Investigating the Techniques of Teaching English Literary Texts in Preparatory Schools

This study aims at investigating the techniques used in teaching literary texts in secondary schools and the difficulties behind practicing these techniques that teachers encounter in teaching literature. It is hypothesized that teachers of English still use the traditional way in teaching literary texts, and female teachers use more various ways than male teachers. A questionnaire is designed to achieve the aims of the study. Finally it has been concluded that teachers of English use the traditional way of teaching and they do not use the principles of communicative method in teaching literature. © 2019 JTUH, College of Education for Human Sciences, Tikrit University DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25130/jtuh.26.8.2019.16 سيردت بيلاسا نم ققحتلا ةيوناثلا سرادملا يف ةيزيلكنلاا ةيبدلاا صوصنلا رمع تمكح رمس


The Statement of the Problem
To learn any language , there are a number of areas that may be studied so as to create a better understanding of and implementing ways to increase student achievement. One of those areas is the use of digital tools when studying literature.
The use of Internet based resources, guided by the teacher when studying a new literary work, may increase the understanding and motivation for actual reading of the literary piece.
Nowadays, there is a good amount of educational emphasis is driven by assessment. It is important for educators to find instructional strategies that facilitate learning as well as motivate and engage students. Thus finding strategies to teach literature in a way that includes resources already available to students and using it as a method rather than a crutch or replacement for reading, is crucial in not losing the art of reading.

Aims of the Study
This study attempts to find out how English literature is taught and prepared for class discussion . It aims at investigating the techniques used in teaching literary texts in secondary schools and the difficulties teachers encounter in teaching literature. This study aims at investigating the techniques used in teaching literary texts in secondary schools and the difficulties behind practicing these techniques that teachers encounter in teaching literature.

Limits of the Study
This study is limited to secondary schools, teaching literary texts such as short stories and plays for the academic year 2018-2019.

Hypothesis
It is hypothesized that teachers of English still use the traditional way of teaching literary texts. Also, female teachers use more various ways than male teachers.

Teaching Literature
The process of teaching any material includes three main requirements to achieve its main purposes: teacher , subject , and students (Al-Azzawi , 2000 : 42). Salih (1989 : 25) states that " literature, whether prose, fiction, drama , or poetry is, as a matter of fact, a good means for upgrading learner"s competence in English if, and only if it is taught effectively". The teacher can do much to assist students to find meaning and experience in literature and develop appreciation for literary forms (Loban et al., 1961: 279). The teacher"s response to the message got from the students should alter their stance so that the teacher can infect students with a love of literature for its own sake, not as a reservoir of facts to be assimilated, nor as the hackwork of a dry academic discipline (Wright, 1991: 34). Brooks (1969: 50) stresses that "the inescapable universality of the experience to be gained from literature and the indispensable role of the trained teacher ". The ideal teacher needs to make a clarification in his/her own mind and in the minds of his/her students about the values to be gained from studying language and literature. The teacher has to assist students to think more clearly, communicate more effectively, and feel more sharply. The teacher is a person who is prepared to practice the art of teaching (Loban et al., 1961: 2-8). Moody (1971: 26) proposes a standard method or procedure to be followed by teachers of literature and the proposed proceedings " for a teacher to observe consists of the following stages : 1. Preliminary assessment .
3. Introduction of the work .

Presentation of the work .
5. Discussion .
Two approaches are employed to use the literary texts: the original text and the simplified text. All forms of literature are taught through using the original texts. Dicker (1989: 9) emphasizes the use of the original text because it is employed to teach any and every area of language study and enables learners to apply many of the first language skills in the acquisition of the foreign language .
Students should be encouraged to work with the full text, original text, in order to derive interest from their reading . They should be motivated to do so because the original texts assist them to be acquainted more with the richness of the language employed by great writers which in turn enhances their use of the target language more effectively and appropriately (Brumfit, 1986: 32-37).
Students should have desirehow much the learner wants to become proficient in the languageto learn and be motivated to improve their target language proficiency. Students need to be encouraged to make use of what they read of literature . They should be encouraged to read literature as a part of general developmental process so as to extend their experience because literary experience is part of an individual"s total experience, not something neatly separate ( Mcpherson, 2017:25). Dornyei (2001: 44) holds that " motivation is one of the key factors that determine the rate and success of second language attainment ". It provides the main incentive to initiate learning a foreign language and later the determination to preserve and sustain long and often difficult learning process. Without sufficient motivation, even students with the best abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals . Each language is always employed for a purpose ; it is either employed to clarify people"s thinking and express their feelings and ideas or to accomplish some purposes with others. In order to understand that purpose, the students need to gain insight into motivation as well as knowledge of the general purposes of the use of language (Loban, 1961: 24). Motivation is the learner"s orientation with regard to the goal of learning a second language. Students should be encouraged to read and enjoy literary works so that the habit acquired may stand a chance of being maintained after formal studies have ended (Cardone, 1991: 34).

