English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) Available online at https://jurnal.iainponorogo.ac.id/index.php/eltall 24 ELTALL DECONSTRUCTIVE READING ON TRADITIONAL NARRATIVES IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK Rahmat Setiawan Universitas PGRI Adi Buana Surabaya, Indonesia rahmatsetiawan@unipasby.ac.id Eliasanti Agustina Universitas PGRI Adi Buana Surabaya, Indonesia eliasanti@unipasby.ac.id ABSTRACT This research aims to explore deconstructive reading on traditional narratives in coursebook and how the EFL pre-service teachers’ insights on it. This research imposes its theoretical framework in the concepts of Deconstruction, EFL Pre-service Teachers, Literature, Traditional Narrative Text, and Coursebook. The type of this research is qualitative, the approach is case study. The data in this research are text fragmentations from the narrative texts and the statements of the EFL students. The first source of the data is the narrative texts in the coursebook. The second source of the data is interview with some EFL pre-service teachers from various university in Surabaya. The techniques of data collection in this research are documentation and non-structured interview. The technique of data analysis in this research is thematic analysis. The result of the analysis is narrative texts provided by Kemendikbud in English coursebook seem to be conventional and it requires EFL teachers with good sense of literature to help out students to make the meaning relevant with the life they live today. Some interviewed EFL pre-service teachers put some insights that meaning in the traditional narrative texts in the English coursebook. For them, traditional narrative is important, but the interpretative meaning should be deconstructed in more various meaning, not in one- sided claim which one is true and false. Keywords: EFL Pre-Service Teacher, Literature, Traditional Narrative Text, and Coursebook INTRODUCTION Narrative text can be immaculately perceived as a well-established bridge to learning foreign language and it is the fundamental pivot of how narrative text is a must-involved material leaning on English coursebook pages in Indonesia. To its relevance, regarding its kernel, narrative text, whose soul is literature, can be also biased to phrases learning a language with literacy, moral value, culture, and simultaneously, likewise to what literary works typically can propose. However, the problem sneaks to appear on the surface when its moral values are Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 25 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) not certainly pertinent to these current insights. This is the focused area of this research; there is mystified moral values proposed by traditional narrative texts used by coursebook which is distributed publicly to students. Moral is a set of mentality concerning civilized manners. In contrast, demoralization refers to moral damage. The terminology of moral is constantly referred to good and bad humans (Audi, 2011). Then, attitude with moral is called morality. Simply, morality is an attitude manifested in an act out of someone. A good act out must be selfless and it determines the value of moral. Selfless refers to norm, law, and custom. Conclusively, morality is an attitude conformity developing us as a hostage of values and it obligates us ideologically to deal with (Chanan, 2018). Narrative text, one of literary works, with its story intimacy, distributes moral value; the story, the plot, the conflict, and others shade the readers feel the poetic, touch the meaning, and dive to the sea of conflicts. Conflicts can rouse the readers’ empathy, sympathy, and moral. It leads the readers to a corridor of interpretation of moral value from the conflicts, whether it is virtuousness, depravedness, clemency, fortitude, inducement, and other things. Therefore, it is decisive to see narrative texts in learning and teaching moral values, especially to students who require developmental issues (Dymock, 2007). Narrative texts decorate pages of language coursebook for teaching, one of them is English Language Coursebook Grade X, published by Kemendikbud (Ministry of Education and Culture). With all due respect, Kemendikbud utilizes narrative texts as a bridge in English language teaching and learning. It is also about how to make the students learn about moral and cultural value. Government, with its prescribed and programed edification, namely schools, set out a heritage and legacy of morality carried out systematically via the narrative texts. In school, teachers, whose background is from language education, are well-established with moral understanding and they, in the classroom to students, have responsibility to both teaching technically (material) and non-technically (moral value) (Veugelers, 2010). In English subject, literature pieces are distributed to students with the intention of improving students’ English competence and it is manifested in narrative texts. This literary material drives the EFL students to comprehend the depth of meaning of the narrative texts in the everyday-life context and to access cavernous knowledge, value, and insight. EFL Students are also projected to be able to captivate new terms, lexis, words, or phrases in the narrative texts, thus they can enrich vocabularies (Barkhuizen, 2008). Talking to this depth, moral values can be implanted furtively to this kind of mode. Therefore, materials about Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 26 