APPLYING STYLISTICS METHODS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING LITERATURE; A STUDY OF AMMA DARKO’S FACELESS

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
The business of any teaching and learning exercise is to bring the students as close as possible to the target learning objectives. This is done using a wide variety of techniques and methods at the disposal of the teacher who is expected to make the most appropriate selection. These is cut across the different subjects and areas of study available from the pre-primary level of education to the highest level of education.
Interestingly, the secondary school is one of the most important levels of education. This is so because it is at this stage that the individual student is faced with a plethora of developmental as well as maturational challenges that must be handled carefully and professionally, added to the fact that the content of subjects taught and learnt in schools at this time have gone deep. This is especially so because the students at this point have begun to contemplate seriously which line of profession they would pursue. There is therefore every need to teach these students in such a way that their interest is sustained, but still guiding them to a proper understanding of the learning objectives.
Literature as a subject of study in the secondary school is a core subject, and also considered as the pillar of the arts. All students determined to pursue such professional careers as law, mass communication and the like must necessarily pass literature at a credit level at least. Besides, it has been observed that the teaching and learning of literature greatly improves language proficiency. Thus the importance of the teaching and learning of literature cannot be overemphasized.
The bulk of the content of literature as a subject in the secondary school can broadly be divided into two; literary appreciation techniques and study of representative text. The study of these representative text has over the years been based, strictly so, on the methods of literary criticism. This method until recently has been considered fitting if not ideal. However, owing to the subjectiveness of literary criticism, stakeholders in education especially language education have begun to contemplate alternative methods of teaching literature, talking about methods that are more objective and verifiable.
Consequently stylistics offers such an alternative. The discipline is loosely regarded as the study and/or interpretation of literary text in a more objective and verifiable manner compared to literary criticism. Also, Stylistics is the art of using linguistic rules and regulations to characterize a literary text (Oladosun 2003:217) However the stylistic method has hardly been used especially in secondary schools to teach literature. Perhaps it is high time this method was introduced in the secondary school? It is thus against this background that this study hopes to investigate the effectiveness of teaching the literary text Faceless by Amma Darko in an SS2 literature class.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
There is no gain saying that the Nigerian educational system is in a steep decline. The system has come under heavy criticism, taking the blame for the woes of the country on almost all fronts from leadership failure to economic retrogression and all.
Within the educational system, however, several factors are also being blamed for the poor rating and performance of the system. These factors are literally too numerous to mention. They range from funding to decayed/decaying infrastructure and to the quality of personnel in the system. Yet again, since the English language is the language of instruction, the quality of its teaching has also been identified as one of the problems bedevilling the system. This is justifiably so since a lack of language proficiency means automatic poor performance in all other fields of study. There is therefore every need to better the sector on all fronts, starting with language proficiency since this will have a rippling effect on all other disciplines.
The problematic antecedent of language teaching ultimately means that the methods and techniques of teaching language and language related disciplines may be ineffective. This suggests that the methods and techniques must be reapraised and changed where necessary. This will at least take care of the problem of inadequate teaching methods. This study hopes to investigate this problem as it relates to the methods of teaching literature in secondary schools.
1.3 Objectives of the study
This research work is laden with the following aims and objectives;
1. To find out the level of appropriateness of using the stylistic method in teaching literature at the secondary school
2. To find out which is the better method of teaching literature in secondary schools, the stylistic method or the literary criticism method.
3. To find out the retentive ability of students taught using the stylistic method.
1.4 Research Questions
This research work seeks to answer the following questions; 1. Can the stylistic method be used to teach literature in the secondary school? 2. Is the stylistic method of teaching literature a better alternative to the literary criticism method? 3. Is the retentive ability of students taught using the stylistic method better than that of students taught using the literary criticism method?

1.5 Significance of the Study
Availability of resources in the teaching and learning domain is one necessary requirement for achieving set goals. In the area of pedagogical capabilities of literature and its ability to enhance language proficiency, this research is a significant contribution. Stakeholders in the business of education, especially those interested in using the stylistic method in teaching literature will find this research work particularly useful
1.6 Research Methodology
This research employs the use of the experimental research design which will be used to find out the possibility of teaching literature in the secondary school using the stylistic method, ascertain the edge (or otherwise) that the stylistic method has over the literary criticism method and to evaluate the retention ability of students taught using the stylistic method as against those taught using the literary criticism method.