The Significance of Teaching Literature
Literature has been a subject of study in many countries at both secondary and college levels because of its significance in the EFL classrooms and the potential benefits of high order it offers. Teaching literature in EFL classrooms basically assists the study of language mentioning that all literature is fruitful to study language because all literature is composed of language (Moody, 1971: 3).
Language cannot be separated from literature because literature demonstrates language in use at its best (Younis, 1988: 13).
In fact, language, literature, and culture are integrally related because "the study of culture is intimately related to both language and literature, to the former for ultimate meaning and to the latter for ultimate significance as a human art " (Brooks, 1969 : 322). Literature familiarizes learners with the culture of that language and makes them understand the foreign culture more clearly (Brumfit and Carter, 1986: 25).
Literature aims at heightening the learners" cultural awareness. The most effective way of learning a foreign culture is to observe people in contexts, in situations where they act and react to each other in terms of their culture (Marckwardt,1978: 59). Literature is certainly a convenient source of material for such a purpose. It offers a rich context in which the characters" actions, thoughts , and emotions are displayed , all of which provide insights into the codes and preoccupations of the society they represent (ibid). Moody (1971: 3-7) mentions that a close relationship exists between language and literature when teaching literature assists students to develop the four fundamental language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. He also proposes that literature can help in enhancing all the linguistic skills, knowledge , development , and character. Literature serves to strengthen the students" language competence because of its capacity of providing pleasure and enjoyment. It offers the students plentiful opportunities to develop their interpretive power. It also increases the students" " motivation to interact with a text and thus, ultimately increases their reading proficiency " (McKay, 1982: 529-32). Literature offers a unique aesthetic and intellectual experience that provides perceptive insight into man"s existence within the artistic and intellectual boundaries of a literary framework i.e. the literary experience (Stern , 1989: 47). Collie and Slater (1987 : 35) focus on the positive contributions language learning through literature could make in that literary texts constitute valuable authentic material as they expose the learner to different types of language use. Widdowson (1975: 212) notes that literature provides students with aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional pleasure through an emotive and creative use of language.
Literature provides a good training background for creative discourse that reading is necessarily an interaction between the reader"s background knowledge and the text. The text does not by itself carry meaning ; rather , it provides directions for the reader to construct meanings from cognitive frameworks composed of previously acquired knowledge, feelings, personality, and culture (Carell, 1983: 556).
Reading a literary work encourages one to recreate its meaning or the reality the writer attempts to represent through active gaining evidence from the text and his own knowledge of the world. In this light, literary studies serve as a considerable aid to language learning that it deepens learners" sensitivity to language through increasing their crucial capability and creative power (Ibid: 558).
Competence in writing is another benefit that all language students can seek through literature . Literature helps students with "many features of the written languagethe formation and function of sentences, the variety of possible structures, the different ways of connecting ideaswhen broaden and enrich their own writing skills" (Collie, 1987: 5).
Speaking and listening are important aspects of language learning, and a proficiency in them contributes to an overall mastery of the language. Literature provides a good training ground for the skills of listening and speaking because the subject itself offers ample interesting topics for discussion which encourage oral practice. Thus, when used orally, literature can develop the students" listening ability (Irmscher, 1975: 102).

