TEACHERS’ COMMON APPROACHES IN TEACHING LITERATURE BY USING COGNITIVE APPROACH IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS, MALAYSIA

This qualitative research studies teachers’ common approaches used for teaching literature for the past two years (2020-2022) and this research is part of an ongoing study to explore whether they could incorporate cognitive poetics in the teaching of literature in the classroom. The use of cognitive poetics in teaching literature in the classroom is the main area that is studied in this research and the researchers intend to find out if this approach could assist teachers in teaching this subject to facilit ate students’ understanding of literary texts. This paper would like to shed findings on the common approaches that teachers used to garner students’ interests in studying literary works. The implication of this research is to answer the questions whether the common approaches used by the teachers lead to the declining interest in the subject among students.


INTRODUCTION
The decreasing number of students who sat for the English Literature Paper for a Malaysian School Leaving Exam (that is equivalent to O'Levels Certificate) in 2018 has intensified a need to study the approaches used in classrooms in teaching this subject.The national newspaper, The Star Online reported that the figure for those who sat for the English Literature examination declined from 476 students in 2017 to merely 195 students in the following year (Chin, 2019).The addition of this subject by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia in 2000 is to fulfil these objectives; firstly, to encourage students' reading habits and improve their language proficiency (Suliman & Yunus, 2014), secondly, for students to possess the ability to respond to the text by using critical thinking and thirdly, to have the ability in expressing their emotions and thoughts.The remaining objectives include gaining understanding of other cultures and possess the skills to connect their comprehension to real life events as well as giving students opportunities to learn good writing styles from exemplary literary writers (Siti Salina Mustakim, Ramlee Mustapha & Othman Lebar, 2012).
The benefits reaped by students in learning literature include gaining insights into other cultures whereby students are able to experience different views and angles of how the world and the people function and operate in their day-to-day activities.Another advantage of learning literature is that the nature of this subject which revolves around humans, emotions and actions as well as cultures and environment will encourage learners to be more humane in their outlook and interaction in life.Another benefit of learning this subject relates to discoveries that reading literary texts could assist learners to form opinions.In this case, learners could exercise critical thinking skills and produce sound arguments based on their understanding of the literary texts.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Today, however, persuading students to maintain a keen interest in studying literature is a challenge.Researchers acknowledged that there was constant spoonfeeding of information in teaching activities which were carried out in the classrooms and their findings highlighted the fact that students were not given ample time to engage in thinking and expression of their thoughts and emotions.Furthermore, Suliman and Yunus (2014) pointed out that teachers were more concerned about delivering the curriculum and the nature of teaching was exam-oriented.Hence, it is found that teachers employ traditional methods in teaching literature in the classrooms such as spoonfeeding information and rushing to finish the syllabus in hoping to prepare students for examinations.
As a result, when traditional methods of reading to students and implementing a one-way interaction had been the common practices in the teaching of literature in schools, students emerged as passive learners, were unable to articulate their thoughts and come up with sound arguments, lacked verbal interaction that was paramount in understanding the texts and they could not response to the texts (Yahya Omar, 2017).Another challenge endured by the students, as noted by Paramjit Kaur and Nooraida Mahmor (2014), was the unfamiliar cultures of certain foreign literary texts which did not bear any resemblance or familiarity to their own cultures.Consequently, students would not be able to relate the texts to their understanding and experience and this eventually led to the disinterest in learning this subject.This will result in students becoming passive learners.When students become passive learners, they are not granted ample opportunities to engage in thinking skills.As a consequence, students will not be interested to learn English Literature in schools and schools will not offer this subject due to the lack of interested or a small fraction of students who express interest in this subject.