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) narrative texts, in English subject, are not just about language learning, but it is also about dispensing moral values. Education, at its purest, is a strategic and decisive mode for a nation to upsurge and escalate from exertional strain. Likewise, for the Indonesian, it has come to an urgent status to lean education as a top-listed priority to revolute the nation. Firmly, the energy to generate quality of human resources has been in the law about the national education system. Law No. 20, 2003, regarding the National Education System, the government strives and systematizes a sort of national education system that can upsurge the religious belief in God, good character, ethics, manners, and so on, in line with intellectual vision (Suryadarma & Jones, 2013). It is some kind of characteristic in Indonesia whose tradition, culture, and values are still considerably important to be maintained. That elaborative root, Indonesia, with all due respect to the tradition. culture, and values, then it comes to a logically rational exposure to escalating a discursive issue that moral values must be preserved in the community; one of ways is through traditional narrative texts in coursebooks. All barebones in education field participate; it is one of real act out representatively supply this agenda. The finest haven to operate the agenda is through formal education; and school. Schools can afford both cognition and affective simultaneously; flaring horizon and implanting morals systematically (Eggleston & Turiel, 1985). To crystalize those insights, the highlight is on issue that learning English, for EFL students in Indonesia, can be through narrative texts in the coursebook they use. Preserving cultural heritage is, indeed, noteworthy, but vicissitudes in the paradigm of society also, inevitably, encourage multi and even radically dissimilar interpretations. To reinforce this critical outlook, deconstruction becomes a channel giving access to this vulgar interpretation. Deconstruction here will not be discussed philosophically in depth, such as the study of complicated semiotics à la Ferdinand de Saussure which Derrida criticized, or discusses of Hegel’s dialectic which is full of dilemmas and complexities. Deconstruction here will be aligned with a critical thinking orientation because the main substance of deconstruction is the reading of texts or phenomena in an open, dynamic, and non-structural way. This elasticity of meaning interpretation will make us realize that there are other potential meanings that we have so far ignored. For example, when we think that black always represents evilness, immorality, or depravity, deconstructive reading will help people to open up that not everything that is black is evil, immoral, or depraved. When we read, for example, fables, fairy tales, or folk tales, we always think about the wrong and right sides that are completely separated, as if the world is total and absolute in structure, whereas behind the good there can be bad, in evil there can be good. This is what teachers Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 27 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) need when they teach, especially when they explain about morality and meaning (Dasli, 2019; Kakoliris, 2009; Selden & Atkins, 1986; Winter, 2011; Zappa, 2019). In other words, in a deconstructive reading of the story of Malin Kundang, students, at this stage, may see that parents are not always right, life cannot just rely on the help of a fairy godmother, or other mystical powers, and so on. STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) education vaccinates literacy (Shaffer et al., 2019). Literacy drives us all to tend to be intellectual and of course, critical (Ardianti et al., 2020; Handayani, 2020). In other words, it always raises questions about extending critical interpretations to traditional narrative texts, for instance, Malin Kundang’s mother may commit a mistake when cursing her son. These cliché biases are the basis for this research to be carried out. Theoretically, moral, in literary work, is the seed a writer implies to allocate and recommend (Cooper, 1994). Accordingly, a writer conveys moral and moral is inherent part of human life in society. Society lives in an order, order is in the mode of certain rules, discipline, and restrictions which are conventionally dictating us (Veugelers, 2010). The order aims at creating civilized human. In that matter of logic, moral is in the circle of issues, between right or wrong. Shortly speaking, moral value polishes the individual to be a part of community whose moral value has been well-established (Audi, 2011). Hence, moral refers to cognizance of good and bad for social structure. Moral in society is required on every individual in all walks of life. Every individual in behaving, thinking, and doing social things must pay attention to the order, rule, law, and etc. By following the moral value, human life is going on the right way. It is the only way to save human life from violence, pain, and suffer. In short, moral instantaneously turns out to be redeemer of the human, for the importance they have in the conservancy of human values (Balliu, 2015). Deconstruction is an authoritative opposition to the structuring of meaning. This concept was first outlined by Derrida in his novelty book, Of Grammatology, where he explored the interaction between language and the construction of meaning. There are several main features in deconstruction; first, the inherent desire to