Literature... Experience Though Inspiration

      Dear friends, do you all still remember our assignment, EDU 3209 Literature In English Teaching Materials with Dr.Jayakaran during Semester 6? i do hope so. The title of the assignment was "Discuss the problems teachers face when trying to teach poems in the literature component." It is really puzzling for me!
      First, I have to reacall my teaching experience. I am a primary school teacher with 8 years teaching experience. The literature compenent has been introduce to the students of year 4,5 and 6. Literature is used in the language classroom in a single period every week in primary schools. The term literature is indeed broad and it does include rhymes and other literary materials that are used to teach language. Indeed, it was enjoyable to excellent students but for the low proficiency students, they just learn it as an ordinary lesson with nothing to enjoy.
      Secondly,i have to have a closer look at the Malaysian syllabus for the literature component that will reveal the purpose of incorporating literature into the language classroom. One of the purpose are to create awareness and understanding of content, issues and cultures. One big challenge, however, is for us to find ways to make the language, content, issues and culture accessible to learners with poor proficiency.
      I strongly advocate the teaching of literature. I am glad that we have a literature component in the language paper at both the primary and secondary school levels. Teachers seem to be getting comfortable with the idea of teaching literary texts in the language classroom. However, we have not seen of any findings from research conducted by the Ministry of Education on the implementation of the literature programmes at both the primary and secondary school levels. Through literature, they widen knowledge, see the other side of the world, understand people and perhaps learn a good lesson through literature.