“One book, One student” the Best Arrangement to Teach English Through Literature

Heri septiawan
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“One book, One student” the Best Arrangement to Teach English Through Literature

In one occasion, my friend and I exchanged reading one book. After the appointed day, we shared it based on own point of view. As a result, the ideas about it were not the same; my friend said it was a boring story, but I judged it a good story. The description above is real. It happens continuously; every time my friend and I read one book and shared it.
The reality shows that reading is a private activity. No one have the same idea about what they read. Even, students in basic level will show the phenomenon; let them to read one text and ask them to answer the questions given, certainly, they will answer with different ideas if they do not cheat!.
As English teachers who want to teach English through literature, understanding the nature of reading is a very important aspect of teaching plan. Reading is a passive activity, where through it students will get ideas or knowledge. As the passive activity, teachers should consider the needs and interests of the students, so that they will enjoy their reading and get more knowledge easily.
Reading interests and difficulty, developmental stages that young people face, and intellectual ability are all considered before suggesting a book to a particular student. Therefore, in my experience, ‘one book, one student’ best suits with me. This organizational reading shall meet the needs and interests of each student. As a result, they will easily judge the book and get ideas of the book, their own books.
In consideration, books are written in line with the level of their readers. One book will be easy to understand by one student but, will be difficult for other students. The understanding skill to read comprehensively one book is related to their intellectual ability, so if one book is given to whole class, students will have no full interaction with the book used. However, it does not mean that teachers will underestimate the lower students but, it is the way to engage the lower students to get their interests in reading. Hopefully, their senses of reading will be built and getting developed time by time they read their own lovely book.
One thing that it shall build classroom as reading laboratory is reading peers or sharing ideas from the read books. If every student reads their own books and they share it together with their friends, so how many books will be discussed in the classroom, there must be a lot of ideas, and experience to be shared. Automatically, it creates the increasing of knowledge and improvement their skills. One should be noted, in middle and high school, as their intellectual and developmental stages are getting better, so their reading will be encouraged as independence reading. They want to read what suits with their interests and needs, if not they will not have senses of reading. In context of teaching English through literature, it is effective way to increase their reading skills based on English.
In conclusion, this approach will have more advantages to build reading skills regarding the interests and needs of students’. The arrangement of this approach will create optimum classroom reading achievement since every student reads what the best for them and they share it. Doing restrictive reading for students just makes them bored to read. There is no sensitivity, interaction and sense to what they read and the predictable result is they will be non reading person just after they finish their study at school. Reading comprehensively means the students can respond the books based on their own point of view. In this way, students will have more responsibility for their reading/literature program. Beside that, teaching English through literature will be effective since students show their interests in reading, consequently, they enjoy reading and follow English program through literature.