Engaging Literary Competence through Critical Literacy in an EFL Setting

摘要

In the process of developing students' literary competence, especially in the aspect of the ability to respond appropriately to all literature in a target language, students' literacy in the target language becomes a challenge that a teacher must face. This paper then proposes the initiation of literary competence through critical literacy in the target language. The study involved 84 university students that study English Literature in an EFL context. They were asked to critically read English literary texts and discuss in a group about the texts and then they were asked to write what they think about the texts. Their writings were then analyzed to see the students' ability to response appropriately to the texts in the target language. The 8 students were randomly selected to be interviewed about their attitude and reflection on the critical literacy activities and literary competence. The results show that only small number of students are able to engage in their literary competence within the interactional critical activities. Furthermore, the implementation of the activities of critical reading and discussing about literary texts and writing self-reflections are expected to improve the students' literacy and literary competence.