SHORT STORY APPRECIATION: A look at Students' Competence

INTRODUCTION
Many experts have talked about language learning or language teaching; they all have talked about the theory, the principles, the approaches, the strategies, and the objective of language learning.
Robert Lado (1964) argued that one can only learn a language if deals decisively with its cultural content. And one of the aims of teaching a foreign language according to Wilga Rivers is “ to bring students a greater understanding of people across national barriers by giving them a sympathetic insight into the ways of life and the ways of thinking of the people who speak the language they are learning, and to increase the students’ personal culture through the study of the great literature and philosophy” (in Frederick, 1988: 9).
Both Lado and Rivers, therefore, seem to agree in one point, that learning a language should not be separated from the learning the pattern and values of culture of which it is a part.
Widdowson (1975) claimed that there are two levels of linguistic knowledge; the level of usage and the level of use. Usage involves a knowledge of linguistic rules, whereas use entails knowing how to use this rule for effective communication. Since literature uses language as its medium, it seems reasonable to contribute a language use.
Literature, according to Sandra McKay (in Frederick, 1988), will increase all language skills because it presents language that illustrates a particular dialect which is embedded within a social context. As such, literature deals for developing an awareness of language use. Furthermore, it can foster an overall increase in reading proficiency. If students enjoy reading literature, it may increase their motivation to interact with the text. Reading a foreign culture through literature may also increase students’ understanding of that culture and is likely to spurs their own imaginative writing.
For most students, literature can provide a key to motivating them to read in English; and for all, literature is an ideal vehicle for illustrating language use and for introducing cultural assumptions.
However, it should noted that success in using literature in language learning, depends greatly upon the selection of the text which will not be too difficult for students, either on linguistic or conceptual level. Literature, therefore, should be taught when the students are advanced in their control of the language, and their understanding of the culture and literature.
According to Lado, finding a way to prepare students to understand and experience a particular piece of literature is likely to be the teachers’ responsibility. One way of doing this is to treat vocabulary before hand, so that when the piece of literature is read, it can be read, understood, and appreciated (1964: 142).
For the English language teachers and lecturers, although the students do not yet fluently express their English, either in speaking or writing, they are still able to comprehend when they discuss a piece of literary work, since they come from a society which has its own literature. They have read and studied poems, plays, novel, or short stories in their own language. Hence, they are familiar with the elements and forms of literature written in their native language.
At the English Department of the State University of Makassar, in particular at the English Literature Study Program, the current condition of the teaching of literature is promising enough since the program offers several courses on literature; namely: Introduction to Literature, Prose 1 and Prose 2, Poetry 1 and Poetry 2, Drama 1 and Drama 2, Comparative Literature, Creative Writing, and Australian Literature. However, compared to linguistic aspect, the portion of literature is deliberately low. This is proved by the fact that only 10 (16,67%) courses deal with literature.
This study was conducted to have a description on the students’ ability in short story appreciation by means of objective approach, and to get to know whether their ability varies in appreciating different kind of short stories. By objective approach the emphasis of the appreciation is on the literary work itself as an autonomous structure. This means that the literary work is just analyzed from the elements that build it up. The reason why this study was conducted is a prior confirmation for lecturers of English in order that they are able to treat the students properly based on the students’ needs. It can also become a proof of a promising condition of the teaching of literature at the English Department.
PERTINENT LITERATURE
The Classification of Short Stories
Short story can be classified according to its emphasized element. The emphasized element determined the action of the story (Sumardjo, 1984: 70). Hence, short story can be classified into five; namely:
· Characteristic short story; that is the short story describing certain aspect of human characteristics, such as stingy, honest, ashamed, and so on,
· Plot short story; emphasizing the happening of a very exciting event,
· Thematic short story; emphasizing the theme,
· Setting short story; tends to describe the background location where the story takes place, and
· Situational short story; that is the short story seemingly having no story at all, but it is interesting because of the situations described by the author.