have a center, or focal point, for constructing any understanding (logocentrism); second, everything is text so that all constructions and every construction can be deconstructed; and, last, meaning exists because of differences, but not hierarchical differences, so that nothing is higher or lower. These characteristics find the possibility of deconstruction as a process that constantly questions the basis of the received meaning. Derrida regards deconstruction as a problematization of world foundations, such as morality (Gnanasekaran, 2015; Greaney, 2021; Kelly, 2020; Stocker, 2006; Thomassen, 2009; Yegen & Abukan, 2014). Narration usually fights for a superior meaning and that Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 28 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) usually becomes the message or moral value offered. Therefore, deconstruction is a means to interrogate the relationship between texts or narratives with the centralization of their meaning. Literary work technically provides touches for language skill learning such as reading, writing, listening, and even speaking. It also shades on vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation learning. Plus, language teachers also take literary work such as drama, poetry, and short stories for teaching material. In global perspective, translation of literary works can also provide students a space to learn (Khatib et al., 2011). Literary works, with its fun and flexibility, wake language teachers, especially foreign language teachers, up to see that literary texts are so expedient. On the other side, if the students are conversant with the literary texts, it smooth up the process of learning on a faster way (Paran, 2006). Consequently, literature through literary works have significant things for language teaching. Literary work mostly has unique material, cultural enrichment, and of course, emotional-personal involvement (Isenberg, 1990). Terminologically, narrative is derived from the word of narration, which means telling a story or event. Narrative, in a complex understanding, is a series of conflicts set up in sequential elaborative plots. In other words, narrative, or prose, whose subject is a series of events, at least, consists of elements such as orientation (how things start), complications (how problems come and affect), and resolution (how things come to an end) (Herman, 2009). Narrative text is a type of writing presenting a series of events and is arranged chronologically according to the time sequence. In narrative text the events written can be a real one or be imaginary (Short & Leech, 2013). Generally, sentences in narrative text aim to entertain the reader by providing readers with knowledge about the conflict in the story, with regardless its fictious or non-fictious state. To the extent of its existence in coursebook, the purpose of narrative text is both entertaining with an aesthetic experience to the readers and adding knowledge, information and insight to the readers/students (Cardozo & Tomitch, 2021; Dhillon et al., 2020; Nafsiah, 2019; Rosnaeni et al., 2020). In English subject, narrative, whose elementary body is formed in the past tense style, can be very useful for students. This past tense is also rooted to a logical reason that it tells the nature of events, it tells stories, that have happened in the past. Of this nature, sometimes, students get trapped in an overlapping consideration between narrative and recount texts. To extricate the two types of text, students must be able to understand the essence of the story. Narratives tell events or events in time of sequential series which are complex (Alasuutari et al., 2012). The story is told in fictional style, it is an unreal story, just a reverie, a trance, or even an ideology of the writer. On the other side, recount is a text, similarly speaking, telling events occurring within a relatively simple time series. Recount Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 29 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) text aims at explaining the occurred events as it is, or real events (Nurkholijah & Hafizh, 2020; Sukma, 2015; Yunita, 2018). The point of the core of the existence of narrative text for language learners, or EFL learners, nails at the use of it as a media to learn and to polish students with meaningful message, such as morals, values, etc. It enhances students’ discourse skill with developed knowledge (Hill et al., 2021). The EFL pre-service teachers cannot just teach the text without stimulating their critical way of thinking or the narrative text with its meaning becomes a set of cliché biases. METHODS The type of this research qualitative and the approach of this research is case study. The data in this research are text fragmentations from the narrative texts and the statements of the EFL students. The first source of the data is narrative texts (Story of Issumboshi, Malin Kundang, and Strong Wind) in the coursebook entitled, “Bahasa Inggris” published by Kemendikbud, in 2017. In consists of 224 pages. It is used for Senior High School Grade X, the ISBN is 978- 602-427-106-0, written by Utami Widiati, Zuliati Rohmah, and Furaidah, edited by Helena I. R. Agustien, Emi Emilia, and Raden Safrina. The second source of the data is interview with some subjects; they are some EFL pre-service teachers from various university in Surabaya. The techniques of data collection in this research are documentation and non-structured interview. The main proposed questions are: 1) How do you know about literary narrative text in the English coursebook? 