CRITICAL BOOK REVIEW

LITERATURE IN ELT
LECTURER: MAYA OKTORA, S.Pd., M.Hum.

ARRANGED BY:
DONI SETIAWAN SINAGA (2191121001)
ENGLISH EDUCATION 2019 CLASS A
LANGUAGES AND ARTS FACULTY
MEDAN STATE UNIVERSITY
2021
 PREFACE
First of all, the writer would like saying “thanks” for God’s love and grace for us.
Thanks to God for helping the writer and give the writer chance to finish this
assignment. And the writers would like to say “Thank you” to Ma’am Maya Oktora,
S.Pd., M.Hum. as the lecturer that always teaches us and give much knowledge about
how to practice English well.

This assignment is the one of English task that composed of critical book review
in Literature in ELT subject. The writer realized this assignment is not perfect. But
The writer hope that it can be useful for us. Critics and suggestion are needed here to
make this assignment be better. Hopefully, we as a student in State University of
Medan can work more professional by using English as the second language . Thank
you.

Medan, February 2021

The Author
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKROUND OF WRITING THIS PAPER

Literature has not only many functions, but power. Many experts identify this power, for
instance what is said by Kelly (1996:8) that some of the major values of (children) literature are
enjoyment, aesthetics, understanding, imagination, information and knowledge, cognition, and
language. In short this idea can be explained as follows. It is the fact that good books give
readers pleasure, enjoyment when reading them. Aesthetics pertains to the beauty that the readers
perceive in a literary work. Literature is a verbal art that leads readers to appreciate the beauty of
language. It adds aesthetic dimensions to readers‟ lives, leading them to view their personal
experiences in different ways. Fictions, nonfiction and poetry are artistic interpretations of
experiences, events and people.

Literature also has the value of enhancing understanding self and others. By reading literature
readers will perceive themselves by reflecting others experience through the book. also,
understanding cultures lead readers learn about the ties that unite people everywhere. people who
come to understand and appreciate various cultures are more likely to realize that people
throughout the world share the same emotions, experiences, and problems. Literary work also
functions for developing imagination. Imagination is a creative, constructive, power. Every
aspect of daily life involves imagination. People imagine as they talk and interact with others,
make choice and decisions, analyze news reports, or assess advertising and entertainment (Sloan
in Kelly 1996). Creative thought and imagination are intimately related to higher-order thinking
skills. Literature is essential to educating the imagination as it illustrates the unlimited range of
the human imagination and extends readers‟ personal visions of possibilities. Based on these
questions, reviewer identify a book that can be used as a source of information to do writing well
for readers. And also reviewers can add knowledge about literature in elt from the analyzed book
and find out the weaknesses and strengths of the book.

1.2 OBJECTIVE AND BENEFITS OF CBR

As a student college of a university exactly in English Education and Literature Department,

it is very important for us to do this CBR because reviewer could get a lot of utility such as add
knowledge about "Literature in ELT" well and train our mind to think over and more accurate
about some trouble in Literature in ELT subject as well as create us as the critical person to
become a good teacher in the future.

1.3 PURPOSE OF THE PROBLEM CBR

 This Critical Book Review is made for several literacy purposes, such as:

1. CBR is made to fulfill credit assignments in Literature in ELT subject.

2. This CBR was created to add to our recognition in criticizing Literature in ELT book.

3. CBR was created to increase our understanding of the material in Literature in ELT subject.

4. CBR is also made to be able to conclude and provide suggestions from the results of the
analysis of the contents of the book and can interpret the lessons

1.4 IDENTITY OF BOOK

1. Title of book : Literature and Language Teaching: A Guide for Teachers and Trainers

2. The Authors of book : Gillian Lazar

3. Publisher : Cambridge University Press

4. City of publisher : New York

5. Year of publishing : 1993

6. Edition of Book : First Edition

7. Pages : 283 Pages

8. ISBN : 978-0-521-40651-2

CHAPTER II
 SUMMARY OF THE BOOK
Chapter 1 Using literature in the language classroom:The issues

In this chapter, the author explain started to think about some of the underlying issues and
concerns involved in using literature in the language classroom. Readers may find that reader
have more questions than answers relating to some of the areas author have touched on. If so,
why not write down some of these questions, queries or points for discussion? Readers may find
answers to them later on in the book or in some of the supplementary reading reader might
choose to do. Or reader could discuss some of these ideas with reader colleagues.

