is usually not an option in teaching English in junior high school. In junior high

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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

Background and Motivation

English literature is a useful material for teaching and learning English, but it

is usually not an option in teaching English in junior high school. In junior high

school, English teachers are busy teaching English textbooks for keeping up the

schedules of schools’ term exams. Besides, struggling between 5 subjects from the

first year to the last year in junior high schools, most hard-working students are too

exhausted to read more in their free time after school. Enjoying reading literature

pressure-freely doesn’t seem to be possible to junior high school students. To these

students, learning English and learning English well mean doing exercises related to

the textbooks and get good grades in the exams.

Buried in books and exams, students see English as an academic subject, which

is supposed to be memorized, recited and practiced, and to be tested. After the

required materials are tested, they are quickly forgotten. However, if we English

teachers can add some spices in our daily teaching routines with some humorous and

light literary elements without testing them, reading in English would be a pure

enjoyment. In that case, students would be more willing to learn English in school,

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and furthermore, hopefully, cultivate themselves the motivations to read

extracurricular materials out of school, and keep a lifetime reading habit in English.

Therefore, the main goal in this research is primarily committed to a personal

growth model of literature teaching, in which the teaching goal is to try to help

students to achieve an engagement with the reading of literary texts. This engagement

cannot really be measured in terms of passing examinations in literature; the test of

the teacher’s success in teaching literature is the extent to which students carry with

them beyond the classroom an enjoyment and love for literature which is renewed as

they continue to engage with literature through their lives.

To encourage personal growth the teacher has to stimulate and enliven students

in the literature class by selecting texts to which students can respond and in which

they can participate imaginatively. (Teaching Literature, P.3)To achieve that end,

humorous materials are the first choices because humor is one of the best vehicles for

language teaching and its motivational value cannot be overestimated. (Laughing

Matters, P.5) Once humor is in the classroom, the learning becomes alive. In the

classroom, humor and its accompanying laughter appear to be good for students as

well as teachers. It seems that humorous words－jokes, for example, strengthen bonds

between people. Teachers who weave humor about the topic into their material seem

to be more effective in the classroom than those teachers who don’t use humor.

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Humor enhances children’s ability to master new material. Additionally, humorous

nonsense also appeals to the interests of children, is beneficial because of its bonding

and attention-getting potential, and has various forms that can be used in the

classroom. (Taking Humor Seriously in Children’s Literature, P.3)

And in all Shel Silverstein books, it is the humor that sells, convinces, and

persuades even the most reluctant readers of poetry. The range of humor in the books

makes them appealing to a wide range of school-aged children. (Shel Silverstein,

P.128) The drawings and poems of Shel Silverstein are so much fun that they are to be

enjoyed, not to be taught. Therefore, using read-aloud to enjoy the rhythms and humor

of Shel Silverstein poems is the key approach in this research. After all, lifetime

readers are not created by worksheets, homework, assessments, book reports, and

flash cards. They just love what they read.

Statement of the Problem

In the most English textbooks for junior high school students in Taiwan, each

lesson contains a dialogue and a reading, and what teachers do with the lesson is to

teach students the new words of the lesson and explain the dialogue and the reading so

students can master the vocabulary and the grammar and to get good grades in the

tests. Mastering the vocabulary and the grammar may help students get good grades,

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but they never make students laugh from the heart. English is so exam-oriented that

pleasures seldom come along with it.

However, students are pleasure-oriented. The more fun students get from English,

the more time students will spend on it; the more time students spend on it, the better

students get at it, the more students like it; and the more students like it, the more they

learn it. In order to create the lifetime readers in English, choosing the materials that

delight students is very crucial. And Shel Silverstein’s poems can do the work. His

unique black-and-white illustrations and humorous poems always make children

laugh after reading them. Once they have the pleasures in reading English, they will

learn English spontaneously with enjoyment.

Through the study, the researcher aims to answer the following questions: Does

reading aloud children’s poetry improve students’ English ability? How do students

feel about the selected materials? Does reading aloud humorous children’s poetry

motivate students to read in English? What are the effects of reading-aloud the poems

of Shel Silverstein?

Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of the study is to motivate students to read in English on their

own after they graduate from schools. The focus is on how they respond to reading

Shel Silverstein’s poems and to see if they are motivated to read on after being

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introduced to the world of English literature. The researcher hopes that this study can

provide valuable information and experiences for junior high school EFL teachers

who would like to teach English besides textbooks.

Research Questions

This study aims to describe how junior high EFL students respond to English

children’s poetry teaching through read-aloud approach by answering the following

questions:

1. How does reading aloud children’s poetry help students in learning English?

2. How do the students respond to the poems selected in this study?

3. What are the students’ attitudes toward reading children’s poetry in class after the

study?

4. What difficulties do the students have and how do they deal with the difficulties in

reading the poems?

5. What do students gain from reading Shel Silverstein’s poems?

Significance of the Study

The findings of this study will help educators to understand applying read-aloud

approach to teach English children’s poetry in EFL classroom and provide valuable

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information for junior high school EFL teachers who would like to teach students to

enjoy reading in English. Enjoying reading means taking pleasure in reading, which is

something testing can never provide. For that reason, the researcher uses no tests and

exams in this study to keep students interested in reading in English. After all, lifetime

readers are not made from tests and exams.

Limitation of the Study

There were some restrictions about this research. Because students, especially

the senior students themselves who are going to have the big BCE（Basic Competency

Exam）, and their parents all hope they can get good grades in the big exam, teachers

in junior high schools have to finish teaching the required lessons for each term exam.

In that case, practicing and reviewing the required materials over and over again

are the routines in schools; the time for enjoying reading in English pressure-free is

very limited, the researcher can only use the time when the class routines are finished.

And because of the time limitation, it was not possible for the researcher to read aloud

poems in every class, so the researcher could only share 17 poems with the students in

three months whenever there was time.

Besides, there are only 36 students in the study; the findings of the research may

not be applicable to all junior high schools in Taiwan.

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Overview of This Study

Chapter 1 is an introduction to the background and motivation, statement of the

problems, purpose of the study, research questions, significance of the study, and

limitation of the study.

Chapter 2 presents the benefits of the read-aloud approach, the advantages of

using humor in language teaching and learning, and the advantages of using children’s

poetry as a valuable teaching tool.

Chapter 3 describes the methodology of the present study, including the subjects,