Promoting Intrinsic Motivation through Incorporating Literature as Content

陳淑玲(Shu-Ling Chen)

《實用英語人才培育研討會》 2007年 (2007/05) Pp. 48-62

並列摘要

Using literature as content in ESL/EFL classes provides many benefits for students, including it is a valuable language tool, ”it raises cross-cultural awareness” (McKay 2001, 319), it helps students ”develop personally and socially” (West 1995: 130), and it can motivate students to read more literature. As motivation is a prerequisite and a key factor determining the success of L2 learning (Scharle & Szabo2000, Thanasoulas 2000), I attempt to enhance students' motivation in learning English by reading literature on a wide variety of topics in my class, such as life and death, identity, gender, spiritual development, relating to others, learning, and personal growth etc. Writers include Amy Tan, Ernest Hemingway, Sandra Cisnero, Kate Chopin, O. Henry, Virginai Woolf, and Helen Keller etc. In this paper I intend to share my experience of promoting intrinsic motivation through incorporating literature in the curriculum, integrating both the four skills and the cultural, language, and personal growth models, making literature not only accessible to learners but also beneficial for their linguistic development (Savvidou 2004).
This paper is divided into three main sections. The first section discusses motivation and the benefits of teaching literature in L2 classroom. The second section gives a detailed account of my curriculum, which includes a movie and a song, in addition to stories and essays, and my integrated approach of teaching literature. In the third section, I show the teaching effectiveness by presenting the results of students' evaluation and their comments.