READING BIOGRAPHIES IN ESL/EFL CLASSROOM

In our post-colonial situation, how do we go about teaching our national history and the lives of important historical figures to young readers? More importantly, what version of these narratives do we teach them? Considering that the biography is a form of literary history that focuses on the individual rather than the collective, the biography written for young adults is a form that has the unique challenge of selecting the most appropriate narrative for young readers and presenting it in a way that will engage them and encourage them to study more technical historical texts. Through this study, I analyzed the Great Lives Series, published by Tahanan Books, which is made up of twelve books, each one focused on telling the story of an important figure in Philippine history with the intended audience being children between the ages of eight and twelve. Through this study, I looked at the literary value, the historical value, and the literary historical value of these texts in order to determine how they dispensed and distilled these historical and biographical narratives in such a way that they could be made palatable for the young reader. Overall, my study found that there is sufficient evidence to say that this particular series of books had a certain degree of censorship, and it used the version of the truth that was in line with making these readers good citizens. More importantly, these books used common literary devices in order to capture the interest of these young readers.

Journal of Education and Research, 2019

Biography is an important aspect of researching in education once one is planning for a narrative inquiry. Reading biography inspires me to think narratively. I am much interested in knowing and understanding the biography of the Dalai Lama not because of any religious footprints but because of his spiritual endeavours, which go beyond the humanist tradition of thinking. I have not canvassed any social research which questioned life before and after death. I do not have much interest in researching faith-based experience and the mystical experience of such a spiritual leader. I read a book from the sense of developing insights as a narrative inquirer.

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New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2017

Bloomsbury has published the first anthology of biofiction. What is the nature of biofiction? How is it different from biography and historical fiction? How is it similar? What kind of "truth" does biofiction picture? How does it access and represent history and give us new ways of thinking about history? Hoe does it engage the political? This reader, which consists of a wide range of writings, answers these and many other questions.

Teaching students to write for multiple purposes is a challenging but necessary task. This article offers an example of how a scaffolded approach to genre-based instruction can enhance students’ writing.

Journal of Curriculum Studies, 2019

We examined the response of high school students in Israel to biographical texts. Students were exposed to three sub-genres of biographical texts (a literary-biographical text, an autobiographical text, and a scientific-biographical text). These texts all differ from the conceptual schema of ordinary school texts. The data were collected from 64 participants from three classes in two different public schools in Israel. The ability of students to apply historical disciplinary reading skills was evaluated for each text, with an emphasis on ‘sourcing’ and ‘corroboration’. The basic premise was that the texts the students are exposed to influence not only their level of knowledge but also their disciplinary concepts and skills. We contend that it might be that biographical texts, and especially autobiographical and literary-biographical texts, evoked historical reading in students, and strengthened their disciplinary reading abilities.

Bibliotherapy is consisted of a combination of the Greek ―biblion (book)‖ and ―therapeia (therapy-healing)‖ which have become popular since the 20th century as one of the alternative therapy methods. It is used to make individuals identify themselves with the works they read through works of high literary and aesthetic value and make them powerful individuals in the spiritual direction by producing solutions to the problems they experience in this way. In other words, bibliotherapy can also be defined as bringing the right books to the individual at the right time. That is, the history of accepting the idea that books are good for man is very old. In this study, the importance of using biographies will be explained in one of the important alternative therapy methods, bibliotherapy. There are some criteria in the selection of books because they are the most important materials that form the basis of bibliotherapy. As it is known, the process is three dimensions as the advisee, book preference and consultant. However, it is not possible to use every work in bibliotherapy. It is important to use the works that are high in reality dimension and keeping a mirror on the problems of the individual in bibliotherapy. This process includes the works that will develop the imaginary world of the individual, as well as the works suitable for real life. As is known, the common point in biographies is not only the success that the person who wrote the biography has achieved, but also this person's struggle for reaching his goal is his patience and perseverance. As a result, in the process of bibliotherapy, reading the biographies that will increase the morale and motivation of the individual and develop self-confidence will contribute positively to the person. Moreover, the preference of the biographies of the positive role-model in the society will be the example for the individual.

Pedagogy : Journal of English Language Teaching, 2020

Students’ personality is one of the factors that have an influence on students’ achievement. Beside good achievement, the good personality of the students is one of the goals of the learning process. The use of biography in the teaching-learning process can help the teacher to know the students’ personalities. The objectives of this research are: (1) to find out the outstanding characters of biography the students read; and (2) to explore the influences of the biography on the students’ personality. The method used for the research was descriptive qualitative research. The subject of the research was the fifth semester of English department students in the academic year of 2016/2017. The data of this research were collected through closed and opened questionnaires. The data of this research were analyzed through data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing. The findings of the research revealed two major points consisting of (1) eight outstanding characters ranging over...

This study aims at describing, exploring and explaining the value of character education in reading nonfiction text of national hero biography. In particular, this study aims at describing, exploring and explaining the form, content, and function of the character education value in reading nonfiction text of national hero biography. This research is qualitative research with descriptivemethod. This research focuses on the value of character education in reading nonfiction text of national hero biography. The results showed that the character education value in reading nonfiction text of national hero biography is in the form of religious, honest, tolerance, discipline, hard work, creative, independent, democratic, curiosity, the spirit of nationality, love the country, appreciate achievement, communicative, friendly, love peace, love to read, environmental care, education social care, and responsibilities. The contents of thecharacter education value in reading nonfiction text of national hero biography consist of the value of character education against God Almighty, the value of character education to us, the value of character education to fellow man, and the value of character education to the public, group or community. The functions of the character education value in reading nonfiction text of national hero biography consist of religiousfunction, cultural function, educational function, and social function.