2) In your opinion, why is it important to keep using traditional narrative texts in the coursebook? Are the moral values provided by the narrative texts relevant to the today’s values? And, what should be change to be suitable with the values students need? The technique of data analysis in this research is thematic analysis. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION There are three narrative texts in the English coursebook: Issumboshi, Malin Kundang, and Strong Wind. Story of Issumboshi (page 157-159) narrates a story of an old couple having no a child. It seems that it was set in Japan. The couple found a crying tiny baby His size is as big as little finger. Then, they fostered, his name is Issumboshi. Awkwardly, Issumboshi maintained small, alias, he could not grow bigger. This strange case turned into mockery. The bully frustrated him and drove him to venture to the capital. Over there, she met a princess, then she liked him. In a day, the princess got trouble; she was caught by a demon. Issumboshi helped her from the demons. The demon ran away, left a magic hammer, Issumboshi asked the princess to wish something, then Issumboshi Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 30 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) started growing to be a nice young man, and ended with happy marriage. The moral value seems to crystalize to perseverance, motivation, and struggling. The Legend of Malin Kundang (page 172), on the other hand, narrates a story of a young boy, Malin Kundang, who left her mother to pursuit his success. The problem is, after he reached the peak of success, he held a party of his wedding, and when his poor and old mother came to release her longing, Malin ignored and denied her. She was so disappointed, saddened, and furious. Finally, bad thing happened to Malin; he turned out to be a stone, regret, but it was too late to regret. The moral value seems to crystalize to obeyance and parental. The Strong Wind (Page 183-185) narrates a great warrior, Strong Wind, who could make his body unseen, but only his sister could see him clear. He vowed that he would marry woman who could see him clear. Many of them tried to trick just to be his wife. Finally, there was a man with his three daughters; two were charming and the one was ugly because her sisters scorched her face with ashes. When her chance came, she told the truth that she could not see the man. This uprightness made the man pleased, then, the woman turned to be beautiful and the story ended with common good part: good marriage. The moral value seems to crystalize to honesty. From EFL pre-service teachers’ perception, it can be resulted a simplified elaboration here: question about opinion of literary narrative text in the English coursebook, the subjects mostly responded that it is important; question about the importance to keep using traditional narrative texts in the coursebook, the subjects mostly stated that it is important to keep it up because it is part of culture; question about the relevance of the moral values provided by the narrative texts to the today’s values, the subjects mostly claimed that the moral values seem to be contextualized with the todays’ perspective; and question about moral value changes the students should see, the subjects mostly propose some various deconstructive interpretation. On the other hand, life cannot just start with perseverance, motivation, and struggling like in the story of Issumboshi. Children and parents can be mistaken, like in the story of Malin Kundang. To achieve things, sometimes we cannot just be honest, like in the story of Strong Wind. The discussion firstly comes to Issumboshi. Lonely old couple had a child but he had tiny body. He struggled because of being a victim of mockery, then he decided to go to the capital, as it is in this part, One day, Issumboshi said, “I will go to the capital to study and become a respectable person. Then I will come back.” ... At once they began to prepare for his trip ... “Is he safe? With such a small body?” ... Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 31 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) Issumboshi went on the trip with a big wish in a small body (Kemendikbud, 2017: 158). In the capital, he found a job in a palace and one day, the Princess went out to worship at the Kiyomizu Temple, then there were demons trying to kidnap her, as it is quoted in these lines, “Issumboshi tried to help her, but the demon caught him and threw him into his mouth. Issumboshi, who was swallowed, jabbed and jabbed the demon’s stomach ... Issumboshi jumped at the demon and stabbed his eyes ... one demon, who was left behind, trembled while holding the magic hammer (Kemendikbud, 2017: 158). The moment when the demon attacked the princess becomes the spotlight of how Issumboshi turned his life. He got the magic hammer, then he asked the princess to make a wish. “Princess, please wave this magic hammer and make a wish that I may become big,” said Issumboshi. The Princess waved it and asked, “May Issumboshi become big!” ... He grew into a nice young man ... The Princess and Issumboshi then got married, and they invited Grandfather and Grandmother to live with them in the palace. They lived happily ever after (Kemendikbud, 2017: 159). Like other similar twists, from zero to hero, from just a poor boy to a great prince. This formula seems to provoke a simple issue common sense can accumulate: never give to reach, or, nothing is impossible, and