In extending the discussion above concerning developing students' minds and personality, certain researchers have remarked that some teachers and lecturers reiterate the traditional ways of teaching literature to the students of the current age.These traditional methods which also include endless memorisation of word lists as well as stylistic and rhetoric study of literary texts are deemed unsuitable for students who are firstly, amateur learners of literature and secondly, require communicative methods of learning to discuss and interpret the texts.Khatib and Nourzadeh (2011) disclosed this problem in the classrooms when teachers delivered the lessons rigidly by depending too much on the analysis of the literary texts, thus making the subject very dry and uninteresting for learners.Besides this disclosure, a similar study conducted by Brandi (2017) concluded that there should be the right methods for teaching literary works which could avoid students from feeling disconnected from the text or learning realities that are proven meaningless to be understood in their perspectives.In this case, these effects could be direct consequences of different cultural views or religious beliefs.
In addition to this tiresome delivery of the subject, no attempts are made to bridge the understanding of the different cultures depicted in the literary works.As a result, the subject is not favoured by students.The nature of learning literature could be complex without the assistance of the teachers in helping students to understand the texts.Alzyoud and Kabilan (2012) further expounded that teachers need to exercise much effort in teaching this subject to enable students to attain comprehension of the literary texts and also, motivate the students to explore the creative aspects of the literary texts by engaging students with interesting lessons in the classrooms.The findings of Alzyoud and Kabilan (2012) were supported by Granath (2017) whose study of teaching literature in upper-secondary schools similarly reveals that teachers do not focus on teaching the cultural aspects of the literary works but solely concentrates on teaching literature for language proficiency.As pointed out by Bloemert, Paran, Jansen and van de Grift (2019), their findings on teaching literature in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes in targeted schools prove that students still perceive that the primary purpose of learning the literature component in their lessons is to improve language proficiency.
Literature opens the doors to explore numerous cultures with the use of cognitive abilities in widening the imagination.Terebessy (2015) expounded in his research that literary works of different generations which are depicted in story plots set in different locations form a response to the social environment and conditions that were prevalent during those times.Reading and appreciating these works of literature could assist students to develop themselves by learning from life accounts of people who lived in different periods in the world history.Moreover, past research has reported that students enjoy reading about people hailing from countries and cultures that are different from theirs, albeit finding texts written in their first languages (L1) provide an easier reading experience (Ghazali, Setia, Muthusamy & Jusoff, 2009).However, Rajendram and Govindarajoo (2016) disclosed important findings regarding students who could not relate their readings on unfamiliar culture to their understanding as these cultural aspects told in stories are unknown to them.Hence, Rajendram and Govindarajoo (2016) suggested that in order to bridge the knowledge of the unfamiliar to the familiar especially pertaining to different cultures and time periods, teachers should help students attain understanding by arranging literaturebased lessons for them such as conducting a film project or a play with the aims of encouraging less text analysis and allowing them to express freely in the target language and their L1.
This suggestion was supported by Samat and Khaidzir (2019) whose study shed light on students' preference for teachers to incorporate student-centred activities such as staging a play instead of teacher-centred activities in the classroom since they express that passive learning is inconducive for learning literature in the classroom.This particular study discovers that students experience difficulty in reading literary texts and this phenomenon causes them to shun the subject and learning the targeted language altogether.In highlighting this issue, more student-centred approaches should be taken into account in classroom practices.According to Adzura Elier Ahmad and Li Sheau Juin (2014), one of the methods which could be useful is Project Based Learning (PBL) in ESL classrooms.The researchers remarked that students should be granted ample opportunities for self-expression as a form of developing their skills and motivation in using the language.Based on their findings, the researchers recorded a success in this method proven from a stage play and the students' reflections in their reflective journals which reported an increase in selfconfidence.
In order to instill interest in students to enjoy learning literature, continuous research should be conducted to explore methods on how to teach literature in classrooms effectively.Much research has been conducted on student-centred learning and the use of digital media for teaching literature but little could be found on approaching the teaching of literature with methods that involve the use of psychology and cognitive abilities.This study intends to examine the teachers' common approaches in teaching literature and whether their approaches are successful in making students interested or disinterested in studying literature.