Short Story Appreciation
Lexically, the term “appreciation” means the recognition of feelings or sensitiveness of inner mental, the recognition of aesthetic values grown up by the author, or the sense of satisfaction and judgment of aesthetic values developed by the author (Gove, 1969: 105).
Appreciating literary works, including short stories, is not just a brief activity; that is to say that the reader does not only understand the story he reads but he ought to do this continuously. An appreciator must be able to understand and evaluate all aspects that build up the story (Tanuwijaya, 1986:18).
According to Wardani, the process of literary appreciation can be divided into four levels; namely:
· Level of likeness; where the students begin to have an interest in reading literary works.
· Level of enjoyment; where the students begin to have an enjoyment when they read literary works due to the growth of their understanding
· Level of reacting; where the students begin to offer their opinion or comment on a certain literary works they enjoy
· Level of producing; where the students begin to create literary works. (1981: 1).
To be able to appreciate literary works, an appreciator, besides having to understand the language used in the works he appreciates, he must also involve his imagination, interpret the meanings of the work, and avoid any prejudice to the literary works that he reads.
In communicating to literary works, an appreciator must be open minded. That is to say, an appreciator should not inflict his prejudice toward the author through his work, and toward historical background of the works he appreciates. Literary works, whether comes from the East or the West, does not matter for a good appreciator. Then, for further communication, the literary work should be regarded as a subject.
Every reader has different ability in appreciating literary works. This depends much on their educational or knowledge background. If an appreciator has only little background knowledge on literature, consequently he has low ability to appreciate literature. Whereas, an appreciator with sufficient background knowledge on literature will have fair ability, and in such a manner, if he has good background knowledge, he will have high ability to appreciate it (Badrun, 1989:135).
Approaches to Appreciation
In appreciating short story, we cannot deny that we will have different view and interpretation on a certain story. One factor controlling this matter is that we might employ different approaches in appreciating it.
M.H. Abrams (1953) argued that there are four approaches that can be employed in appreciating literary works. They are expressive, pragmatic, mimetic, and objective approach.
Expressive approach focuses on the role of the author as the creator of the literary works. It is basically derived form principle that literary work is the author’s expression. It is resulted from a creative process of the author based on his perception, his thought, and his feelings. The main case in this approach is the author’s psychological process.
Pragmatic approach focuses on the role of the reader as man of response and enjoyment. It sees the advantages or the functions of literary works. A success literary work is one which offers some advantages to the reader. It should be advantageous and enjoyable, for the two characteristics are the power of interest of literary work.
Mimetic approach emphasizes on the connection between literature and reality. In other word, we can say that this approach sees the relevance of the literary work to the real life that we experience.,
Objective approach emphasizes on the literary work itself as an autonomous structure. This means that the literary work is just analyzed from the elements that build it up. In other word, this approach emphasizes the literary work as a system. Hence, to comprehend the literary work means that we have to appreciate it totally.
RESEARCH METHOD
This study employs descriptive method. It aims at giving description on the students’ ability to appreciate short stories and to identify whether their ability varies in appreciating different kind of short stories.
The research subjects are the English major students of State University of Makassar of the fourth semester. The number of the population was 172. They were from two study programs, namely English Education (112), and English Literature (60 students). The sample was the fourth semester students of Class B of English Literature Study Program of State University of Makassar which consisted of 30 students. They were selected purposively.
This study employed a competency test which is based on Moody’s test of appreciation which consists of four levels of category; namely informative, conceptual, perspective, and appreciative category. The order of these categories shows the level of difficulty. Hence, appreciative category is the most difficult of all categories (in Wardani, 1981: 28). The test was constructed by using two short stories of different kind, namely plot short story entitled “The Boar Hunt” by Joze Vasconcelos and characteristic short story entitled “Like a Bad Dream” by Heinrich Boll. Each short story has five questions on each level of category and marked 10 at maximum for each number.