Literature is a term used to describe written and sometimes spoken material. Actually, the
practical language is used for acts of communication but in literary, the language is used to
emphasize the beauty of the language by using different words (we can say using traditional
words or formal words) to make it seems different but actually the same. That is why it's rather
difficult to know the meaning of the literary language. Novels, short stories, plays and poems
which are the example of literature. The use of literature in language teaching in classroom is
important for a number of reasons.

First, literature is very motivating. The useof literature in the language teaching in classroom
can improve student creativity e.g. through poems, stories or performances of plays. Literature
can help learners to develop their understanding of other cultures, increase awareness of
‘difference' to develop tolerance among students and society. Literature provides authentic
materials in which can help students to become more sensitive to some of the overall features of
English Literature develops interpretive skill; interpretive skills are important in the language
learning process because when students try to build meaning and understand texts, it's
stimulating the acquisition of the language as it provides meaningful and memorable contexts for
processing and interpreting new language. Literature can also develop the imagination of
students, improve their critical abilities and increase their emotional awareness. If reader ask the
students to respond personally to the texts reader give them confidence to express their own
ideas and emotions in English. Other than that, the use literature in class is expanding the
students' awareness about language. They are no longer think that language as narrow as they
thought before.

Chapter 2 Approaches to using literature with the language learner

In the contents of this book chapter, the author explains that the aim of this chapter is to
examine the possible approaches which reader could draw on when using literature with reader
students. Pinpointing possible approaches can help us to select and design materials for
classroom use, as well as to assess the suitability of published materials. Teacher begin by
considering these approaches in very general terms; later sections will examine some of the
issues and problems they raise in more specific details. Studying the language of the literary text
will help to integrate the language and literature syllabuses more closely. Detailed analysis of the
language of the literary text will help students to make meaningful interpretations or informed
evaluations of it. At the same time, students will increase their general awareness and
understanding of English. Students are encouraged to draw on their knowledge of familiar
grammatical, lexical or discourse categories to make aesthetic judgments of the text.

This is the most traditional approach, frequently used in tertiary education. Literature itself is
the content of the course, which concentrates on areas such as the history and characteristics of
literary movements; the social, political and historical background to a text; literary genres and
rhetorical devices, etc. Students acquire English by focusing on course content, particularly
through reading set texts and literary criticism relating to them. The mother tongue of the
students may be used to discuss the texts, or students may be asked to translate texts from one
language into the other.

Chapter 3 Selecting and evaluating materials

In the contents of the book chapter, the author explains considered different approaches to
using literature with the language learner, and in Section 2.1, author discussed whether it was
appropriate to use literature with particular groups of learners. In this chapter author focus more
specifically on how to select texts and materials which are suitable for use with students. Of
course, reader may not have a choice of either texts or materials. Perhaps reader are bound by a
syllabus which sets out what literary texts reader have to use with reader students even though
reader can design the tasks to exploit these texts yourself. Or the syllabus may lay down both the
texts and the exercises and tasks needed to exploit them. If reader do have some choice in the
selection of texts and materials, then Section 3.1 will help to pinpoint some criteria for selecting
literary texts to use with reader learners, while Section 3.2 suggests ways of evaluating published
materials

Chapter 4 Reading literature cross-culturally

In the contents of the book chapter, the author describes touched very briefly on the problems
of teaching literature across cultures. It was pointed out that readers invariably interpret texts in
the light of their own world-view and cultural experience. It was also mentioned that the
relationship between a literary text and the culture in which it is produced is highly complex,
since few texts are their factual representations of their culture. In any teaching situation, there
are obviously some literary texts which are likely to present fewer cultural problems for students
than others. For example, a text in English by a writer of a similar cultural background to the
group of students studying the text may be more culturally accessible than a text written by an
author from a culture far removed from the students' own. On the other hand, a text from another
culture which deals with themes relevant to the students' own society may prove to be both
accessible and absorbing. In other words, the selection of suitable texts can be quite complicated.
And as there are many countries in the world where teachers have little say in the choice of texts,
author may sometimes find ourselves using texts which are remote from our students' own
experience. In addition, although students may find it easier to respond personally to a text from
within their own culture, there is a strong argument for saying that exposing students to literature
from other cultures is an enriching and exciting way of increasing their awareness of different
values, beliefs, social structures and so on. Whatever the reasons, then, for using a text which
students find culturally difficult, from the perspective of the teachers there are practical
difficulties. In this chapter, author aim to identify what some of these problems might be so that
author can suggest a few ways of overcoming them.

