The Study on Learning and Teaching Methodogy of 〈Guwoonmong〉
Literary education is an activity that raises students' sensitivity to literature and improves their imaginations. It is also a way of realizing oneself as well as integrating the value of literary works into one'sr real life. Therefore, literary education should be conducted, aiming at students' understanding of the characters' lives and, finally, the internalization of it into their own lives.
The traditional education on classic novels, however, does not follow above ways. In reality, students access only limited parts of the whole story or focus only on vocabulary learning rather than understanding the lesson in the literary work due to preparing for university entrance exam. In terms of teachers, it is not easy to break the traditional "knowledge-conveying" classroom environment. The teacher cannot ignore the pressure that the defined progress of classwork should be finished within the limited time and the learning contents should be properly tested in the form of pencil-and-paper assessment.
To overcome this problem, this study will discuss problematic parts of the traditional learning of classical novels. Then, this study will suggest the desirable way of teaching classic novels by analyzing the work Goounmong.
The traditional teaching and learning contents seem to lack the heartfelt appreciation of the literature and its true integration into one's real life. The teacher's manual book says: let the learners judge by themselves which part interests them and which part they sympathize with. Yet, there is nothing mentioned how to do so. For example, the textbook activities are designed only to study Goounmong's theme, the uncertainty of life, rather than to encourage the learners to appreciate the work itself.
In this writing, to internalize the various meanings and values of Goounmong, learning contents are suggested as follows: the author's life and his motif, his desire for Confucian success, the work's ironical plot structure of empty dream, characters' features and so on.
In regard of teaching, two activities are proposed. First, utilizing performative assessment can be recommended. In this way, teachers can reflect all the process of appreciating the work and internalizing its lesson on students' own. At this time, students should be guided to understand the work from various point of views by teachers. Second, making presentation can be used. After analyzing the work by themselves, they need to have some time to share what they felt while reading. By sharing their feelings with other students, students can understand the story more deeply and can learn that others can have different feelings or perspectives from themselves.
While following above process, readers can break the prejudice that classic novel is something boring and difficult to understand. In fact, most of the Korean classic novel including Goounmong express our ancestors' desire for living in the beautiful and abundant world. Their desire and effort to live such lives will greatly help us reflect on our lives and set right prospect toward the future. All of these things can only happen to through the true understanding of the classic works and the effective way of teaching them. This writing is expected to suggest one of the desirable forms of literary education in the classroom.