The data obtained from the test was scored manually, tabulated, and then analyzed into percentage and mean analysis. The scores of the students for each level of category were classified into five levels. Score 0-10 was classified “very low”, 11-20 (low), 21-30 (fair), 31-40 (high), and 41-50 (very high).
Thus, the classification of the students’ total scores obtained through the test was divided into five: Score 0-40 was classified “very low”, score 41-80 was classified “low’, score 81-120 was classified “fair’, score 121-160 was classified “high”, and score 161-200 was classified “very high.”
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Findings
This section deals with the presentation of the data gathered from the research instrument.
A. The Students’ Score on Plot Short Story
· The students’ informative competence
Three students (10%) got very high score, 20 (66,67%) got high score, and seven (23,33%) got average score. Consequently, none of them got low or very low score. The total score of the students on the informative test is 1120. This shows that the mean score is 37,33 which falls into “ high” classification.
· The students’ conceptual competence
13 students (43,33%) got high score, and 17 (56,67%) got fair score. The total score of the students on the conceptual test was 850. The mean score is 28,33 which falls into “fair” classification.
· The students’ perspective competence
Two students (6,67%) got high score, 13 (43,33%) got average score, and 15 (50%) got low score. The total score of the students on the perspective test was 735. The mean score is 24,5 which falls into “fair” classification.
· The students’ appreciative competence
14 students (46,67%) got very low score, 12 (40%) got low, and four (13,33%) got fair score. The total score of the students on the appreciative test was 479. The mean score is 15,96 which falls into “low” classification.
B. The Students’ Score on Characteristic Short Story
· The students’ informative competence
Two students (6,67%) got very high score, 24 (80%) got high, and four (13,33%) got fair score. Consequently, none of them got low or very low score. The total score of the students on the informative test is 1100. This shows that the mean score is 36,67 which falls into “high” classification.
· The students’ conceptual competence
13 students (43,33%) got high score and 17 (56,67%) got fair score. The total score of the students on the conceptual test was 806. The mean score is 26,86 which falls into “fair” classification.
· The students’ perspective competence
Three students (10%) got high score, 12 (40%) got fair score, and 15 (50%) got low score. The total score of the students on the perspective test was 689. The mean score is 22,96 which falls into “fair” classification.
· The students’ appreciative competence
15 students (50%) got very low score, 10 (33,33%) got low, and five (16,67%) got fair score The total score of the students on the appreciative test was 470. The mean score is 15, 67 which falls into “low” classification.

Discussion

The discussion of the result of data analysis is divided into two parts in accordance with the classification of the two short stories students appreciated.
A. The Ability of the Students to Appreciate Plot Short Story
The findings show that the highest mean score is 37,33 which belongs to the informative test, followed consecutively by conceptual test (28,33), perspective test (24,5), and appreciative test (15,96). It means that the students’ informative ability is better than the other three. Their conceptual ability is better than their perspective ability. Their perspective ability is better than their appreciative ability. This is relevant to the level of the difficulty of each test category, where the appreciative ability is the most difficult of all. The total score of the students for all categories is 3184, and the mean score is 106,13 which falls into “fair” classification. It means that the students have fair ability in appreciating plot short stories.
B. The Ability of the Students to Appreciate Characteristic Short Story
The findings show that the highest mean score is 36,67 which belongs to the informative test, followed consecutively by conceptual test (26,86), perspective test (22,96), and appreciative test (15,67). It means that the students’ informative ability is better than the other three. Their conceptual ability is better than their perspective ability. Their perspective ability is better than their appreciative ability. The total score of the students for all categories is 3065, and the mean score is 102,17 which falls into “fair” classification. It means that the students have fair ability in appreciating characteristic short stories.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
Conclusion
Based on the result of the two kinds of short stories above, it can be concluded that the English major students of State University of Makassar have fair ability in appreciating short stories. The result also shows that there is no significant difference in their ability to appreciate the two kinds of short stories.
