Investigating critical thinking through critical reading in the literature classroom : a case study of an urban and a rural secondary school

Abstract

This research sought to explore teachers' practices in teaching critical reading through literature, their perceptions of their knowledge and capabilities to teach critical reading, and the challenges they faced in teaching critical reading. Also, this research investigated students' difficulties in responding to literary texts. The participants (16 teachers and 20 students) for this study were selected from one urban and one rural school in Selangor. Two types of instruments were developed and used for the data collection procedures: the first type was a checklist to understand teachers' practices and approaches in teaching critical reading in the literature classroom. And the second type of instrument was interview questions for the students and teachers. The findings indicated that the urban and rural schools' students faced similar difficulties in responding to literature texts due to i) lack of comprehension and ii) lack of exposure to the English language and its culture. Also, in exploring teachers' practices in teaching critical reading, this study found that both urban and rural teachers employed all the approaches in teaching literature: Moral-philosophical approach, personal-response approach, information-based approach, Paraphrastic approach, Stylistic approach and language-based approach. The following findings pointed out that the teachers have the knowledge of critical reading/ thinking but lack the confidence to teach the skills, unfamiliar with the skills, and know-how to teach but need more training. Furthermore, it was found that both urban and rural school teachers agreed that students' proficiency levels in English were one of the challenges. Other challenges were; teachers' role, students' attitude, class size, exam-oriented learning, do not relate to real-life and time constraint. Additionally, this research also revealed students' challenges as perceived by the teachers in responding critically to literature texts, such as 1) students have difficulty in expressing their opinions and views, 2) lack of proficiency in English and negative attitude towards reading and literature 3) lack the motivation, 4) difficult topics, 5) inability to relate to real-life, 6) inability to self-correct and improve themselves and 7) burdened by homework.