Teaching Short Stories and Plays
In the recent years much emphasis has been put on the teaching of English as a foreign language using the communicative approach. The learner is now seen as an active participant in the process of language learning in the classroom. Teachers who advocate the communicative approach are expected to come up with activities that would promote self-learning, group interaction in authentic situations and peer teaching. (Johnson, 1971: 54). The term "approach" refers to the theories about the nature of how language is learnt. It takes into consideration the basic units of language structure and the nature of language proficiency. Whereas, the communicative approach refers to the beliefs and theories of language teaching which emphasize that the goal of language learning is communicative competence.
Concerning the communicative competence, it refers not only to a knowledge of the grammatical rules of a language and how to form grammatical sentences but also to know when, where and to whom to use these sentences in a speech community. A fluent and an accurate use of the language would be facilitated by the use of the communicative approach (Ibid: 58). Wessels (1987: 9-11) remarks that "drama is not, like communicative language teaching, a new theory of language teaching, but rather a technique which can be used to develop certain language skills". He also says that "in language teaching, drama should be viewed as a technique of communicative language teaching". This is the current dominating theory of language teaching which emphasizes the role of the learner as an active participant rather than a passive receptor. Drama is a communicative approach which makes provision for meaningful language acquisition, rather than rigid and methodical language learning. It allows the learner to participate naturally in oral communication with his interlocutors giving free control of thoughts and feelings in verbal and nonverbal interaction, and learning the language subconsciously (Ibid). Moss and Davidson ( 1990: 110) states that perhaps what is important is to ensure that the right learning environment be created to develop the learner"s communicative competence and to help point the learner in the direction of future proficiency in the target language .
Loban (1961: 332) clarify that the teacher "as intermediary between author and reader" should attempt to bring students into the atmosphere of the play. Therefore, it is almost always necessary to start a play with choral reading of the opening scenes. The first few pages of the opening scenes mostly provide background information and present the immediate situation. For most classes, analysis of the first few scenes of any play is essential. Both " careful reading and penetrating analysis of lines make form, structure, and total meaning more apparent" (Ibid).
The first general reading of the play should be effective. The teacher should do his best to select the best readers in his class taking into consideration the kinds of characters concerned. At a first class-reading there would be occasional faults like "sentences incorrectly produced, words mis-pronounced or mis-stressed, wrong intonations, climaxes passed and so on". Therefore, the teacher should not interrupt the reading for correction but he should note them for attention later on if they recurred (Moody, 1971: 73).
In the second reading , questions about language and technique can be asked .
These can be as simple as vocabulary which applies to every play . The structure of the play can be charted on the board . The teacher needs to ask students to select favourite passages they would like to use in every day conversation. This will help them make valuable judgments and perhaps add to their mental repertoire of learned responses . They can notice the different speech patterns and dialects of different characters . They can collect examples of the speech patterns of people they know . A recording at this time would be fruitful (Petty , 1994 : 131).Comprehension of the elements of conflict leads to a comprehension of the themes the drama aims to exemplify .The teacher should attempt to assist students realize the ideas stirred the author when trying to render them into concrete situations making up the play (Loban et al. , 1961 : 333).
In the third reading , the teacher needs to choose students to represent the characters . The teacher can place whatever number he chooses on each side of the classroom to represent a chorus or place them on stage to decide what movements accompany each speech . After students have tried their parts, the class can select the single scene they feel as the most important in the play. The act of choosing the scene should incite some discussion of climax, conflict, structure, and characterization. Students should rehearse their readings at home (Petty, 1994: 137). If the teacher wants to assure his/her students" comprehension, the class discussion should be made of certain scenes which are allocated to each lecture for "in-class study of any literary work should include as much as general class discussion as possible through the use of well selected questions. The instructor draws students into discussion, allowing them to describe, and analyze and explain the literature" (Stern, 1989: 53).
The discussion could be made in different ways either through raising questions about the elements of drama like characters, plot, climax, conflict, theme, etc. to be answered by the students or to encourage students to raise questions either to be answered by the teacher himself or other students in the class but under the supervision of the teacher which in turn leads to a mastery of the difficulties confronted with those elements (Loban, 1961: 333). Furthermore, discussion should not be restricted to each act or scene, but a comprehensive discussion of the play as a whole is essential because through it students gain full mastery of the play they have studied . After the class had studied a play, the teacher can provide further experience of reading through groups and individual work (Ibid.: 330-31) .
To assist students" mastery of the play, its acts and scenes, they can rehearse or be trained to perform the play themselves, or at least certain scenes of it and the use of a well recorded performance on disc or tape will be beneficial. A plentiful merit of a recording is that the performance can easily be controlled . While the dramatic development of the play should not be needlessly interrupted , the performance can be rested at suitable intervals giving time to the teacher and his students to discuss their impression up to what they reached at. That should be maintained up till the recorded play performance is done with (Moody, 1971: 68).