Chapter 5 Materials design and lessons planning: Novels and short stories

In the contents of the book chapter, the author explains about identified some of the
characteristic features of the short story and novel. Author focused on some of the typical
problems students experience when reading a short story and suggested some techniques and
activities to help them overcome these problems. In this section author think about using a novel
with the language learner. in fact, a great many of the ideas discussed in Sections 5.1 to 5.6 are
as relevant to the novel as to the short story, but in this section we aim to pinpoint any problems
specific to using a novel in the language classroom.

Reader have already said that novels and short stories share a great many features in
common. Like the short story, the traditional novel involves a chronological sequence of events,
linked by relations of cause and effects. The description of events in a novel is shaped by a
narrator, and the language of the novel is used in a highly self-conscious way to convey
particular effects. Nevertheless, there are a few generic features which author are more likely to
find in a novel than in a short story, although author cannot say rigidly that these features are
exclusive to the novels rather than the short story. As in all literary texts there may be
considerable overlap between the characteristics of one genre and another.

Chapter 6 Materials design and lessons planning: Poetry

In the contents of the book chapter, the author describes a metaphor as a connection or
comparison made between things which are usually considered to be unlike each other. Students
might find it difficult to understand and interpret a metaphor in a poem for a number of reasons.
To begin with, it may not be very clear to students that a metaphor is being used, or rather that a
metaphorical reading of a poem is required. Author can quite happily read Frost's poem
(Example E) as a simple account of a journey - but because it is a poem, author start to ask
ourselves what the journey and the woods represent symbolically. If students are used to learning
English in a way that parcels up meaning tidily, they may feel uncomfortable when asked to
speculate on the possible metaphorical meanings for the woods in the poem.

They do this by inferring what characteristics or qualities they have in common, for example
brightness, warmth, etc. Then they need to be able to infer what effect is created by describing
one in terms of the other. In other words, understanding metaphors involves engaging in a series
of linguistic inferences. Students might find this problematic, particularly if two very disparate
objects or concepts are somehow conjoined in the metaphor, or if it is not very clear what is
being compared to what. In the first verse of Emily Dickinson's Evening, for example, the sunset
and the evening are never named directly in the poem, but are described figuratively in terms of a
housewife sweeping the sky with colored brooms. Another problem that can arise is that readers
interpret metaphors by drawing on their own individual associations. To some extent these
associations will be determined by the customs and conventions of their society. A red rose in
British society, for example, generally signifies love, romance, passion. But author may find that
students from other societies have different cultural associations when interpreting this metaphor.
Author need to strike a balance between allowing the integrity of the students' own
interpretations, while simultaneously pointing to the likely symbolic meaning for members of
that community to which a writer might belong.

Chapter 7 Materials design and lessons planning: Plays

This book has focused two distinctive features of plays were mentioned - that a play exists in
performance, but that it also exists as words on a page, or a text. Of course, neither of these
views are mutually exclusive, since all performances begin from an interpretation of words on a
page; and without those words the gestures and movements of the cast, the sets and costumes, the
lighting and music would be meaningless. But thinking about performance and text separately
can direct our attention to some of the benefits of using plays, or extracts from plays, in the
classroom. Let's begin with the words on the page. Since most plays are rich in dialogue, using a
play with students is a useful and exciting way of focussing on conversational language.1
Dialogue in a play clearly differs from dialogue in everyday conversation in that it is 'tidied up'
in some ways. It probably contains a few of the hesitations, pauses, incomplete sentences and
interruptions of everyday conversation. However, it can be used to highlight certain important
features of conversational discourse.2

