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by A. M. Jazeel

In Sri Lankan schools, teaching of English as a second language has become a repeated failure for the past four decades. The successive governments have from time to time introduced various strategies and schemes with the intention of improving the knowledge of English among school children throughout the country.

To do this, a large number of teachers of English have been appointed and trained in teacher training colleges and colleges of Education, the syllabus and the text for teaching English changed in terms of the present education systems, and the various concessions and motivations introduced for those who passed in English. But despite all these, the results of the public examination of the subject, English show the poor performance and the standard of English of the students goes on deteriorating day by day. So what has happened to the English education in Sri Lanka? Both Ministry of Education and National Institute of Education remain baffled at what is wrong with teaching of English as a second language in schools.

So, my purpose in this article is to illustrate in a practical way how literature can be used to promote the teaching of English as a second language in Sri Lankan schools and to show, through communicative and self-discovery techniques, low-intermediate-level students can comprehend and enjoy reading works of literature.

Most of the students in remote schools in Sri Lanka do not have access to listen to English speeches, dialogues and discussions and to any reading materials in English except school text books. When these students are, without familiarity, taught English, which is an alien language for them, they do not comprehend and become tedious.

At this time, use of literature is more effective and practicable, because literature provides students with interesting and meaningful input in the written mode.

Interest is the primary goal of literature. For instance, a teacher can use a piece of literature in the classroom. Then, this will help to please the students and to warm up the students though the students do not understand the content of the piece.

Naturally, students like singing songs. They also like reciting poem with rhythm and dance and listening to rhymes and lyrics. So when they do these activities, the language teaching in English become more interesting and enjoyful.

Literature possesses a great number of themes and plots in their works. Literary texts can give the students a base for meaningful discussion and writing in English. So the students will develop the necessary ability to use the language fluently and appropriately.

Most of Sri Lankan students use only a limited number of vocabulary. This is not enough for effective communication in English. Sri Lankan students must expand the capability of vocabulary in English. To improve vocabulary in classes, works of literature is helpful and easy.

When a student reads a literary text, he often comes across many unfamiliar words. He tries to get the meaning either by looking up the dictionary or by guessing the contextual meaning. These words are appropriate and given exact idea to the text from which student can develop to interact with correct dictions.

Social and cultural values and atmosphere in which a student lives influence his lifestyle as well as learning process. As most of the literary works reflect the social, political and cultural aspects of a particular nation, the text extracted from any form of literature provide authentic situation and a real life model. So, when a literary piece is included in learning, language like English, it would enhance the learner's understanding of the cultural values of English speaking people, which is part of gaining true fluency in the language.

Further the use of literature encourages appreciation of English as a beautiful and rich language, whereas many learners regard this only as a practical and utilitarian one. Even in Sri Lanka students can be guided with this intention. Apart from this, it provides an effective way of understanding the complex of subtle elements that go into creation of good writing.

There is no way in practical to explicitly teach all these elements and communicate the way they combine to make a piece of coherent written discourse without exposing students to the experience of expert writing. So this way of inclusion of material taken from good writing will definitely help the young learners studying in Sri Lankan schools.

However, it is important that a teacher who is going to use literature as a tool in learning English should be more careful and practicable in choosing appropriate materials. A considerable care needs to make sure that the selections are consistent with the interests and language level of the students as well as with the goals of the study.

In introducing a subject in class room, pre-reading activity is important. It helps set the scene and familiarise the original text they are to study. So, it is, I think, most appropriate to introduce the subject with relevant work of literature and ask the students with pre-reading questions.

Similarly, literary texts are most suitable for close exercise. Each student must then guesses what word could fit into the gap. After discussion the students will be able to make sure the actual word used in the story will be more or less the same.

In addition, now students, even at remote schools, have the habit of reading novels in their mother tongue.

They can still not read novels in English lest they can not get the sense running through the novel they find a lot of unfamiliar words and structure of sentences. But, when a teacher introduces texts of novels in their class, the students no longer become apprehended in handling the novels at home.

They can also find the implicit meanings of the work so that they can develop the skills of doing appreciation and criticism about the literary work. This will not only enhance the vision of the students but also help them to become more fluent and competent in use of English in their life.

By and large, use of literature in language class will give more effect and interesting.

STONE 'N' STRING

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