CRITICAL READING 12

REVIEW OF JOURNAL entitled ‘ SEVEN ISSUES AND DILEMMAS IN LITERATURE TEACHING IN EFL CONTEXT: LESSONS FROM INDONESIA’ by Bachrudin Musthafa (2014), Indonesia University of Education

Using literature instruction practices in different “literature programs” as a point of departure, this article discusses some knotty issues and dilemmas confronting English literature instructors and researchers in Indonesia, especially those working in the context of English as A Foreign Language (EFL). First some commonly adopted approaches to literature teaching are outlined and specific issues and dilemmas located. Next, using Indonesian current situation as a case in point, these perceived issues and dilemmas are fleshed out and possible solutions from diverse fronts are then sketched out.

This article has highlighted problems and issues of various natures surfacing at different levels in EFL/ESL Literature programs. First, to address the issue of the split between language courses and literature courses. It is proposed that more collaboration be developed between language and literature programs beginning with a change in approaches to training teachers of the future. That is, lecturers should also be prepared to teach both literature and language at the same time. Second, concerted efforts should also be made to move from dichotomous perspectives to synergistic, empowerment perspectives. A better strategy should be devised to ensure that programmatic missions are clear to everybody in the working unit, mutual learning among faculty members is encouraged and optimally supported, and productive, concerted efforts are made to promote literacy habits in which faculty members write what they practice in their class and practice in class what they write. Third, a better orientation should be developed to facilitate movement from focusing on oral-based communicative competence to the notion of active multiple-literacies. To this end, currently held conception about what it means to be communicatively competent should be carefully reviewed and improved by expanding modes of expressing ideas. This can be done by enriching task designs used by lecturers to guide students’ learning engagement and their multiple ways of externalizing results of their learning. Faculty members should also make an effort to initiate collaborative writing with their students so that the development of a literate community of writers can be initiated.

The last suggestion is that we need to shy away from mechanistic, transmission model of teaching practice, and move closer towards reflective teaching practice. This would require some adjustments on the part of faculty members including positioning themselves as learners, and doing classroom action research and documenting their professional experiences.