english and literature course units

english and literature course units

The Importance of English and Literature in Education

1. Introduction

Language was created to help us build a connection with other human beings. For children in non-English speaking countries, knowledge of English or another language can be a powerful determinant of their life chances. In order to shape the curriculum effectively and efficiently, it is imperative to understand these life chances. The language in which teachers communicate with students significantly impacts what children learn, the speed at which they learn it, and whether they learn at all. Children who speak a language different from their teachers are often at a disadvantage from the outset, and their confidence in, and motivation for learning are diminished.

English is the lingua franca of the world. With language, one can communicate. A common language for many countries is English. School children who are unable to understand English won’t be able to understand the knowledge their educators dish out. That is one. You might be able to acquire lower orders of knowledge. However, you cannot advance to higher levels. Two, at a global level, you will be unequipped to compete with students around the globe who are more fortunate than you, who understand the nuances of the English world. Not just that. At a personal level, you will not know how to express your feelings to the person next to you in a different country in his language. When you are not able to express your gratitude or love, how will you make a friend?

2. The Role of English Language in Education

It is necessary for teaching and learning in most countries. Without the knowledge of English, it would be hard for young people to have access to a good education. In the future, they would have fewer opportunities to make themselves understood. Thus, English is important for understanding and using technology and teaching managerial skills. It could be really useful if teachers were to make the most of the internet for developing students’ internet skills. Internet knowledge seems to be essential in the increasingly global world today. Furthermore, this is the language of international communication. Japan and Korea have seen the growing areas of English, where the percentage of its collection has been increasingly high. The Asian countries which have introduced English as their national education system at the primary level, are now looking forward to integrating English in subjects in each subject area. In the areas of economics or politics, the ASEAN has emphasized promoting the connection among ASEAN’s citizens. It has raised English to importance in all the countries, not only Lao PDR but also in the rest of the ASEAN community.

The English language is a powerful tool. These days, the importance of English language in the modern world cannot be denied or ignored, since English is the most common language spoken everywhere. With the help of developing technology, English has been playing a major role in many sectors, including the functioning of the educational system. English is widely spoken among people from different regions. This is the main language in terms of business and trade. The English language has been used in the sectors of finance, technology, internet, social, and business.

3. The Significance of Literature in Education

When teachers dismiss literature as the sum total of communication in a world made up of stimulus and response, the effect we may seek is the absence of rational discourse in the students’ search for meaning. Thus, the process of thought may wither and die on the vine, like grapes that have not been irrigated and nurtured repeatedly. The student who comes to literature may have been assigned the task and may act in accordance with the patience given by the teacher. They may attempt and achieve success on levels the teacher deems appropriate, whether they truly appear to be goals of interest to the student or not. Cooperative classrooms lead to creative solutions. Cheating, by any level of laziness, is successful in a classroom unless discovered. But all that is offered are the literal summation of facts and interpretations, which are definitely only one part of the human need for interpersonal communication on multiple levels of meaning. The role of the teacher and the peer must always seek truth illumination between the participant and his or her formal effort of dialogue in the international forum: the classroom.

Depending on the school, background, and heritage of the students, the literature they study can vary. But one thing is of key importance: to study and know literature enhances the process of education. The main stress in teaching literature is on the appreciation of the text, more than anything else. Students working with literature themselves create meaning. They use their minds in a way that stimulates them, no matter what text they are asked to read. Literature puts every person to the test of meaning-making. Reading literature for enjoyment allows us to live another life in imagination, consider others’ realities as our own, and grow as a result. The literature classroom is often seen as a micro-world. In the contemporary atmosphere of open classrooms, this view promises more than anything the student is exposed to, being evaluated by the teacher or peers.

4. Benefits of Studying English and Literature

A good reader, attentive to reading, tends to be a good observer of reality. Literature purifies the faith and habitually contributes to the essential objective of reflecting the greatness of the human soul. Literary readings are a proposal based on the manipulation of language by children and authors to develop a series of activities from the reading of sing bedside tables. Children need to take an interest and be motivated by the stories before starting to read. The reading of singular stories and poems develops activities directed towards oral language and the audition of texts. Literacy is defined as the set of communication and organization systems from an alphabetic writing system. Literacy then promotes access to written culture. For people to develop basic literary values, it is necessary to have an education that starts from an education in the broadest sense of the term and prepares them to develop a taste and pleasure in relation to reading worthy works of value.

In this way, through learning about literature, we learn about life and the human condition. Studying literature fosters understanding of issues, themes, and universal feelings, and can evoke emotions. Literature belongs to all age groups, and we begin to familiarize ourselves with it from nursery, as children often begin to listen to stories and readings of budding books by adults who surround them. However, reading increases rapidly as soon as they begin to go to school or are old enough to learn the alphabet and read by themselves. Through literature, we can analyze the whole world: stories and narratives are full of truth to be learned. But literature is essentially entertainment! If a student or a pupil reads as a pleasant experience, which means that we can consider him/her “a good reader,” they will tend to read more frequently, progressively improving the range and complexity of their lexicon. The importance of reading tales, poems, and brief narrations consists of the fact that it propitiates an apprenticeship of diverse elements of the language: suitable intonation, correct pronunciation, separation of sense groups, and learning to organize conversations by narrating the headboard.

5. Conclusion

Anyone with any level of education will agree that it is very important to learn about the world around us and our place in that world. This not only enhances our ability to enjoy life and humanity, but it also improves our socializing skills, develops our character and creativity, as well as enriches our understanding of the complexities and subtleties of life. For this reason, I believe that many of us, if not all, will agree that studying English and literature are an important part of our education. This is not only because we can understand culture and appreciate it, but also because English and literature are able to support knowledge and many other aspects that we appear to be less aware of.

Our nation, Indonesia, still uses forced education standards, national exams, dictionary-based language testing that only tests its ability to spell and compose sentences and essays. The era we are currently in is an era that requires human assets to be more knowledgeable, flexible, creative, and able to work in teams and communicate well. This means Indonesian students are not only required to master knowledge and cognitive skills, but also social skills and interpersonal relationships that require emotional intelligence. However, the reality that exists today, Pancasila education as the nation’s identity has been and is increasingly absorbed or replaced by other cultural systems or ideologies. Therefore, serving the needs of social exposure and social change required by others must be balanced with the crystallization of the basic values of the nation, namely the original identity of the Indonesian nation. Meanwhile, the means by which it can be developed into moral and creative patriots is through a system oriented towards increasing the students’ awareness of their identity in relation to other world cultures, appreciating beauty, respecting human dignity, and believing in religious principles that exist in their hearts.