The Significance of Teaching Literature
Drama makes language learning enjoyable and lively, and rescues second language learners from "the fearful and soul-destroying clutches of boring pedagogues". It provides a context for listening and meaningful language production, forcing the learners to use their language resources, thus, enhancing their linguistic abilities. It provides situations for reading and writing. It is very fruitful in teaching literary texts as it helps in analyzing plot, character, and style. Also, it involves learners more positively and actively in the text (Chauhan, 2004: 66). Rivers (1983: 43) states that " the drama approach enables learners to use what they are learning with pragmatic intent, something that is most difficult to learn through explanation". By using drama to teach English, the monotony of a conventional English class can be broken and overcome and the syllabus can be transformed into one which prepares learners to encounter their immediate world better as component users of English because they got an opportunity to use the language in operation.
Studying short stories is a unique and vital device for language development as it stimulates reality and develops self-expression. The activities belong to short stories are equally successful in making learners experience language in operation and provide motivation to use language embodied in a context and a situation (Dougill, 1987: 22). Literature can overcome the students" resistance to learning the new language by making the learning of the new language an enjoyable experience , and also through linking the language learning experience with the students" own experience of life (Maley, 1982: 53). Furthermore, drama can create in students a need to learn the language through the use of creative tension and putting more responsibility on the learner , as opposed to the teacher (Wessels, 1987: 54).
A strong relationship between language and culture exists and the teacher can help present the English world to the class. Language and culture are married and "learning a language cannot be divorced from cultural learning". Cultural elements can be explained and better understood through drama. Drama provides cultural and language enrichment by revealing insights into the target culture and presenting language contexts that make items memorable by placing them in a realistic social and physical context . Cultural awareness is easily communicated through drama (Fernandez and Coil, 1986: 86). Drama helps students develop improved skills in reading, listening, speaking, and writing. It develops skill in thinking analytically, and in acting decisively and responsibly. It increases and sustains the ability to focus and follow directions. It also strengthens self-concept by cooperative interaction with others (Fernandez and Coil, 1986: 88). It helps shift the focus from teachers to students giving them greater opportunities to participate in the production of the target language. The use of drama in the English language classroom will enhance language retention and greatly assist language development. It allows students opportunity to become active participants in the learning of English (Mordecai, 1985: 84) .
The textbooks of Preparatory schools have different types of topics and themes such as love, friendship, war, loneliness. Table (1) lists all the literary texts of "English for Iraq" textbooks in the preparatory schools.

McPherson (2017)
The aim of this study is to describe and analyze how first year college students study English literature in Norway prepare for class discussions/work. The sample consisted of 38 participants. The participants received a set of questionnaires. Also, there were two separate observation periods and interview of three subjects from the same group to explore in greater depth their answers about study habits and expectations for learning English, their professors and group work.
The findings of this study reveal that the trend in this literature classes is toward gaining understanding and meaning in a text by using online resources.

Discussion of Previous Studies
Abbas ( (2006) revealed that the majority of the students do not show mastery of the elements of the drama and in literature general, and the finding of McPherson (2017) reveal that the trend in this literature classes is toward gaining understanding and meaning in a text by using online resources. Concerning the present study it has been concluded that English teachers in secondary schools practice the traditional method of teaching .

Population
According to Best et al (2006:13) population can be defined as " any group of individuals that has one or more characteristics in common". The population of this study consists of teachers of English language in secondary schools in Tikrit city. A sample of 32 teachers of English language in secondary schools has been chosen for the current study. They include 18 male teachers and 14 female teachers, during the academic year 2017-2018.

The Study Tool
A questionnaire of literature teaching techniques is constructed, so as to collect the required data of the present study.
The questionnaire consists of twenty items to investigate different techniques, procedures, and activities used by teachers in teaching literature and problems facing both teacher and learner in English lessons.
The items of the questionnaire include (always, sometimes, and never) questions which are regarded as multiple choice questions, as they are mentioned in Appendix (A).

Validity of the Questionnaire
Validity is " The tool is valid if it measures accurately what it is supposed to measure" ( Fulcher, 2010:19).Validity of the questionnaire is the degree to which a study and its results correctly lead to, or support, exactly what is claimed.
Generally, validity refers to the appropriateness, meaningfulness, correctness, and usefulness of the inferences a researcher makes ( Tavakoli, 2012 :699).
To ensure the face validity of the questionnaire, it has been shown to a jury of experts who are university teaching staff members and instructors (Ph.D. and M.A.) in secondary schools. They are asked to point out advice, remarks, and ideas about the relevance of the questionnaire parts, see Appendix (B).

Reliability of the Questionnaire
Reliability is concerned with the accuracy with which the test measures the skill or attainment it is designed to measure (Fautley and Savage, 2010: 11).
To find out the reliability of questionnaire, Persons Correlation Coefficient formula is used by using splithalf method. The reliability of the questionnaire of the study is 0.81 .which is regarded as an acceptable value .

Data Analysis Related to the Questionnaire
After calculating the percentages of the points belong to the questionnaire which are shown in Appendix (A), the following statistical values are revealed to, as shown in table (2).

