Improving Comprehension and Retention through Last Story Syndrome Approach

The study was an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of teaching Literature to Grade 9 English learners through songs. The participants of the study consisted of 60 Grade 9 students who were divided into two groups' experimental and control group. The experimental group consisted of 30 students, as well as the control group. The experimental group was instructed using the Last Story Syndrome Approach-Literature-content songs and the control group was instructed using traditional method. Five sessions were spent working on teaching literature for each group. Before the intervention, the researchers matched the participants using their previous grade in English as reference. After finishing the treatment, the teachers used a teacher-made test to measure the amount of comprehension and retention in each group. An Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to reveal whether there was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group and control group in terms of comprehension and retention, using their previous grades as covariance. The findings revealed that the experimental group improved significantly in terms of comprehension and retention compared to control group. The use of the Last Story Syndrome Approach engaged students by providing personal interest and provided a mnemonic device for remembering the details of the story. The use of songs has relevance from a constructivist approach as they were used to help students build meaning; from a socio-cultural perspective in terms of student engagement; and from a cognitive viewpoint in that in these cases they helped students make connections in learning. The results obtained in this study would suggest a number of implications which can be useful for teachers, and language practitioners in ESL context.