In Section 7.2 author examined an extract from a play in which one character, Teacher, says to
the other, Rutter, 'What's happened to the fellowship of man, brotherly love?' It is clear that he is
not engaging in some casual philosophising, but how, exactly, are reader to understand his
question? Is it a pointed sarcasm, a sad rhetorical question or a sharp rebuke to the other
character for refusing to give him a teabag? On the surface, a question about brotherly love at
this point in the conversation may seem irrelevant. Reader can only see its relevance if we
understand it to imply that Rutter is being less than brotherly in refusing to give Teacher a tea
bag. And reader reach this interpretation of his words from our contextual knowledge of what
has come before in the conversation, as well as Teacher's probable motives for making this
comment. In other words, in order to make sense of the dialogue we need to move beyond the
surface meaning of Teacher's words to an interpretation of what is implied by what he says. And
by asking our students to try to tease out what lies behind the apparent meanings of dialogues
from plays such as this one, teacher are broadening their understanding of conversational
discourse. At the same time, teacher will be exposing them to other features of conversational
language - how conversations are ordered and sequenced in English, what kinds of formulaic
expressions it is appropriate to use in different contexts, how what people say in a conversation
reflects their relationship and relative status.

Chapter 8 Reflecting on the literature lesson

In this chapter reader will find a series of observation tasks which are intended to help readers
reflect in a principled manner on the way in which reader or other teachers have used literature in
a language lesson. The aim of many of these tasks is to help both the observer and the person
being observed to focus on any recordable data or evidence that they find in the lesson and from
this evidence to reach certain conclusions about the effectiveness of different aspects of a lesson.
Reflecting on observable evidence in the lesson can help both the observer and the person
observed to develop greater insights into their own teaching, and may spark off new and creative
ideas about alternative ways of doing things. The observation tasks in this chapter can be used in
a number of different ways. You can use them yourself to think about your own teaching, taking
the roles of both 'teacher' and 'observer'. One useful procedure for this is to record all or part of
your lesson on audio or video cassette for analysis later. Or reader could simply use the
observation task to guide you in your reflections on reader lesson. Another way of using the
tasks is to discuss them with someone (e.g. a trainer or colleague) who has observed reader
lesson. This observer could be particularly helpful in gathering data for reader so that in the
discussion following the lesson you can jointly suggest solutions to any of the problems that
came up in the lesson.

Alternatively, reader can use the tasks to observe another teacher's lesson - whether this is a
colleague 'micro-teaching' or your trainer teaching your own group. Reader role here would be to
make notes about certain aspects of the lesson so that reader and the person being observed can
reflect on these and any new insights they provide.1 There are two important points to bear in
mind while using these observation tasks. First, since the subject of this book is the use of
literature in the language classroom, all the tasks are concerned directly with this, rather than
with more general teaching techniques or practices.2 Secondly, reader may find it useful to use a
particular task after you have read or studied a specific chapter or section of this book, so that
reader get an opportunity to experiment in the classroom with some of the ideas discussed in that
part of the book. For example, Task 3 which focusses on dealing with linguistic problems in the
literature lesson could be used after reader have read Sections 2.2 and 2.3 which address this
topics.

Chapter 9 Literature and self-access

 In this chapter the author thinks about ways of encouraging our students to enjoy literature by
themselves by making use of a self-access literature centre. Setting up a literature self-access
center requires planning and resources, the second of which may be in fairly short supply. But
even with fairly limited resources it may be possible, with imagination and initiative, to establish
a center of some kind. Author begins this chapter by describing a self-access center and then
listing some of the reasons for establishing one. In the rest of the chapter Author consider ways
in which a center can be set up and how we can encourage our students to use it.

A literature self-access center is a library or small collection of texts for students to read on
their own with minimal supervision. The reading can be done either in class time or for
homework. The self-access center could consist of:

- literary texts such as novels, plays, short stories, anthologies of poetry and/or graded readers in
a school library, from which students are encouraged to borrow on a regular basis

- a box or file of literary extracts, short stories and poems kept in the classroom and from which
students select and borrow texts

- a small collection of books (novels, short story collections, poetry anthologies, etc.) which are
kept in the classroom and from which students borrow regularly

- a collection of video recordings of plays or films based on novels, and audio recordings of
literary texts which students are encouraged to work through on their own - perhaps after reading
the original literary texts.

