Developing board games to teach literary elements in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to interrogate the effectiveness of developing board games to teach literary elements such as characters, setting and themes based on the literary text ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee. The development of board games in teaching English literature aims to help student teachers to critically examine their understanding of the approaches to teaching literature. It will further develop critical appreciation and cultural awareness for students whose English is a second language. This study is based on a course ‘Teaching of literature: Reading the word and the world’ taught to 45 Year 2 TESL undergraduate student teachers at the Faculty of Education, UKM. This case study was designed with four methods of data collection namely questionnaire, interview, student teachers’ board games and reflective essays. In this study, the student teachers had formed six groups and then had chosen either a theme or a character such as ‘Tom Robinson’, ‘Atticus Finch’, ‘Boo Radley’, ‘Scout Finch’, ‘Gender stereotyping’ and ‘Racism’ to be developed further into board games. They later reflected on the whole process of developing board games, identifying its strengths, weaknesses and suggestions on how to improve it. Generally, the participants perceived that developing board games helps them to teach the literary elements such as characters, setting and themes to the pupils.