OBJECTIVES
The primary aim of this study is to explore whether teachers' approaches in teaching literature result in the lack of interest among secondary school students to pursue English Literature as a subject to learn in schools and to sit for this paper during the national examination.The objectives are constructed to identify the reasons why students do not opt to sit for the English Literature paper for SPM, to explore teachers' approaches in teaching literature for CEFR-based and KSSM-based curricula and finally, to document and describe the teachers' experiences and future projections concerning the number of secondary school students who will sit for the English Literature paper in the national exam.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH
This study would like to shed new light on the underlying factors that happened in secondary schools and the curricula which uncover the reasons for the declining interest in learning English Literature in schools in Malaysia as well as how the common approaches employed by the teachers in teaching literature to the students.

METHODOLOGY
This research used qualitative method to address the research questions.The qualitative approach was chosen to study teachers' common approaches in teaching literature in the classrooms and document their views regarding the issues behind the decreasing number of students who sat for the English Literature paper for the national exam in secondary schools.The participants were selected among teachers who were teaching in secondary schools.Three teachers were selected in this preliminary study.Even though the researcher interviewed three teachers, the author could only analyse the findings from two teachers for this study.In this article, the analysis inbolved two female teachers and one was teaching in an urban government school whereas the second participant was teaching rural government school.They were interviewed for nearly two hours regarding their teaching approaches and their views about the declining rate among students who wanted to learn literature in secondary schools.The reason for the small sample was because it was for a prelimary study before the actual research took place.The teachers possessed teaching experience in secondary schools and they had taught English Literature to lower and upper secondary school students.As this research will be exploratory in nature, it is intended to form a foundation from which the author's main research can be carried out.
Online interviews for two hours via whatsapp application were conducted with the teachers to focus on their views and the interview questions consisted of teaching approaches in teaching literature, the changes made to the curriculum and the background of the students.These discussions served as a platform for teachers to voice concerns and ideas with respect to the interview questions.The analysis was conducted by using thematic analysis (Silverman, 2013) with the use of the ATLAS.tisoftware.

Loss of interest among students
The findings of this study revealed that there are several factors that led to the decrease in the number of students in secondary schools who opted to study and sit for English Literature in the national exam.Both informants who participated in the interviews reported that the primary reason for this issue was the insufficient number of trained teachers in the schools who were capable in teaching the subject to the students.The first informant (I1) disclosed the fact that the only two teachers who were trained to teach the subject were transferred to other schools whereas the second informant shared information that her school was situated in a rural area and since the school was deemed small in physical size and capacity of students, there were merely two teachers in the school who were responsible to teach all the levels in that particular school.Since shortage of manpower could be identified here, this could be the major reason why English Literature was not be offered as a subject to be taught and learned in some schools.The transcriptions of the interviews are illustrated in Extract 1-1 below.
Extract 1.1: Insufficient number of teachers who taught literature Besides shortage of manpower, the second informant (I2) highlighted another view that could be probed further in subsequent studies.The second informant exposed ineffective teaching approaches by teachers who were not trained or prepared to teach English Literature which was a subject that required knowledge of literary functions and a mastery of the language itself.She explained that the teachers lacked teaching skills to teach the particular subject, thus they failed in garnering interest in that subject among the students.Based on these two interviews, the researcher could conclude that the teachers and the schools played a major role in contributing to the increasing or decreasing number of students who choose for English Literature as a subject to sit for the national exam.
Another discovery found from the two interviews is the challenge to interpret literary works.Due to limited English proficiency, the second informant clarified that students viewed literary works as too complex to understand during their readings.

Informant Transcript I1
I can only talk about my school because umm previous years I think in arr 2013 to 2016 we offered literature subject in my school so we had two teachers teaching English Literature okay but these teachers got transferred out and umm umm there were nobody who could aa take over the literature classes.

I2
For my school, my school is quite small and we have only 2 English teachers so I'm going I need to teach all the forms in my school so I have been teaching Form 1 until Form 5.
Extract 1.2: Language proficiency in interpreting literary works I1 and I2 acknowledged that students required efforts in understanding the themes embedded in poems, short stories and novels that were discussed during lessons.The first informant emphasized on the importance of having mastery of the language in order to delve into the deeper meaning of the literary texts and she found that her students from a high-income background had enough mastery of the language as they were blessed with excellent educational facilities in their urban dwellings.In contrast, I2 revealed that most of the students in her school were not much exposed to English language due to the geographical location of the school which was located at the village.