so on. Those motivational phrases, indeed, are the spotlight of how this story proposes. However, when it is relevantly related to the result of interview with some EFL pre-service teachers, this could be a bias. A subject stated, “the moral is simple, from nothing to something, from nobody, to somebody, but we need to see, the moral is not about the result, but the strategy. We can be successful, not because a will, but a plan.” Another subject stated, “Issumboshi is a clever boy.” The statements interpretatively reach out a pointbreak that the moral value shifts, from idealism (everything will be happy at the end) to pragmatism (happiness can happen with good effort). The claim to say that Issumboshi is a clever can also refers to strategy he did; poor boy with abnormal body and becomes prince, it is not just about magical things, but also strategic things. The second discussion comes to Malin Kundang. It is a story of a boy whose mother was angry at him and finally he was cursed to be a stone. His mother was Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 32 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) angry at him because Malin left her to sail and he came back with success, but he denied his mother. An old woman, who was Malin Kundang’s mother ... wanted to hug him to release her sadness of being lonely after a long time. When his mother came near him, Malin Kundang ... denied that she was his mother. She had pleaded ... But he kept refusing to do it and yelling at her ... “Enough, old woman! I have never had a mother like you, a dirty and ugly woman!” ... Finally, ... he had turned into a stone (Kemendikbud, 2017: 172). The nuance seems to be decorated in violence; curse. Common people always bring an issue of this kind of interpretation, that a child should not, or must not, do bad things to mother. Malin denied the presence of his mother then it irritated the mother’s feeling. Doing bad things, especially to our mother, is something we cannot deal with. This is the moral value in general understanding. However, the bias is provoked by some subjects in the interview. There is a subject questioning back to a simple question, “does every parent good parents?” another subject stated, “it is important to introduce story of Malin Kundang, but I am little bit disappointed, a mother should not curse her son.” The other subjects pinpoint the same line when it is about cursing mother. Cursing mother, which is the highlight of the story, cannot be used as the good example. In Indonesia, feudalism nails in the root of ideology. Parents seem to have power over the children. Thus, this story can be seen as the manifestation of this sort of ideology. The problem is, this way of perspective can be deconstructed. Malin was wrong when he denied his mother, but the mother was also wrong when she cursed his son. It means that, the right one cannot be put in one side, because the both have the same mistake. It means that everyone can be wrong, no matter what the status adhered to them. Parents can be mistaken, so do the children. Openness, flexibility, or deconstructive can be seen as a relevant perspective. Digital, technology, and literacy have brought civilization a higher point of view. They have liberty or freedom to speak and share ideas, they can subjectively propose points of view, and so on. Moreover, there are many cases they consume from social media exposing that the parents can also have cruel sides. Therefore, moral value should be shifted from absolute right, to contextual right. The third discussion comes to Strong Wind. This should be a simple analysis; a man looking for a wife. He was a great warrior who could make himself invisible. He tested every woman who wanted to his wife. Of course, like Cinderella-styled story, ugly woman found her love. Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 33 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) One day the youngest daughter went to try and see Strong Wind. She was wearing rags, and burn covered her face. People laughed at her, but she kept going. When she got to Strong Wind’s tent she waited. When Strong Wind was coming, his sister asked the girl, “Do you see him?” “No,” the girl answered. “I don’t see him.” Strong Wind’s sister was surprised because the girl had told the truth ... Then Strong Wind’s sister knew that the girl could really see him. He had let her see him because she had told the truth ... Then the sister washed the girl, and all the burns went away. Her hair grew long and black again. The sister dressed the girl in fine clothes. Strong Wind came and the girl became his wife. The girl’s two older sisters were very angry, but Strong Wind turned them into aspen trees ... (Kemendikbud, 2017: 183-185) The ugliest won the finest. The moral value sleeps on the issue of honesty. Honesty brings us luck. Of course, this seems not to offer some biases. In critical thinking style, this can be ceased in a pausing phrase: a strong man doing selection for wife sounds so patriarch. Some subjects are tickled with this kind of issue when the interviewer proposed an improvised question about it. A subject replied, “I think you are right in that point of view.” Another subject stated, “I never think so, but as a candidate of a teacher, I must be more open minded like this.” The rests assumed that the meaning of the text should be biased to be more flexible. Of course, it is crucial to clarify that the text contains patriarchal issue and it can ideologize generations to maintain it, while gender equality