Using Literature as a Key Determinant to Enhance Learners’ Motivation
Neophytos Mitsigkas, UK and Cyprus
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Summary
Introduction
The role of motivation in language learning
Using literature as motivating material
Personal engagement and the learners’ psychology
Literature as authentic material and its effect on motivation
Avoiding potential pitfalls
Conclusion
References
This article aims to present a positive outlook on the use of literature in the language learning classroom in order to show how literature could potentially increase students’ motivation. It also focuses on contributing further to the discussion on the importance of literature as a mainstay of language teaching in that it intensifies the students’ efforts to learn a language. For that purpose, I will attempt to identify some characteristics of literature which are likely to engender an increase in the most widely researched psychological variable in language learning, i.e., motivation.
The inclusion of literature in the readings of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has been a subject of debate for many years amongst language teachers (Brumfit & Carter, 1986; Carter & McRae, 1996; Lazar, 1993; Paran, 2006). For at least two decades, little attention had been given to literature in language teaching programmes and there was no discussion of the importance of considering literature as a tool for second or foreign language teaching and of its influence on learner motivation (Widdowson, 1985). A considerable change began during the 1990s and since then there has been a substantial revival of attention to and awareness of the examination of literature in relation to language teaching and learner psychology (Duff & Malley, 2007). In what follows, I will firstly provide an overview of the literature on motivation in language learning. I will then attempt to explain why language teachers should consider using literary texts as a motivating resource in the classroom and how this may increase students’ sense of achievement when tackling literary materials. Additionally, I will focus on the use of literature for personal engagement, how this may impact learner psychology and how learners can benefit from this practice. Lastly, I will refer to some possible drawbacks that should be taken into consideration so that the use of literature does not have an adverse effect on students’ motivation and incentives in learning a foreign language.
Reviewing the psychological constructs concerned with foreign language learning, it is suggested that motivation has generated most of the attention (Ushioda, 2012). In fact, Ellis (2008) suggests that the examination of L2 motivation even precedes the prevailing second language acquisition research in the 1960s and this can only emphasise its importance. Motivation is often considered as an aspect which hugely influences success in second or foreign language learning and it is widely recognised as a variable that distinguishes first language acquisition from second language acquisition (Ushioda, 2012). Even though motivation is not considered to be an issue in the case of infants acquiring their mother tongue, being motivated or not can make all the difference to how willingly and successfully people learn other languages (Ushioda, 2010).
Clearly, literature is highly valued in many educational settings and responding to literature in English may encourage a “real sense of achievement at tackling literary materials in the classroom” (Lazar, 1993, p. 15). This can be especially true if students have already been exposed to, and are familiar with, literature in their first language (L1). Based on personal experience, introducing literature to second language learners can be an exciting and challenging task giving rise to multiple points of comparison between literature in the L1 and the L2. Additionally, students may find literature particularly valuable in developing their interpretative abilities freely, since there should be no distinction between right or wrong interpretations, which is usually the case in the use of literature in L1.
This occurs because the educational systems in some countries do not allow for creative writing, or reflective and critical thinking with the use of literature in the students’ L1 and this occurrence might be inevitably transferred in the treatment of literature in the L2. In informal conversations I have had with teachers in Cyprus in relation to the use and implementation of literature in the students’ L1, the main concern that they expressed was the fact that literature is an exam-based subject where students are expected to provide fixed or predefined answers which can be considered either correct or wrong regardless of the students’ justification of their answers. Students do not have the interpretative freedom to express their own understanding and appreciation of literature. Consequently, one assumption might be that the interpretative limitations are culturally defined and are predominantly delineated by the educational settings and contexts.
However, literary texts are very rich in “multiple levels of meaning” and require from the learner to be “actively involved in teasing out the unstated implications and assumptions of the text” (Lazar, 1993, p. 18). As a result, learners feel particularly motivated in ‘molding’ and presenting their own interpretations and consider this a thought-provoking, stimulating, and often competitive practice among their fellow students.
In my own experience, many teachers are still concerned about the use and implementation of literature in language lessons. This fear is often a result of the uncertainty that teachers feel regarding the features of literature that should be taught with the students. We may ask, for example, should the language teacher provide a complete explanation of the text with all that it encompasses (e.g., literary techniques, tone, symbolism, possible interpretations and meanings) or should the teacher focus on providing language activities which are based on literature, without concentrating on other literary elements of the text? This question has been very often posed by language teachers who are doubtful about how literature should be used or taught in the classroom.
Additionally, I have many times encountered colleagues who have been skeptical about using literature for fear that it deals with complex topics and includes unconventional uses of language. For example, a common concern is whether students find the language of literature difficult and inaccessible, a fact which may result in not getting much out of it. Here, the answer should lie in the appropriate text selection. For instance, at lower proficiency levels, simplified texts may be used to initiate learners into extensive reading and language learning activities which are based on literature, whereas unabridged texts can be used at a higher proficiency level where the students’ interest in literature is already stimulated and they have already gained some familiarity with literary texts.
