CRITICAL BOOK REVIEW

LITERATURE ON ELT
Lecturer : Yeni Erlita, S.Pd, M.Hum

ARRANGED BY :

NUR ARFA DILA (2173121051)

RAIHANA SAKDIYAH (2171121025)
RIDA SAFIRA (2171121026)
SHIFA KHAIRINA (2173321043)
VANNESSA NURUL IZZAH NST (2171121032)

DIK 17 D

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

2019
I. IDENTITY OF THE BOOK

BOOK 1

Title : Teaching Literature Overseas:

Language-based Approaches

Editor : C. J. Brumfit

Publisher : British Council

ISBN : ISBN 0-08-030341-2

First year of published : 1983

Re-published on : 2019

BOOK 2

Title : Literature in Language Education

Author : Geoff Hall

Editor : Christopher N. Candlin

Publisher : PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Published year : 2005

ISBN-13 : 978–1–4039–4335–4 hardback

ISBN-13 : 978–1–4039–4336–1 paperback

ISBN-10 : 1–4039–4335–4 hardback

ISBN-10 : 1–4039–4336–2 paperback

2. THE CONTENT

Summary of book 1 :

The British Council was established in 1934 and one of our main aims has always been
to promote a wider knowledge of the English language. Over the years we have issued many
important publications that have set the agenda for ELT professionals, often in partnership
with other organisations and institutions. As part of our 75th anniversary celebrations, British
council re-launched a selection of these publications online, and more have now been added
in connection with their 80th anniversary. Many of the messages and ideas are just as relevant
today as they were when first published.

This 1983 book is intended to promote discussion and experimentation in what had
become a neglected field – that of English literature study abroad in the context of language
teaching. The Introduction (by Neil Gilroy-Scott, although the volume’s overall editor is
Christopher Brumfit) describes a frequent assumption in language education that students
would be able to deal with literature once they had learned the language, and that meanwhile
they needed to be ‘protected’ from literary texts.

As a consequence, students were not only ill-equipped for future literary study, but also
denied potential language-learning activities. In contrast with the resistance by many to the
use of literature in the English language classroom, a few practitioners were involved in
innovative work, often related to the developing field of literary stylistics. According to
Gilroy-Scott, the authors included in this volume ‘share a willingness to take a fresh look at
what is involved in the reading and studying of literature and its language’.

Summary of book 2

3. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS OF THE BOOKS

Strengths of book 1:

Thus the papers in this collection are intended to promote discussion and experiment in
what has so far been a much neglected field. They tend to focus more on the application of
language studies to literature and this reflects the general prominence given to literary
stylistics in recent years. Much less has been written on the use of authentic literary texts for
language learning, but there are signs that developments in communicative language teaching
will do much to remove the theoretical objections which have so far reduced its role to
minimal proportions.

There is a need for developmental work on teaching the reading of literature as opposed
to the study of literature, and it is in this that the interests and aims of both the language and
literature teacher overlap. In saying this one is not denying the usefulness or importance of the
examination of extrinsic features of text, but simply redressing an imbalance which has
emphasized them at the expense of other aspects of the art of reading.
Weakness of book 1 :

Not all the contributors to this collection would take such a subjective attitude to
meaning. Alex Rodger for example stresses the importance of language sensitivity based on a
wider knowledge of language variety and an ability to recognize and analyse objectively how
language is being used in a text. The effort here is to ascertain what the author is doing with
the language in order to see what he meant. In this respect it is, albeit indirectly, an author-
centred approach to meaning. But with its concern for 'communi- cation awareness' it sees
such analysis as an indispensable aid to the achievement of genuine reader/text interraction,
and a personal response to the work.

Strengths of book 2

Weakness of book 2

4. CONCLUSION