CHAPTER III
 ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION

After reading the book, the reviewers find that the language author used to explain the
material of the book's communicative which makes the content easy to understand by its
coherent organization in explaining the matter. It can be seen from: first, the author gives a brief
tour about what's going to be discussed in the book and give the limitation of what to discus on
the very first page of the chapter. Then, briefly but clearly explain about the material before
giving the task for readers to practice. These tasks are really do help the target users in
developing their knowledge about the matter, this book is necessarily suitable for guiding
teachers and trainers. In addition, the references on the book can be a tool for target readers to
get further reading and to get the whole point of the material. With conclusion and end notes this
book has been provided such a good guide as it claims.

It can be stated that this chapter particularly delivered its materials through tasks that
readers could finish. Due to the existence of this tasks, reviewer find that the materials provided
to explain more about the chapter's contents is too lack to be understood. Readers actually find it
harder to understand some important points of this chapter as well. As what the sub-chapter
stated; about how to consider the difficulties in reading cross culturally text, the authors tend to
ask readers to place themselves as students and try to answer the tasks about cross culturally text.
This will make readers feel difficult in finding what the real points of difficulties students might
feel that readers specifically need to know. In addition, the cross culturally texts that are used as
the examples seem to be too difficult for the Indonesian students. The vocabularies involved are
mostly rare to find in daily conversation, therefore reviewer think it would not be able to be well
implemented if a teacher supposed to give the students especially the remote area students this
kind of literary texts to be read.

. Any of the strengths of this chapter are several solutions and methods to many problems in
cultural literature teaching. Through these techniques, readers could easily boost their
understanding of the values and cultural issues. The fact that the questions and exercises
provided are very current and interesting, it also becomes one of the strengths that can be seen in
this chapter. However, the drawback of this chapter is due to the presence of the many tasks and
the lack of materials that the readers had to learn. It will lead the readers to certainly find the
essential aspects of this chapter more difficult. Furthermore, it seems too difficult for the
Indonesian students to use cross-cultural texts by the examples provided in this chapter because
as reviewer can see, the language used is typically uncommon in everyday discussions. All in all,
reviewer hope the writer maintains the good quality of this book especially with the strategies
which are very useful for the readers to overcoming the problems occurred in some specific
aspects. Along with it, reviewer also hope for the drawbacks which exist in this chapter can be
addressed properly through significant changes by adding some more materials and modifying
the examples of the texts with changing the language that is easier to understand and use in
everyday life.

However, there seems something this book lacks. The book only consists of a brief
explanation of the matter and seems to try to give the target users understanding through the
tasks provided in the book. While such organization fits to the target readers, some might find it
difficult to link every information they get without a summary this book lacks. Thus, the
reviewers think that it might be the case of necessity to write a form of note to help the readers to
link the whole material. Lastly, the reviewers can't overlook the font and the spacing system. The
font size is rather too small and the spacing is too little that some might find it's uncomfortable
reading the book.

In conclusion, the book entitled Literature and Language Teaching has been a quite guide
to its target users and been so well in the content organization, however it might be necessary to
put on a little more explanation and if not form of note to help the target users link the
information they obtained. With a little care to the font size and spacing system, this book will be
best to meet the need of target users.
 CHAPTER IV

CLOSING

4.1 Conclusion
After analyzing the contents of the book, reviewers conclude that the author of the book
provides a good understanding of how to write, compose, and other types of written scientific
communication in the book. The author of the book focuses on important elements of discourse
such as word form and clarity guides readers through the process of writing scientific papers for
submission to peer-reviewed journals. Author also offer researchers a complete framework for
compiling a paper. It cannot be denied that mastery of scientific writing is a must for those who
have functional jobs, such as teaching and educating. Unfortunately, many lecturers, teachers
still doubt how to produce the written work or research articles they need to reach a higher level
in their profession. Likewise, many students still have difficulty writing essays or theses that they
must complete to graduate from their study program. Hopefully someone's understanding of
these topics can enlighten him to produce better scientific papers.

4.2 Suggestion
Reviewers provide on the analysis of this book that this book is a good source for
understanding scientific writing. Discussion of the contents of the book that covers the problems
of all the needs for scientific writing and reviewers provide suggestions to book authors, namely
providing exercises or questions about the contents of chapters and providing conclusions that
are very easy to understand by readers.
 REFERENCES
Gillian Lazar.(1993). Literature and Language Teaching: A Guide for Teachers and Trainers.
New York. Cambridge University Press