Another consideration among language teachers is that the language that appears in literature (e.g., the tenses, the vocabulary, the dialects used in dialogues) is not representative of the ‘correct’ and error-free language we should be teaching our students. However, exposing our students to undistorted language is a valuable matter since they learn to cope with authentic language intended for native speakers, a fact which is often hard to achieve with the use of coursebooks.
I do not deny that the above are valid considerations associated with literature. At the same time though, I would suggest that it is these unexpected uses of language and intriguing topics that learners find challenging since a properly selected novel, short story, or poem, may be particularly “gripping in that it involves students in the suspense of unravelling the plot” (Lazar, 1993, p. 15).
Now, I would like to clarify how psychology is used in this article. When discussing the psychology of language learning, I specifically refer to the processes related to educational psychology. In this respect, language learning psychology is concerned with the “mental experiences, processes, thoughts, feelings, motives and behaviours of individuals involved in language learning” (Mercer et al., 2012, p. 2).
Based on this definition, literature can be very useful in L2 learning because of the personal engagement it nurtures in the learners. Collie and Slater (2009) emphasise the importance of focusing on the way language operates on two levels: 1. The rule-based system and 2. A socio-economic system. As such, the emphasis often shifts, sometimes unnecessarily, only to the analytic learning process forgetting the importance of fostering the learners’ personal involvement in the language learning process. However, allowing our students to engage with literature imaginatively allows them to “shift the focus of their attention beyond the mechanical aspects of the foreign language system” and this enables them to ‘inhabit’ the text (Collie & Slater, 1987, p. 5). By doing so, we are able to promote students’ involvement in their learning process since their engagement with how the plot unfolds offers them a sense of accomplishment and completion.
I have personally tried to engage my students in the process of unravelling the story of novels and short stories and what I have found particularly interesting was their emotional engagement with the stories, which resulted in providing a stimulus for more effective learning. Additionally, this engagement has also offered my students several opportunities to contribute to the lesson by explicitly sharing their feelings, emotions and perceptions about literature during the class. For example, George Orwell’s Animal Farm provided ample opportunities for speaking practice with my advanced level students since the themes of social stratification and tyranny found in the novel initiated a great interaction and discussions which involved a high degree of personal involvement and response. As a result, even the shy students were highly motivated to participate in the discussion by making comparisons between the way society was depicted in the novel and the way it is nowadays.
Moreover, I have observed that learners tend to identify with the characters of the stories and when this happens it has beneficial effects upon the language learning process as a whole including the improvement and practice of all four language skills. Similarly, Collie and Slater (1987) note that readers are very eager to find out what happens in the story as it unfolds and they often feel ‘attached’ to the stories’ characters, sharing their emotional responses. It is therefore important to keep in mind that literature can elicit such emotional responses from the students that may prove invaluable in providing materials which are meaningful to them and require their personal involvement.
This will consequently increase their participation, active involvement and motivation in second language learning contexts; most importantly though, this involvement may encourage language acquisition. If the students are exposed to literature, they will be exposed to various contexts of language acquisition, such as listening, reviewing, processing, interpreting and using new language. Lazar (1993, p. 17) maintains that literature can be a very important way in “supplementing the inevitably restricted input in the classroom”. This augmentation can also help learners acquire new language both incidentally and in a very enjoyable way since they will not be consciously focusing on specific language matters even though that will be organised and put into effect by the teacher. For example, what I did with my advanced students while teaching at a private school in Cyprus was to use audio books with unabridged novels (e.g., Lord of the Flies, Jane Eyre, To Kill a Mockingbird) so that they would be reading something at the same time as listening to it, practising both their reading as well as their listening skills.
Since I have been talking about the students’ personal engagement in the language learning process, I consider it necessary to stress that literature can be used to organise and promote pedagogic activities than can be both beneficial as well as enjoyable for the learners. For instance, students find sharing their interpretations and reactions to literary texts very pleasurable and stimulating. Therefore, the activities should be designed in such a way as to provide students with “ample opportunities to contribute and share their own experiences, perceptions and opinions” (Duff & Maley, 2007, p. 9). The positive aspect of literature in this respect is that language-based learning strategies that are used in the classroom can be extracted and employed by using literature. Thus, role play activities, prediction of meaning activities, character description exercises and vocabulary activities can all be used with literary texts.
Additionally, these activities may involve discussion, interactive work on the text and active participation and may also attract genuine interest. They are tasks which usually break away from the traditional use of coursebooks and format of questions and intend to provoke deep processing and increase students’ motivation (Duff & Malley, 2007).