Teaching Approaches for Literature
Certain similarities were noted for both informants in their approaches in teaching literature in the classrooms.Both informants employed four approaches namely collaborative approach, individualistic, cognitive approach and visual approach for their teaching activities in the classroom.In using collaborative approach, Informant 1 (I1) read aloud together with her students and divided them into groups or pair-work to inculcate values of teamwork among the students.She also wanted her lessons to be an enjoyable experience for them.Informant 2 (I2) who possessed less years of teaching experience as compared to I1, shared that she divided them into groups so that they could understand the literary works together as a group.

Extract 1.3: Language proficiency in interpreting literary works
In terms of cognitive approach, both informants expressed their intention to create a creative learning atmosphere in class.I2 encouraged her students to make drawings and exercising their minds to imagine scenes described in the literary works and she she made her classes interesting by "having quite a good time learning literature because usually, I'm going to, I will bring my laptop and my speaker and we we going to do some drawing in the class when I'm teaching literature… I really need

Informant Transcript I1
Challenge will be err analyzing, I mean, sometimes in lit because you have to go err, in depth err further into err, I mean, it's not what on the surface, the challenge is in getting them to go to think in depth err, not just on the surface, okay because errm because the standard of English in my school is pretty high so basically, we need, we… the aim is for everyone to get an A so yeah, so I need urmm, my challenge is to get them to answer really really well err, okay because I find my student could understand it on the surface level but to get them to go in depth, err, umm it's quite a challenge for my, you know, umm my not-so-good classes.

I2
My school is quite in the rural so not many student have aa proficiency in speaking English so taking English Literature as a subject is quite difficult for them.

Informant Transcript I1
Aaa for the good classes, they usually aa for novel usually they have read it beforehand…umm…but umm I find novel aa we have a reading, we have a session in class as well where students take turns to read because umm from there I'm able aa to highlight certain things and I think because the novel is not…umm…it's not really a thick novel so reading in class is doable and and and yeah then I can see I'm able to gauge how well they are able to understand the novel so umm yeah I…I…I read together with my students both my good and my middle-class students.

I2
Literature is quite hard, with the language and you have to understand the words and everything and with the novels, it's so lengthy.The students will be demotivated to even read the whole novel so I have to make it okay, I have to make I have to differentiate it into different theme and different event…aa and classify them into groups so 1 group will have to do 1 event and they going to do presentation so everybody will get their own understanding from that from that activity.
to make them understand aa and relate relate it with their own life so then only they can understand about the poem and the novel everything."In I1's creative approach, she encouraged her students to apply techniques such as mind-mapping, brainstorming and drawing.As follow-up activities, I1 instructed her students to create individual pieces of writing through exercises such as rewriting poems in layman's terms and writing essays.She expounded that "the normal thing I'll get them to umm usually we start with groupwork where they do mind-map, brainstorm and mindmapping", thus she was helping them to develop their cognitive skills in analysing literary works.All these activities reflected the teachers' use of individualistic approach which focuses on students' individual reasoning as part of using cognitive poetics in teaching the subject.
Another enjoyable teaching activity which was much enjoyed by students in both schools consisted of watching movies to understand the plots and events that shaped the literary works.The school which I1 taught was situated in as urban area so the Chrome Lab was provided by the school as a facility to assist students in learning English Language and Literature.She explained that "because my pupils are in urban and you know, when I have new topic, err, like that, we usually have our class in the Chrome Lab so the students have access to the Chrome book" and Chrome books were actually small notebooks that contained all the relevant learning materials for mastering the subject.In comparison, I2 taught in a rural school in which the facilities for teaching included the library and a projector.Consequently, I2 made an additional effort by bringing her own laptop and speakers to school and played a movie from a channel in youtube via the projector to her students.Both teachers agreed that the students understood the works better through this visual approach.However, when these two teachers were asked how they organised their lessons in class, there was a difference in which I1 shared that she taught her students according to the themes of the literary works while I2 admitted that she did not teach them comprehensively and she only covered the historical aspects of the poems, novels and short stories.She expounded that the historical knowledge would suffice for their understanding of the works.The researcher attributed these findings to the language proficiency of students in the different schools and it is found that the language proficiency possessed by the students affected their level of interest in learning literature.Besides that, both interviewees stressed the need for educators to use creative methods in attracting students to love the subject.