However, their ability varies on the four levels of competence. Their informative ability is the highest of all, followed consecutively by conceptual, perspective, and appreciative competence. This is not surprising since appreciative competence is the most difficult, followed consecutively by perspective and conceptual competence. The easiest one goes to the informative competence.
Suggestion
To be idealistic, it is expected that the students get very high result in their test. Their ability in each level of the test should get balanced, in order to achieve perfect appreciation. Students should be directed to read more short stories where the appreciation is likely to achieve its perfection.
Since this study merely gives a description on the students’ ability to appreciate short stories by means of objective approach without taking into account other variables that might affect their ability, the writer recommends that it should be further study conducted, preferably by other approaches, in order that we can get a more comprehensible result.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abrams, M.H. (1953). The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. London: Oxford University Press.
Badrun, Ahmad. (1989). Teori Puisi. Jakarta: P2LPTK.
Frederick, J.Tirajoh (1988). English Poetry: An Introduction to Indonesian Students. Jakarta: P2LPTK
Gove, Bobcock. (1969). Webster New International Dictionary. New York: G&O Meriam Company.
Hall, James B. (1965). The Realm of Fiction: 65 Short Stories New York: McGraw Hill,
Kenney, William. (1966). How to Analyze Fiction. New York: Monarch Press.
Sumardjo, Jakob. (1984). Memahami Kesusastraan. Bandung: Alumni.
Tanuwijaya, Solchan et al. (1986). Penelitian Kemampuan Apresiasi Murid Kelas III SMP di Jawa Timur. Jakarta: Depdikbud.
Wardani, I.G.A.K. (1981). Pengajaran Sastra. Jakarta: Depdikbud
Widdowson, H.G. (1975). Stylistic and the Teaching of Literature. New York. Longman Group Limited.

THE CULTURE THE LEARNER BRINGS: A Bridge or a Barrier?

Learning a foreign language implies an intercultural learning. In other words, culture largely affects the way of learning a foreign language. This paper briefly discusses the situation of learning a foreign language where the teacher and the students come from different cultural backgrounds. Predominantly, the teacher is a ‘native speaker’ of the target language, and is teaching foreign language students. In such cases, teacher and students have different cultural experiences and expectations. These cultural situations are very common around the world today, and may lead to be a bridge or a barrier in foreign language learning.
The Cultures of Communication
There are two chief terms applicable to the cultures of communication, namely low-context culture (LCC) and high context culture (HCC) (Hall, 1976). Western cultures are usually perceived as low context, whereas Eastern cultures are high context. LCC relies very much on verbal communication. On the other hand, HCC tends to be non-verbal. In HCC, people use only few words since what is left unsaid is often more important than what is said.
Another feature of LCC is that people tend to be specific and straightforward. In HCC, people tend to express their ideas in a spiral way, hence the hearers have to conclude themselves what the speaker is saying. In addition, people tend to speak in a euphemistic style (Nurkamto, 2001).
The cultures of communication associated with foreign languages are part of the target in the language classroom. Students need to learn the cultural ways in which the speakers from the learned language communicate. Strictly speaking, if the students learn English, they need to understand the concept of LCC since English is regarded as a low-context language.
Western and Eastern Cultures of Learning
To speak of ‘western’ cultures of learning is simply to generalize since there are massive distinctions among western countries, including the core of English-speaking countries. Similarly, ‘eastern’ cultures vary from country to country, but they share some common cultural background.
In learning a language, western cultures promote the development of skills for communication. Much attention is paid to learning contexts and students needs. Classroom environments are influenced by learner-centred notion and a task-based approach. There is a strong focus on classroom interaction and student participation as ways of learning and developing skills related to the functions and uses of language.
Meanwhile, eastern cultures generally perceive learning as the transmission of knowledge. An instance can be seen from Chinese culture of learning a language that is mainly concerned with the mastery of knowledge of grammar, and vocabulary gained from two sources, teacher and textbook. Similarly, this way of learning had become state of the art for decades in Indonesia, especially until the early 90s. Though this culture of learning is said to have changed in the curriculum, it remains practiced in many parts of the country.