Many scholars have asserted the positive influence of authentic materials on the learners’ motivation for L2 learning (Freeman & Holden, 1986; Little & Singleton, 1989; Pinter, 2006). Authentic materials can be defined as any type of materials which were not primarily designed for language teaching purposes but were aimed to be used by native speakers (e.g., newspapers, magazines, advertisements, cooking recipes, maps, movies, songs, novels and poems). The proponents of this idea claimed that authentic materials have the ability to motivate learners because they are intrinsically more motivating and stimulating and since the aim of communicative language teaching is to equip students to deal with the language used in the real world this can be achieved by using authentic materials in the language classroom (Hedge, 2000).
In this respect, literature is authentic material since it is not fashioned for language teaching purposes and contains genuine language that can be used in the language classroom. Rather, it should be used as material that could complement coursebooks, pedagogical grammars and other types of books, and diversify the repertoire of teaching materials used by teachers. Undoubtedly, coursebooks are very important in language learning programmes but they may contain inauthentic language, reading texts and dialogues which are often sanitized so that they are not representative of ‘real’ language use and focus on a particular language feature (often called pseudo-narratives). This, however, may also endanger the students’ interest and motivation towards those tasks.
By reading literature, Collie and Slater (1987, p. 4) suggest that students will have the opportunity to “gain familiarity with various linguistic uses, forms and conventions of the written mode: irony, exposition, argument [and] narration”, which are often not present in conventional textbooks. To that, I would also add the exposure to figures of speech and other rhetorical and stylistic devices that many students may find interesting and useful throughout their language learning process.
Until now, I have emphasised the beneficial effects that literature can have on language learners. However, this will only happen if the learners are kept motivated throughout the lessons and as long as the experience of interacting with literature retains students’ engagement by making the classes more interesting, interactive and lively. If not implemented in a well-organised manner, learners may come to view literature not as motivating but as a hostile subject that will demotivate and damage the learning process, thereby increasing the students’ anxiety and fear of failure. Therefore, in order to avoid such potential pitfalls, it is necessary to consider a number of different parameters.
Firstly, the issues of difficulty and level should be considered since there are literary texts which are objectively too difficult for the learners to cope with. The teachers should consider the lexical difficulty of literary texts and not choose texts which are far beyond the level of the students’ comprehension (Duff & Maley, 2007).
Secondly, another important consideration when using literature in the language classroom is the issue of length. Even though reading a book in English (e.g., novels) may increase the sense of achievement in reading a complete book in English, yet lengthy literary works may prove difficult for students to finish and difficult for teachers to use in the classroom because of time constraints.
Furthermore, the criteria of what makes literature suitable in order to increase students’ motivation depend on many other factors, such as the students’ needs, educational and cultural background, interests, age and level. However, as Collie and Slater (2009, p. 6) suggest, the most important consideration in selecting what literature to teach is whether it can “stimulate the kind of personal involvement [...] by arousing the learners’ interest and provoking strong, positive reactions from them”. A meaningful and enjoyable literary work can have a “lasting and beneficial effect upon the learners’ linguistic background” (ibid). In order to encourage the students’ personal growth, the teacher has to “stimulate and enliven students in the literature class” by selecting texts to which students can respond and engage imaginatively with and promote “the kind of conditions for learning in the classroom that will make the reading of literature a memorable, individual and collective experience” (Carter & Long, 1991, p. 3).
Consequently, careful text selection may engender greater learner enthusiasm and participation in the lesson and, above all, increase the learners’ motivation levels so that second language acquisition will be accelerated.
Motivation has been widely recognised as a key component of successful outcomes not only in second language learning but also learning in general. However, this acknowledgement cannot, by itself, change the learners’ motivation in learning English as a second language. It is our responsibility as teachers to ensure that we engage and involve our students in their learning in a motivating manner that will involve and positively affect their learning psychology. It is precisely for this reason that literature can be used as a material that stimulates emotion, imagination, immense personal involvement, thought-provoking practices, critical thinking and multiple interpretations. Even though it is not a matter of comparison, literary texts can surprisingly be even more intriguing and enjoyable than the conventional textbooks and other reference texts that students have to read. This occurs because students will be highly motivated to read something if it relates directly to them and when they can identify with the characters, the setting and the emotional responses that are activated by literature. However, the selection of texts should be done very carefully and after a thorough examination of a variety of aspects so that it can give students a suitable orientation and motivation to read literature and respond to it, both emotionally and linguistically.
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Paran, A. (2006). Literature in Language Teaching and Learning. Virginia: TESOL.
Pinter, A. (2006). Teaching Young Language Learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ushioda, E. (2012). Motivation: L2 Learning as a special case?. In S. Mercer, S. Ryan, & M. Williams (Eds), Psychology for Language Learning: Insights from Theory, Research and Practice (pp. 58-73). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ushioda, E. (2010). Motivation and SLA. EUROSLA Yearbook, 10, 5-20.
Widdowson, H. (1985). The teaching, learning and study of literature. In R. Quirk & H. Widdowson (Eds.), English in the world: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures (pp. 180-194). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Please check the How the Motivate your Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Building Positive Group Dynamics course at Pilgrims website.
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