Teachers' future projections for English Literature
Regarding the future of teaching and learning English Literature in secondary schools, both teachers held contrasting views regarding the issue.I1 expressed an optimistic view that the number of students already showed a marked improvement in 2019 especially in her school.The number of students who sat for the national exam increased from 4 students in the previous year to 16 students.However, I2 shared crucial development of the CEFR curriculum that scraped off English Literature from the present curriculum.She revealed that in future, English Literature will not be taught to secondary school students unless there is an initiative by respective schools to support the teaching and learning activities for this particular subject.

DISCUSSION
The interviewees' responses showed that the underlying factors that contribute to the declining interest in English Literature among students in secondary school and the responses are illustrated in the diagram below.The diagram depicts the themes generated from the interviews.The researcher finds that external and internal factors are at play when the diminishing of interest in literature is concerned.Shortage in the number of teachers, unsuitable teaching approaches and lack of support from schools form the external factors that contribute to the issue.This obstacle requires the personal efforts of teachers to assist the students in understanding the materials discussed in class and in linking the contents of the literary works to the students' present knowledge and reality.Besides that, internal factors such as difficulty in understanding literature due to the complexity of the texts itself as well as the portrayal of unfamiliar settings and cultures around the world are regarded as an impediment to the teaching of the subject.
These findings were in line with the findings by Nor Hashimah Isa and Che Ton Mahmud (2012) who carried out a study sponsored by the Education Ministry of Malaysia to gather opinions from teachers and students regarding preferred types of literary texts.This study involves participants from non-residential schools in Perak and the findings point out that the texts which are used in the curriculum are too difficult for the students.The study reports that the students preferred texts that consisted of certain genres such as adventure, mystery and entertainment.They did not favour melancholic content or texts that did not contain familiar cultural elements.The findings also establish the fact that local texts are much needed in the teaching of this subject because students would be able to thread on familiar grounds.These findings were like other studies in which researchers insisted that the introduction of local texts was a need to be addressed.More locally-written literary texts should be offered in the curriculum to enable the students to relate depictions from local literary texts to their familiar surroundings and henceforth, be able to discuss significant issues from the literary texts and later, develop a sense of identity as citizens in the country (Pillai, Menon & Vengadasamy, 2016).As a result, students fail to discover the beauty of literature which can bring about personal and cultural growth in human development.One of the main explanations for this is that students are unable to connect unfamiliar context of literary works to their common and preexisting knowledge and that causes failure to connect their understanding, engagement and connection to the literary texts (Rajendram & Govindarajoo, 2016).There is a growing need for more novels, plays, poems and short stories written by Malaysian authors because the number of local texts are not enough for classroom activities.
This issue could be related to the status of English Language in Malaysia.The status of English Language was regarded as causing a threat to nationalism (Hazita Azman, 2016;Quayum, 2008).Quayum (2008) established a fact that since English Language was considered a threat to the status of the national language which was the Malay Language, it created an impediment to the progress of English Literature in Malaysia.As a result, there were not enough literary texts of good quality which were written in English due to the diminishing support for creative writing in English.This came about after the Language Act was approved in 1967 since English Language was considered a threat to the national language (Quayum, 2003).Consequently, literary texts by local writers were relatively small in number and the literary writing tradition was not flourishing in Malaysia.When foreign texts were used in the teaching of literature, students feel disconnected from the texts and they find that they could not relate to the stories that they read from the literary texts.
