Approaches employed by teachers in teaching the English literature component

There is a scarcity of research on the approaches employed in the teaching of literature component in Malaysia. The studies which do exist mostly describe the quality of an educational system or part of the system in terms of ‘input’ into the teaching process (teachers, equipment, materials, etc.) or look at students’ achievement in relation to these inputs. There is very little research which uses ‘process perspectives of what is really happening in the classrooms.’ This research has a five-pronged purposes; therefore, it is expected that this study can contribute to the field of study especially teaching literature for school students. Research was done by way of survey questionnaire, classroom observations, interviews and expert check list. The respondents of the questionnaire were teachers who teach English in schools in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. These teachers were involved in teaching the Literature in English. A series of classroom observations were carried out by the researcher. This was conducted in randomly selected schools every week. Thus, the researcher observed 13 lessons with three sets of lessons each for a period of four weeks. Teachers, namely English option and non-English option from National schools and National Type schools, which consist of Chinese and Tamil schools from all the 7 districts in the state of Negeri Sembilan was observed three times each. The same sample was interviewed to ensure validity and reliability of the results obtained from the classroom observation and survey questionnaire results. To this end, the study aimed at analyzing the extent to which teachers’ approaches in teaching literature is understood among teachers and students in the Malaysian schools. In addition, the study aimed at exploring, through field investigations, the manner in which teacher and school related variables mitigate against approaches employed by the teachers in teaching the literature. Ultimately, its findings are meant to help teachers, researchers, key educational policy-makers and other education experts, to explore possibilities of developing more effective ways of utilizing active learning approaches at school level. Apart from that, the study is to gather a general overview on the approaches employed by teachers in teaching the English Literature in schools. It is essential to look at the approaches the teachers use to teach literature in their respective classrooms. The findings would provide useful information for the Ministry of Education to identify the current literature teaching situation in the ESL classroom. The findings of the study will also provide valuable information for the Ministry of Education to examine and counter-act on the discrepancy, if there is any, so that the teaching of the English Literature component in schools can serve its function well. The study will also open up ways for future researchers to conduct in-depth studies on the methodological aspects of the teaching of the English Literature in schools. In doing so, it is hoped that teachers will be able to contribute to more effective teaching and learning of the teaching of the English Literature in schools in the ESL context.