Memorization vs. Understanding in Teaching Literature and Civilisation Study cases: -Third Year High School Students (1st Nov High school)- Laghouat- -First Year License Students (University of Laghouat) -First Year Master Students (University of Laghouat)

Abstract

As a long journey full of ups and downs, the process of learning takes both the teacher and the student each time towards a new experience. It is the journey that starts from the unknown to what would be known. Through following the different fluctuations through which students, especially those who are about to pass their Baccalaureate exam as well as students of both first year Licence/Masters during their study journey, along with the approaches followed by high school and university teachers, we remarked that there is a category of students who memorize without trying to make the link between what do they know, what they should know and what they need to know for the purpose of taking good marks. There is another category of students who take the reins to understand what is inside the hand-out, analyse and come up with their own interpretation. Another phenomenon was brought to our attention is that most of the students who moved to university are more into memorization. This is what made us deeply attracted to such issue in which we are carrying out this thesis. Relying on the collected data from the different tools used for the purpose, namely students' questionnaires along with samples of exam questions designed by teachers of literature and civilisation, the research will try to shed light on the gap found in the teaching and learning methods and practices. The findings of the research revealed that teaching approaches, such as depending purely on either memorization or understanding, starting from high school to after graduation, have a big impact on shaping learners’ qualities and aptitudes towards learning. This issue was highly noticed during the analysis of experimental and empirical trials. We believe that if teachers work on collecting the suitable methods, especially memorization and understanding, according to the needs the nature of their students, the outcome would may be students who are more productive and ready to be future researchers