).
component and source of authentic texts of the
language curriculum rather than an ultimate aim of
English instruction has been gaining momentum.
Among language educators, there has been a hot
debate as to how, when, where, and why literature
should be incorporated in ESL / EFL curriculum.
Vigorous discussion of how literature and ESL / EFL
instruction can work together and interact for the
benefit of students and teachers has led to the
flourishment of interesting ideas, learning, and
improved instruction for all. Many teachers consider
the use of literature in language teaching as an
interesting and worthy concern (Sage 1987:1).
Teachers in general and English teachers specifically,
are always concerned with the kind of material they
are going to present to their students. One of the most
challenging kinds of material for English classes is
literature. Although some scholars have pointed out to
the shortcoming of literature use in practice, it is so
vast and so practicable that instructors cannot stop
using it. Language learning requires acquiring four
skills of reading comprehension, writing, listening and
speaking. Some sources provide materials that can
meet some of these abilities, but literature has proved a
good source that fulfills these four skills (Keshavarzi
2012).
Galda and Cullinan (2002: 7) Claims that Literature
entertains, informs, and it enables young people to
explore and understand their world” and “enriches
their lives and widens their horizons” and through

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Psych Educ, 2023, 9: 1079-1082, Document ID:2023 PEMJ808, doi:10.5281/zenodo.8052981, ISSN 2822-4353
Research Article
literature children “learn about people and places on
the other side of the world as well as ones down the
street. They can travel back and forth in time to visit
familiar places and people, to meet new friends, and to
see new worlds. They can explore their own feelings,
shape their own values, and imagine lives beyond the
one they live.
Xu (2003) states that literature in English can provide
language learners with opportunities to master
structure through exposure to repeated and predictable
linguistic patterns. Huck et al. (1997:12) claim that
“literature plays an important role in all aspects of oral
language development. When young children are read
to their own phonological production- the number and
range of sounds that they produce-increases
significantly”, and “reading aloud has significant
effects on the complexity of children’s sentence
structure and expository text”. Gambrell et al. (2000:2)
lists the characteristics of their approach to literature-
based instruction as: ∙ Literature is used as an
important vehicle for language arts instruction ∙ High
quality narrative and informational literature provides
the basis for a consistent read-aloud program in which
children read daily Literature is the sole or primary
basis for initial reading instruction, or it is a significant
supplement to a basal program. ∙ Opportunities are
provided for students to listen to and read books of
their own choosing. ∙ Students are provided with
sustained time for both independent and collaborative
book sharing, reading and writing activities.With
these, for pragmatic and academic purposes, this study
is conducted to determine the importance of using
literature in the ESLclassroom based on the
experiences of the Language teachers participants in
this study.
Literature Review
According to Vethamani et al. (2010), literature is part
of a language that improves different skills.
Additionally, literature will help the process of
language learning to be more interesting. In addition,
Calia (2009: 33) suggests that reading could be the
easiest way to learn a language if teaching literature is
utilized in this regard because literature will enrich
vocabulary and language content; as Collie and Slater
(1987: 27), Oster (1989: 99), Lazar (1993: 40), and
Vethamani (2004: 55) agree on the importance of
literature in language improvements. Literary work
functions for developing imagination. Imagination is a
creative, constructive, power. Every aspect of daily life
involves imagination. People imagine as they talk and
interact with others, make choices and decisions,
Siraji & Paraja
analyze news reports, or assess advertising and
entertainment (Sloan in Kelly 1996).
Literature is a form of human expression both written
and verbal. Not everything is expressed in words.
Those writings that are primarily informative
technical, scholarly, and journalistic—would be
excluded from the rank of literature by most, though
not all, critics. Certain forms of writing, however, are
universally regarded as belonging to literature as an
art. Individual attempts within these forms are said to
succeed if they possess something called artistic merit
and to fail if they do not. The nature of artistic merit is
less easy to define than to recognize. The writer need
not even pursue it to attain it. On the contrary, a
scientific exposition might be of great literary value
and a pedestrian poem of none at all.
Mainland (2013: 145) claimed that literature, helps
students find their voice. In this way, getting students
to talk in another language and assisting them express
themselves have a lot in common. Literature can be a
tool rather than an end in teaching English as a second
or foreign language. Furthermore, Calia (2009: 33)
suggests that reading could be the easiest way to learn
a language if teaching literature is utilized in this
regard because literature will enrich vocabulary and
language content. One example of literature is a short
story. According to Blachowicz & Fisher, (2004).