In contrast to popular belief that English Language cannot be a driving force to form an ethnic local identity and for nationalism, some researchers came up with their findings that the teaching and learning of English Literature could instill many intrinsic values of nationhood.Idrus (2012) emphasizes that utilizing Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) in the teaching of English Literature could foster Malaysian values and identity in students.Her findings proposed that this method could help students to bridge their cultural differences by identifying themselves on a common ground and building a shared identity as Malaysian citizenry.In strengthening the idea of a unified sense of nationhood, Thoo, Foong, Khor and Pong (2017) presented their findings on introducing local literary texts to lower secondary schools in order to emphasize on the theme of nationhood in the teaching of literature.
However, globalisation occurs, and the world has emerged to become a networking place among people of various cultures and from different countries.Due to the emergence of globalisation, literature can serve as a bridge to overcome differences and help people to collaborate with others.The function of teaching literature is not only to inculcate nationalistic values but it also plays a role in preparing the young generation for globalisation.Kaur and Mahmor (2014) maintained a strong view that the curriculum for English Literature should be revamped and revitalised in order to further inform the students of the coming changes of globalisation.They believed that learning English Literature could hold a great capacity in educating the young minds concerning the changing socio-political climate of the country due to globalisation.Learning English Literature could also help them to retain their rich traditions and heritage.Moreover, a book chapter written by Ahmad Thamrini (2018) further supported these findings by stressing on the position of English literature in education which was to prepare students with the challenges of globalization.As of now, the idealistic task of teaching literature was for creating 'global citizens' as reported by Isabel Nisbet (2013) in her paper which attempted to answer the blurring lines between national and international education in teaching literature identified in the education of South-East Asia.Hence, the teaching of literature has proven that it is essential during these current times.
Another finding that should be given due attention is improving the students' level of language proficiency in the teaching of literature.Both interviewees agreed that mastery of the language is required to interpret the texts.This was supported by findings from a study by by Bloemert, Paran, Jansen and van de Grift (2019) and they contend that teaching literature in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes in targeted schools proved that students still perceived that the primary purpose of learning the literature component in their lessons is to improve language proficiency.When students learn English Literature in the classrooms, the expectation by both teachers and students will be that students learn not only the works of literature but the language aspects as well.
The third area of discussion was the use of creativity in teaching the subject to encourage students in learning literature.The two teachers exercised creative approaches that stimulated the students' curiosity and interest in learning the subject.Some researchers shed light on the problem of disinterest and dull approaches of some teachers during their class activities.Sidhu and Chan (2010) assert that the teachers they observed lacked creativity in teaching the subject.Their observations found that teachers' teaching methods were merely futile attempts in making the students understand the texts by themselves instead of fostering active participation in the classroom and helping them to develop thinking skills.These findings were supported in a similar study conducted by Siti Salina Mustakim, Ramlee Mustapha and Othman Lebar (2012) in which they report that there was no creativity on the part of the teachers.Their studies found that the teachers did not fully implement the modules that were prepared by the Curriculum Development Centre which bore the objectives of honing the students' skills and understanding literary elements in the learning activities.This showed that teachers should be able to devise creative methods in teaching literature to support students' interest in the subject.

CONCLUSION
The factors discussed above shed light on teachers' approaches in teaching the subject in their classrooms and the findings mapped out the reasons why students lack interest to pursue this subject for knowledge and examinations.The researcher believes that there should be continuous studies in this research area as presently, CEFR has stamped English Literature out from its present curriculum used for secondary schools in Malaysia.Hopefully, the country will continue supporting the teaching and learning of literature as there are numerous benefits in learning this subject.English Literature represents a literary genre that has been enjoyed by readers spanning many different generations.Therefore, the representations of life stories of different peoples and cultures across the globe has always provided and will continue to bring enjoyment and entertainment to people especially the young generation who would want to know how the world operates around them.
do you think are the main reasons that make students lose interest in the subject?