PROS Nugrahenny T Zacharias Choral reading Abstract

(1)

(2)

12 0 3 0 15 2

f l/llll/111111/11/l

i _12030152

Ell Maners

Developments in

English language

learning and Teaching

Editors

" f . .

(3)

o

r Language Studies, Universiti Maaysia Sarawak

Characteristics of Reflective Practice among ESL Teachers Zanurin bin Mohamad Safar

Seknah Menengah Kebangsaan Kulim

461

477

493

(9)

Preface

T he Malaysia International Centre for English Language Teaching (MICELT) which is a centre of excellence established within the Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, has been actively involved in teacher development since

1996. T he centre has, apart form implementing projects like the school adoption scheme, extensive reading programme and scholarship programme also organized international conferences, the main one bemg the Malaysia International Conference on English Language Teaching.

T his book is a collection of papers selected from amongst the 160 papers which

were presented at the 6h Malaysia lntern.uional Conference on English Lmguage

Teaching which was held in Melaka, Malaysia in 2006.

T he papers selected for these two volumes, ELT Maters 3 and ELT Maters 4

are a good blend of articles with a research bias, those which are over-views of phenomena in ELT and those which are dc,cumentations of experiences in classroom teaching.

MICELT has always published good papers which have been presented ar all

previous conferences and information on rhese books are available on the !vii CELT

web-site www.micelt.com.m.

MICELT is thankul to the UPM Pn ;s for showing interest and commitment

to the publication of these books. We are also grateul to Mr. Wan Hafizi Wan Umar for helping with the coordination , Jf this writing project.

We hope everyone in English Language Teaching (ELT) finds these two volumes useful references.

The Editors

MICELT

Malaysian International Centre for English Language Teaching Faculty of Educational Studies

Universiti Putra Malaysia Serdang

(10)

Choral Reading: An Alternative Approach

to the Use of Poems in English Classes

Nugrahenny T Zacharias ....

Saya Wacana Christian Universi, Indonesia

Introduction

Many ELT experts have explained the value of using poetry to learn English (Collin and Slater 1987, Carter and Long, 1991, Maley and Du£1989, and Lazar 1993). hile it is true that poetry offers various educationl worth, irs use is nor pervasive in English language classrooms in Indonesia. Needless to say, poetry oten creates certain confusion among students and this in turn is sometimes transformed into diiculties which are created by the density of the lexical choice nd the unfamiliar toplCS.

The use of poetry has so far been limited to classes focusing on the study of literature. To seve this purpose, poetry is viewed as the object of the study and the selection of the poems is limited to those included in the canon that is believed to have literary merits and depicted sophisticated language. The poetry is most oten presented in a lecture mode with the teacher supplying all the information students ueed, to interpret the poems.

While using poems for study purposes has certain beneits, if used incessantly, ir bears some serious repercussions. For one, the poem selected which contains sophisticated language and sometimes, far beyond students' language competence, tan make the students feel ill-equipped for the course. This problem is exacerbated when the teacher applies the lecture-mode which conditions students to become passive recipients of language input and places the teacher as the 'guardian of knowledge'.