Using short stories is an effective way to learn
vocabulary in EFL It is argued that students who read
widely have extensive vocabularies Stories allow the
readers to use their imagination to possibly engender
new options and hopefully act with foresight.
Pardede’s (2010) study revealed that the majority of
English preservice teachers found short stories
interesting to use both as materials for self-enjoyment
and as the components of language skill classes. In
short, short stories are teaching media that can
facilitate the students to learn more about vocabulary.
Methodology
This study determined the perceptions of college
teachers regarding teaching English language using
literature. To achieve the inclusive plan for the data
collection in this study, a descriptive research designed
by way of a quantitative research method was
employed. The college English teachers were the main
source of data which were quantified and treated with
appropriate statistical tools.
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Research Article
Results and Discussion
Table 1. Demographic Profile by type of School
Table 1 displays the Profile of the respondents
categorized according to type of school they are
connected with. Those from the public school
constitute 58% or 58 while 42% or 19 is were from
the Private School.
Table 2. The advantages of Teaching using Literature
as Perceived by Teachers
Siraji & Paraja
The data revealed, that all statements abovementioned
on table 2, was generally Strongly agreed by the
respondents of the study, meaning literature is an
effective approach in which a language can be taught
effectively to students in the ESL classroom. Besides,
these findings further supports the study of Obediat
(1997:32) who claimed that literature helps students
acquire a native-like competence in English, express
their ideas in good English, learn the features of
modern English, learn how the English linguistic
system is used for communication, see how idiomatic
expressions are used, speak clearly, precisely, and
concisely, and become more proficient in English, as
well as become creative, critical, and analytical
learners. Izzah (2015), who concluded, that
storytelling would be very useful to teach foreign
language for young learners. It promotes expressive
language development in oral and written form and
present new vocabulary and complex language in the
powerful form that inspires children to emulate the
model they have experienced. On the other words,
storytelling is an important tool for language teaching
and learning. Story telling for young learners is vitally
important to create constructive and creative
comprehension. Storytelling motivates children to be
active participant in the construction of meaning of the
story. In this activity, children involved while listening
to the story so they can response the language to gain
the comprehension response. They experienced in
different mental process. The first process is they
create mental picture where they try to figure out the
meaning of what they listen to. Next, they try to
imagine the characters, the situation, and the theme in
the story.
Rahayu (2011) the role of literature in the ELT
classroom has been re-assessed by many experts, and
now many of them view literary texts as providing rich
linguistic input, in addition to effective stimuli for
students to express themselves in other languages. In
this way, literature can be a potential source of learner
motivation. Literary texts offer a rich source of
linguistic input and can help learners to practice the
four language skills -speaking, listening, reading and
writing- in addition to exemplifying grammatical
structures and presenting new vocabulary. It is found
out as well that literary texts provide opportunities for
multi-sensorial classroom experiences and can appeal
to learners with different learning styles.
Moreover, Eide, et al. (2022) concluded, for FL
teachers it is important to bear in mind that the
students’ critical thinking and intercultural awareness
are not automatically developed through reading and
working with literary texts. Also, the process of
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Research Article
selecting texts, of contextualization and adaptation of
texts into classroom activities for the purpose of
developing the students’ intercultural competence is
highly dependent on the FL teacher’s knowledge of the
concept and how to operationalize it in their own
classroom practice, as well as on their own
intercultural awareness.
Conclusion
From the data collected, it is shown that all teachers
strongly agree that literature enhances the creative
capability of the students; Increase cultural awareness;
Broaden social understanding; Develop critical
thinking both the students and teachers; It helps
student learn new vocabularies; The students can share
their thoughts on the subject; Interesting stories
motivated students to learn; Learners become
enthusiastic and persistent; Students from the different
walks of life learn to collaborate with other students.
Teaching is one of the challenging tasks that every
teacher is facing specially when it comes to teaching
the English language. And providing a learner an
authentic and real context of communicative situations
that motivated and will give them pleasure of learning
a new language through literature is vital. From the
research findings, it can be claimed that the use of
literature in teaching English language is found to be
effective and is highly recommended by the
researcher. and future researchers, experimental
research on the effectiveness of teaching English using
literature in the ESL classroom is encourage to be
conducted.
References
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Affiliations and Corresponding Information
Aurizia Duhah Siraji, LPT, Ed D.
Sulu State College
Imelda A. Paraja, MALT-E
Sulu State College
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