Problems of teaching English literature of the first year high school classes in the Philippines

Abstract

Teachers of English throughout the Philippines have long been confronted with a lot of problems regarding the teaching of literature in the high school. These problems are most difficult in the first year where it is quite a task to bridge the gap between the six-year elementary course and the high school. It has become increasingly clear in the minds of those who face the practical problems of improving the reading instruction, that the textbook usually determines the success or failure of any method or technique. Since most of the problems in the teaching of English literature are related to the reading materials, especially the textbook, it was decided to limit this study to the evaluation of the basic text, in order to find out how it can be made more readable and interesting to the first year students today. With the years, it has become increasingly difficult for the teachers to render comprehensible the materials in the literature text which was written more than two decades ago for first year students who had had seven years of elementary schooling, without the necessity for adjustment to the new educational trends is the Philippine public school system and with a wealth of other reading materials provided for them. Many educators believe that in the field of Phillippine education today mass promotion, the elimination of the seventh grade, the double-single session plan, and, in some instances, the inferior methods used due to the dearth of teaching materials have brought to the high schools a mass of inadequately prepared students lacking proficiency in the tools of learning, and in the basic skills needed to cope with the more advanced end more complicated high school work. These pedagogically unsound practices introduced by the government to implement its austerity program are detrimental to the education of the elementary school children. Such practices have resulted in a group of unskilled learners who are still unable to recognize words when they see them, are unable to comprehend them when they do recognize them, and worse still, cannot with fluency give oral or written interpretation of what they have read. As the students attempt to read selections which are neither readable nor understandable to them, it is not surprising, therefore, to find them developing a distaste for and a lack of interest in their literature or reading textbook. Many of the English teachers believe that the selections included in the basic reader for the first year possess vocabulary quite difficult for students with such inadequate background for reading. Others are of the idea that the selections are either too mature or too outdated for our students today. Some believe that the physical makeup of the book itself does not make it suitable or attractive to our present-day first year students who are about the same age as the seventh grade pupils before the six-year elementary course was introduced. Quite a number of teachers suggest the reorganizing and rewriting of the selections in these readers either to bring them up-to-date or, as Dr. Antonio Isidro advocates, to simplify them so that “the substance and con­ tent are better understood by the learners even if much of the elegance and beauty of the language of the classic authors way disappear.” There are even some radically inclined teachers who recommend the changing of these texts for more recent editions. That people are now aware of the existence of this problem of teaching in the high school is manifested by an editorial in the Manila Chronicle dated May 30, 1953 which states: Admittedly, the teaching of literature to high school students is a difficult and thankless job. We are refer­ring particularly to present-day students whose capacity to absorb knowledge has degenerated to a new low. It is to be expected that, despite the two or three years in which they are supposed to have been exposed to the classics, they neither have the feeling for, nor the understanding of, the poems and stories they were sup­posed to have read and studied... The problem, as we understand, of teaching literature to high school students cannot be solved by rewriting literature, it can only be solved by using such samples as are intended for readers whose emotional experience and intelligence are about the same as those of our present-day high school students. Another proof of the urgency of this problem of litera­ture teaching is the fact that it was one of the major topics discussed in the seminar for English teachers of the Philip­ pines held from May ten to thirty last year at the Araullo High School in Manila. It is with the full realization of such a pressing need, that this study was undertaken. However, this present investigation is limited only to the problem of finding out the suitability of the current text in literature in the first year for our present day students. It is an attempt to analyze and evaluate this reading textbook in the light of the questions and conjectures raised as regards readability, interest value and physical makeup, and other such factors as they affect students' understanding and interest in their literature course. It is hoped that this study may discover enlightening facts about this book which will answer these questions of the reading and literature teachers and help them to make greater use of this text as a tool of learning and to develop in their students interest in and appreciation for literature. Whether or not this study results in the reorganizing or re­ writing of the contents of this basic reader or in changing the whole book itself, it is hoped that the methods of analysis and evaluation employed in this study as well as the findings and recommendations made, will be helpful to teachers and school administration or whoever find it their job to select textbooks so that they will be able to choose good and suitable textbooks not only for reading and literature but also for other fields where a basic text is needed for effective study.