Page 120 - Getting of the fence
P. 120

                                Chapter 5
 which was originally considered to be part of the Language approach, had the highest loading on the Literature factor. In other words, from a student perspective this element bears a stronger relation to elements such ‘Literary terminology’ than to elements of the Language factor such as ‘Language skills’. What is particularly important is that these results empirically underscore the tripartite frameworks based on beliefs and practitioner evidence suggested by for example Carter and Long (1991), Lazar (1993, and Maley and Duff (2007). As far as we are aware, this is the first empirical support for these frameworks. Knowing that students do not view knowledge about the development of the English language as beneficial for their language development could have implications for classroom practice. One way of making this element of EFL literature education more relevant in the eyes of students, could be for teachers to design activities in which they illustrate how knowledge about the development can benefit language learning development.
Our study supports the results of previous studies such as Martin and Laurie (1993) (see also Chapter 4), showing that students predominantly find language factor elements such as ‘Language skills’, ‘Vocabulary and idioms’, and ‘Grammar and syntax’, important in their EFL literature lessons. An argument could be made that one of the reasons why students have a pragmatic and utilitarian perspective on EFL literature is the way foreign languages are taught in Dutch secondary schools and the position of literature in their studies. The current message students probably receive is that learning a foreign language primarily means mastering language skills such as reading and writing. Within this context, it is very likely that students perceive EFL literature lessons primarily as yet another opportunity to master these language skills.
However, our results do not indicate that the students believe that language learning is only about acquiring language skills and linguistic competence, a position which Paran (2008, p. 468) calls the “isolationist position.” Both the Personal Development factor and the Literature factor hold a mean score of 2.85 and 2.56 respectively, which means that these two factors are also regarded as moderately important by the students. In comparison to Chapter 4, in which a large group of secondary school students was asked an open question about the benefits of EFL literature education, the answers in our current study seem more varied. For example, when students were asked to come up with their own answers, they did not mention Literature factor elements often. As we suggested in Chapter 4, for students to answer a single open question on the spot depends a great deal on their ability to articulate their thoughts and their willingness to elaborate their
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