and feminism are something people echo loudly. It can also establish a mindset for the generations that man is powerful over woman, man is free to select to whom he can marry with, and so on. Reflectively, this is the realm of literary work. literature is inimitable. It refers to the inventive idea manifested to material words. It is also supposed to grasp that literary works were intentionally not born for language teaching purpose. The writers, typically, wrote just for self-expression, legacy, feat, and so on. Even so, what the writer wrote must be pertinent to real-life frameworks, such as society, culture, psychology, and other things. In a class, students are firmly conversant enough to what they read; literature is a valuable material, forthrightly speaking. Students relish the text, deal with the language skills, and excavate knowledge. In that matter of perspective, literature must be with linguistic forms, functions, and communicative meanings (Yimwilai, 2015). Literary work can afford cultural enhancement, augmentation, or amelioration. For many learners, the virtuous way to elevate their comprehensive understanding of aspects of communication is by practicing. For these learners, literary works, such as novels, drama, short stories, etc., can ease their Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 34 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) consideration in communication. Reading gives facts and language comes after. Even if the world of literary work is unreal but the meaning is touching reality. A reader can discover how the character feel, think, behave, talk, and so on. These things can sustain the foreign learners to experience the life through the fictional story. Thus, literature can be better perceived as a counterpart to escalate the foreign learners’ understanding toward culture and language itself (Zare, 2012). Furthermore, literary work can improve the enrichment of language skill. Literary works provide students a space to gain vocabularies and knowledge simultaneously. Students can absorb meanings from new vocabularies by reading literary works. As we know, literary works, mostly, use unusual terms to represent or explain things. Students can also learn grammar or language structure and of course, its function. Even if it is just a fiction, aesthetic over logic, beauty of structure, but there must be the leeway developing and enrich the students, for instance, flexible structure with no syntactical and semantical error. By reading literary works, it drives students to the peak of productivity. When they are asked to finish reading a novel, for instance, they must try to learn the words, and it can also the starting point of how they are interested in using new words from the works. Thus, upgrade cultural and communicative competence from the texts is not an illusion (Teranishi et al., 2015). Reading literature allows for intimate engagement. Reading helps people become personally involved or familiar. Students begin to comprehend a literary piece when they read it. They are aware of the words’ or phrases’ intended meanings. Students become more motivated to identify the issue or point of contention. They experience a closeness to the characters. This finding is crucial to the process of acquiring a language. The learning approach places a high focus on choosing literary texts that are relevant to the needs, interests, and language proficiency of the students. They can learn during this process without fear (Yimwilai, 2015). On the other hand, there are standards for choosing literature for EFL students. Teachers must take their students’ needs, motivations, interests, cultural background, and language proficiency into consideration while choosing literary books. Students’ positive responses may be an indicator. Before learning a text, students should enjoy it. When the text is interesting and significant, students can comprehend it. Choosing the text has application to everyday life. It ought to be related to the experiences, emotions, or dreams of the students. It's crucial to choose literary works with simple language. Students’ comprehension may be facilitated if the language is straightforward. They can take pleasure in doing so. The focus of the students' attention is on it. The aim of literary works is to make reading enjoyable. All of these initiatives aim to assist pupils in overcoming language learning challenges (Guest, 2002). For EFL Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 35 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) students, literary works are very useful for EFL students to learn English in fun way (Paran, 2006). Those all are the color of how literature is juxtaposed in EFL realm. The purpose of involving literature in English language learning is absolute and directive, while the shifts of perspectives open the biases. The English pre-service teachers put insights about how the meaning in the texts should be guided well and relevant to the life in this era. The challenge of making relevant the traditional narrative text, the meaning of it, and the mindset of the students is absolute. The biases become important to discuss when the real case in the reality is in the contrast to the meaning of the narrative text, for instance, Malin Kundang teaches us how not to deny a mother, but sometimes, in reality, there is a case showing a mother violently tortures her child. Of course, there are many cases which cannot be leaned here elaboratively in details. In the interview, an EFL pre-service teacher, nicknamed