Let’s Talk and Tolerate: Strengthening Students Cultural Awareness Through Literature Circles

Abstract

Putting more attention on teaching language skills, the use of literature in EFL classrooms is often abandoned. While essentially, exploiting literary texts in some advanced EFL courses, serves a variety of purposes, dedicated to encourage interactive and communicative classes for language learners at different levels of proficiency. Literary texts often offer cultural explorations through the embedded cultural contexts in the stories. Indeed, exploring literary works provides an exercise in cultural relativity, so that students are more aware of the cultural differences presented in various contexts. Both teachers and students need to get involved in class discussions and activities which are created to support deep exploration of cultures in the texts. This paper reports on the use of literature circles in an advanced EFL classroom to reinforce students' cultural awareness through the examination of classic literatures as well as contemporary realist fiction. The two genres of literatures also bring about multicultural issues which are worth noting in an attempt of developing students' cutural awareness. In the research, it is further found that distributing students in small discussion groups has encouraged more -talking‖ and improved students' written responses. In addition, teachers discovered that cultural values and attitudes are easily transferred through the characters in the literary works. Keywords: literature circles in EFL classroom, classic literatures, contemporary realist fictions. MARI KITA BICARA DAN MENOLERANSI: MEMPERKUAT KESADARAN BUDAYA SISWA MELALUI LINGKAR SASTRAAbstrak: Pengajaran bahasa Inggris di kelas-kelas EFL lebih sering terfokus pada pengajaran keterampilan berbahasa, dan cenderung mengabaikan penggunaan karya sastra berbahasa Inggris. Padahal, penggunaan karya sastra di kelas-kelas bahasa Inggris memiliki potensi besar yang ditujukan untuk membuat kegiatan pembelajaran lebih menarik dan interaktif. Karyakarya sastra umumnya menawarkan pemaparan budaya dalam bentuk konteks kebudayaan dalam alur ceritanya. Selain itu, mengkaji karya sastra juga melatih pemahaman akan budaya, dengan demikian peserta didi akan lebih peka terhadap perbedaan budaya yang tersaji dalam berbagai bentuk konteks cerita. Keterlibatan dan interaksi antara pengajar dan peserta didik dalam proses pembelajaran di kelas dapat menjadi daya dukung yang sangat baik untuk ekplorasi budaya yang lebih mendalam dalam kajian teks-teks sastra. Makalah ini menyajikan bagaimana penggunaan Literature

Literature-Circles-Based Cooperative Writing : From the Perceptions of Indonesian University EFL Learners with Writing Anxiety

“…Literature circles provide an opportunity for lowerachiever or introvert learners to participate actively (Azmi, 2013). Similarly, Moecharam and Sari (2014) find that literature circles encourage every single learner to talk actively and eliminated any unnoticed opinions.…”

“…Learners can gain genre knowledge from role sheets and role-based discussions (Widodo, 2016) and improve soft skills such as learner autonomy and teamwork skills (Azmi, 2013;Widodo, 2016). Additionally, they can develop cultural awareness (Moecharam & Sari, 2014) and writing creativity (Lubis, 2018). The learning atmosphere of literature circles advances literacy development (Coffey, 2012, p. 396) because the learners in-turn take on specific responsibilities, discuss reading content, and cooperatively share different perspectives (Widodo, 2016).…”

Contrastive-Comparative Study on Students’ Perceptions of Using Literary Texts as Authentic Language Learning Resources

“…As a teacher, I strongly believe and identify my teaching creed with Erkaya's viewpoint "that literature can be used to reinforce language skills and complement teaching" (Erkaya, 2005, p.3). Cultural enrichment, which is in line with all language learning theories and the recommendations contained in the CEFR can be successfully attained through judiciously selected LT. Interacting with literature belonging to different geographical areas and historical periods not only contributes to expanding the students' knowledge of culture, but also plays a crucial role in opening their minds to change and diversity (Moecharam, 2014). Obviously, the advantages a literary piece of writing could bring into the language classroom outweigh by far its drawbacks and even if it means that there is an extra effort for the teacher, it is definitely worth it: short term, there might be a feeling of Sisyphean task, but long term, the outcomes will be absolutely rewarding.…”

Students’ Perception and Imagination towards Tolerance in A Short Story Appreciation Learning

“…The utilization to strengthen students character or skill have been proven by several pieces of research. Moecharam and Kartikasari (2014) concluded that literary works can be utilized to develop students cultural awareness [10]. Anderson (2014) concluded that literary works can be used to cultivate students cultural competence [11].…”