Another contradictory fact is the way western teachers perceive eastern students and vice versa. Attempting to apply communicative approach, western teachers will mostly find that students are weak at oral communication. They are unwilling to work in groups and prefer to work individually. Students are seen as shy and passive, and mostly practice “parrot-learning”.
On the other hand, students may perceive themselves as being active by paying attention to their teachers. They do not perceive themselves as “shy’, rather they regard themselves as being cooperative to teachers. They cooperate by not asking questions or ask for help since they consider them burden for teachers. They are reluctant to ask questions because they are afraid of making silly questions. Beside that, they don’t want to be perceived as “showing off” if they ask smart questions.
In Indonesia, for instance, those practices are much or less affected by certain traditional cultures. In Javanese, we recognize some cultural teaching like “manut-lan-miturut (always obey), ewuh-pakewuh (save face), and sabda pendita ratu (elders always true). Manut-lan-miturut teaches us that the more we obey our elders the better children we are. In Ewuh-pakewuh, it is rude and ashameful to have different opinion with our elders, and in sabda pandito ratu, it is said that the elders consider themselves, or are considered, to be always true.
In a more specific example, the rhetorical structure of writing between the Eastern and Western students detectably differ. Eastern students might get difficulties to follow the English system of paragraph development. An English paragraph may begin with a topic statement, followed by sub divisions of the topic, and each division is supported by examples and illustrations. On the other hand, Eastern students’ writing is marked by what may be called an approach by indirection (Kaplan, 1980). In this kind of writing, the development of paragraph is said to be “turning and turning in a widening gyre”. The gyres turn around the subject and show it from many angles, but the subject is never looked at directly.
Bridge or Barrier
Examples above indicate that there is a strong tendency that the culture the students bring to class will be a barrier rather than be a bridge. Students, for instance, may find themselves in a distressing situation when they are “forced “ to work in group. They consider that such method is “fruitless” since it wastes time, and they risk of learning errors from their peers. They rely very much on teacher’s explanation. They expect to take something useful home after class so that they could review and practice it.
In terms of question, the western teachers encourage students to ask questions in class. This shows that the students are actively participating and learning. Students’ perspective is different. They are not active in verbal way. Rather, they show their participation by listening and thinking. They would rather ask questions personally after class is over.
Students will be more “puzzled” when they discover that they got low mark on their writing which they consider excellent since they are carefully written or formatted, whereas teachers gave good mark to those that seem written quite the reverse.
Win win Solution
To bridge the different perceptions and attitudes above, we recognize a so called “cultural synergy model”. This model suggests the need for mutual understanding of different cultures, communication styles, and academic cultures. It does not mean that the diversity and variety will be merged into one. Teachers and students from different cultures need to develop an attitude of being willing to learn, understand and appreciate other’s culture without having to lose their own status, role, or cultural identity. In other words, not only the students who need to understand the cultures of the teachers, but also the teachers need to understand the cultures of students.
References
Hall, Edward T. 1976. Beyond Culture. Anchor Press. New York.
Kaplan, Robert B. 1980. Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter-Cultural Communication. In K. Croth (editor) ……………….. as a Second Language. 2nd edition. Winthrop Publishers Inc. Cambridge.
Jin, Lixian & Cortazzi, M. 1998. The Culture the Learner Brings: A Bridge or A Barrier? In M. Byram & M. Fleming (editor) Language Learning in Intercultural ……………….Ethnography. CUP. California.
Nurkamto, Joko. 2001. Berbahasa dalam Budaya Konteks Rendah dan Budaya Konteks Tinggi. Journal Linguistik Indonesia, 19 (2), 205 – 217.
----------------- 2003. Problema Pengajaran Bahasa Inggris di Indonesia. Journal Linguistik Indonesia, 21 (2), 287-308