X, elaborated the question about opinion of literary narrative text in the English coursebook, the subject stated, “... important (the narrative text as part of learning English), we (are) lazy to read. We never practice. If we read many books, maybe, we can (be) good in speaking English.” Another subject, nicknamed Y, stated, “I think it is important. English is practice. Reading is practice. We need the (narrative) text to improve (the English skill).” It is also similar to the last subject, nicknamed Z, speaking the same substance that, “Yeah, (it is) important. We can learn (English) from them (the narrative text).” Question about the importance to keep using traditional narrative texts in the coursebook also provides the predicted responses; the subjects mostly stated that it is important to keep it up because it is part of culture. subject X stated, “... we need (to keep) culture. Traditional story (narrative text) should be kept.” Subject Y stated, “... yeah, students need (to) know (it). It is part of tradition. Generation should use it for learning.” The last subject, Z, stated, “Old story (traditional narrative text) is important. Government should put it on the book so students and teachers can use it for learning.” Question about the relevance of the moral values provided by the narrative texts to the today’s values, the subjects mostly claimed that the moral values seem to be contextualized with the todays’ perspective. Subject X stated that “... the story (the traditional narrative text) has moral learning. It is important to learn from that. You are right, yeah, the example, Malin Kundang. Mother should not curse son (Malin) and Malin should not be bad (harming) his mother. I think it opens my mind.” Subject Y stated that “... right, the moral must (be) good. I think we must read more because not all meaning in the (traditional narrative) text is right (if it is applied) now. Subject Z stated “I never realize it (the example of deconstructive reading on the narrative text). Thank you. You’re right, I just Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 36 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) know (that) we need to think more about moral value (in the traditional narrative text).” Question about moral value changes the students should see, the subjects mostly propose some various deconstructive interpretation. Subject X gave interpretation on Cinderella, “... so, Cinderella was lazy because she complained (on the household tasks), oh yeah, maybe Tom is not wrong at all and Jerry is wrong.” Subject Y gave interpretation, “... so woman is not lower than man, right? I remember film, Megamind, it is about a boy, ugly, wanted to be a hero, but people hated (him) and loved his friend who is cool like Superman. Megamind is good but he was disliked so he became bad. Film Wreck-it Ralph also (has the same). Joker, Batman’s enemy, if you know.” The subject Z gave interpretation, “... years ago, I watch Brave and Raya (a film about a brave princess who loves masculine things). It is deconstruction?” From those statements, it can be dragged into a simplified point that they (EFL pre-service teachers) have insights that moral value should be taken from deconstructive reading because it can stimulate critical view in reading text. It is important because they are the candidate of teacher and they teach from what they know. With this kind of ideality, EFL pre-service teachers can be a bridge to hype up the students to learn English while opening their mind to deconstructive reading. CONCLUSION In conclusion, with all points of literature and how it is useful for EFL learners, whether it is a fun to learn language with literary works, literary works must provide meaning. EFL teachers should have the capacity to do deconstructive reading. Deconstructive reading is ability to read with analyses the specify of a text’s critical difference from itself. EFL teachers should understand that there must be biases in the interpretation of the text. They should not claim authoritatively about one-sided meaning. EFL teachers must provide critical space, open their mind with flexible interpretation, and discuss instead of claim the meaning. Literary works is mysterious abyss, the meaning is mystified, and learning the depth of it requires open-mindedness. Narrative texts provided by Kemendikbud in English coursebook seem to be conventional and it requires EFL teachers with good sense of literature to help out students to make the meaning relevant with the life they live today. Plus, some interviewed EFL pre- service teachers put some insights that meaning in the traditional narrative texts in the English coursebook should be more critical and accessing the students to questions instead of accepting; classroom is not doctrine space, learning should be enlightening. In suggestion, for them, traditional narrative is important, but the interpretative meaning should be deconstructed in more various meaning, not in Deconstructive Reading on Traditional Narratives in English Course Book (Rahmat Setiawan, et al.) 37 ELTALL : English Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024) one-sided claim which one is true and false. That is the point of biases or mystifications of moral value provided by the traditional narrative text in this research. If traditional narrative cannot drive the students to be more clinical in perceiving and critical in thinking, then moral and meaning behind the text is actually a cliché. 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