Table ( 2 ) Percentages of Teachers' Responses in the Questionnaire
Through surveying the items of the questionnaire and their values, some findings have been found out ,as follows : 1. It has been found that teachers give students any literary text as an assignment (homework) one or two days before the lesson . Hence, 56.2% of them sometimes do this technique. 2. Secondary school students translate the text word by word to understand every point in it. Therefore, 46.8% of teachers always ask their students to translate the text . 3. 50.0% of teachers always explain all the text themselves and then they leave their students for some minutes to discuss it in groups or individually . 4. It becomes clear that bringing some visual aids that support the literary text so as to make students eager to study it. 62.5% agree with this item. 5. 62.5% of English teachers sometimes divide the class into groups of two or three students and give them chance to discover the text . 6. English teachers who teach literary text make competitions and games among the groups to change the lesson into interesting environment and giving chance to most of the students to participate. 59.3% practice this technique . 7. It has been noticed that sometimes English teachers write some questions on the board and leave many students to search and scan the answers from the text. The percentage is 59.3% . 8. Teachers of literary texts try to give some examples of real life situations that relate or similar to the literary text. 62.5% of them always do so. 9. Teachers never divide the text among the students" groups and give each group specific paragraph to explain it later. 65.6% do not use division technique. 10. It is believed that teachers who teach English use the traditional way of teaching literature 62.5% agree to this point. 11. 50.0% of English teachers sometimes use role play technique in teaching the literary text. 12. High percentage of teachers never use technological visual aids such as T.V. shows, DVD players or Data Show in classrooms to present the literary topic. 62.5% say that they don"t use this technique .

Ranking the Questionnaire Items
After collecting data and calculating them statistically, the percentages of the questionnaire items have been ranked according to their high values, as shown in Table (2). It has been found that the highest values that most of the teachers agreed about are belong to item (9) dividing the text among the students" groups and give each group specific paragraph to explain it later,(12) using technological visual aids such as T.V. shows, DVD players or Data Show in classrooms to present the literary topic ,and (10)teachers who teach English use the traditional way of teaching literature.
Whereas , the items which got the lowest values are (2)asking students to translate the text word by word to understand every point in it, (3) explaining all the text myself and then I leave my students for some minutes to discuss it in groups or individually, and (11) using role play technique in teaching the literary text.

Discussion of Results
There are various techniques used by English teachers in Iraqi secondary schools. Some of them are used frequently and some of them are rarely used.One of the communicative principles is group work, and it is preferable to divide the text among class groups and give them some tasks to be achieved but most of teachers do not use this technique.
Another highest percentage is about the lack of using technology as visual aids. Any language can be easily taught by establishing a suitable environment with using real screens, diagrams or pictures. The other item which the teachers agree about is that high percent of English teachers use the traditional way of teaching. This is regarded as a big problem since the syllabus depends on communicative activities . Thus, the hypothesis of the study is accepted .
Teachers do not give students literary texts s to translate word by word to understand every point in it because they think students need to understand literary elements such as the theme, the main characters, and the setting of the text. Low percentage of English teachers explain all the text and then leave their students for some minutes to discuss it in groups or individually. This technique is really important but not all the teachers of English perform it.
Another practical technique is role play in teaching literary text in secondary schools. Teachers of English do not use it either because of the time factor or class size. Perhaps using traditional method of teaching is the reason behind using such techniques.
By using traditional method of teaching drama which is a part of literature used in secondary school textbooks, the importance of this field is neglected and useless. As far as the factor of gender in teaching literature is concerned , it has been found out that female teachers are more practical in using different techniques in teaching this part of language such as games or competitions. communicative principles is group work and it is preferable to divide the text among class groups and give them some tasks to be achieved but most of teachers do not use this technique. Such tasks which are supposed to be in the activity book enable students to summarize the main actions of the text or motivate students to skim and scan the text.

. Conclusions
In the light of the findings of the study the following points are concluded: 1-Communicative principles is group work, and it is preferable to divide the text among class groups and give them some tasks to be achieved but most of teachers do not use this technique. 2-English teachers in secondary schools practice the traditional method of teaching. This matter is observed as big problem because the syllabus depends on communicative tasks. 3-Female teachers are more practical in using different techniques in teaching this part of language. 4-The textbook " English for Iraq" does not include any activities to be achieved about the literary texts. 5-Competitions or games are not used in classes while teaching literary texts.
Therefore, lessons will we boring and motivation for learning English will not be effective.