English Teaching: Practice and Critique

Engaging learners' comprehension, interest and motivation to learn literature using the reader's theatre

Volume 9 Number 3 December 2010

Muhammad Kamarul Kabilan (Universiti Sains Malaysia)

Fadzliyati Kamarudin (Kedah MARA Junior Science College, Malaysia)

This article reports on a teacher's experiment with Reader's Theatre (RT), an interactive play reading activity with elements of reading aloud, drama and theatre, for her 20 unmotivated learners of literature in a premier school in Malaysia. Using RT, the students staged Angela Wright's Potato People. The procedures and design of the study were built around Kolb's Model of Experimental Learning.  The aim of the experiment was to discern if RT is able to enhance learners' understanding of the literary text and increase learners' interest and motivation to learn literature. The quantitative and qualitative data obtained showed that RT significantly enhanced learners' understanding and increased their interest and motivation to learn literature. The findings from this study suggest that learners are able to perceive and examine literature and the learning of literature positively and constructively if the teaching and learning of literature are aligned according to the interests of the learners and, are based on creative, flexible and learner-based pedagogical approaches.

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