New Approaches to Shakespeare Education: Learned-CenteredTeachings

Abstract

This paper investigates the various problems of teaching Shakespeare's plays to Korean students and suggests learner-centered programs as new ways in this regard. The study of Shakespeare's works is diminishing more and more from university education. There are many possible reasons for this declines, which include ill-aimed class purposes, inappropriate textbooks, and unchallenged teaching methods. Today, there is a considerable distance between teaching and learning Whereas students want to improve their reading comprehension abilities and language proficiencies, teachers place more emphasis on developing critical views and insights of the literary works. For students whose native languages are not English, texts are far too difficult to comprehend and their motivations are correspondingly very low. Finally, teaching methodologies of class are frequently too old-styled and unsystematic to hold the interests of students accustomed to audio-visual media. Teachers are overly concerned about mechanical problems of texts such as language structures and line-by-line translation. For better education, students need to focuses on what to learn from Shakespeare rather than on how to read Shakespeare. The teaching programs should also be designed as learner-centered rather than as teacher-centered. Texts should be carefully chosen by considering students' language levels and learning motivation. The extensive reading method, which guides students to read unchallenged reading materials as much as possible, is more desirable to expand reading comprehension. Various teaching strategies should be introduced to meet the interests and goals of students studying Especially for L2 learners, classroom activities should be adjusted to improve language learning as well as to develop literary insights. Students, through pair and group work activities, need to be encouraged to develop their insights on literary works and build language competences. Finally, this paper summarizes basic theories of learner-centered learning and shows the practice of learner-centered program by the model class plan of Shakespeare's Othello.