Teaching English Through Literature

The use of literature is a popular technique for teaching both basic language skills (i.e. reading, writing,
listening and speaking) and language areas (i.e. vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation) in our times.
Reasons for using literary texts in foreign language classroom and main criteria for selecting suitable
literary texts in foreign language classes are stressed so as to make the reader familiar with the
underlying reasons and criteria for language teachers’ using and selecting literary texts.

Moreover, literature and the teaching of language skills, benefits of different genres of literature (i.e.
poetry, short fiction, drama and novel) to language teaching and some problems encountered by
language teachers within the area of teaching English through literature (i.e. lack of preparation in the
area of literature teaching in TESL / TEFL programs, absence of clear-cut objectives defining the role of
literature in ESL / EFL, language teachers’ not having the background and training in literature, lack of
pedagogically-designed appropriate materials that can be used by language teachers in a classroom
context) are taken into account.

Key Words: Literature, Teaching Literature, The Teaching of Language Skills, Foreign Language Teaching

Introduction

In recent years, the role of literature as a basic component and source of authentic texts of the language
curriculum rather than an ultimate aim of English instruction has been gaining momentum.

Among language educators, there has been a hot debate as to how, when, where, and why literature
should be incorporated in ESL / EFL curriculum. Vigorous discussion of how literature and ESL / EFL
instruction can work together and interact for the benefit of students and teachers has lead to the
flourishment of interesting ideas, learning, and improved instruction for all.

Many teachers consider the use of literature in language teaching as an interesting and worthy concern
(Sage 1987:1). Why a language teacher should use literary texts in the language classroom, what sort of
literature language teachers should use with language learners, literature and the teaching of language
skills, and benefits of different genres of literature to language teaching will be taken into account.

Thus, the place of literature as a tool rather than an end in teaching English as a second or foreign
language will be unearthed.

Teaching Literature: why and what

The use of literature as a technique for teaching both basic language skills (i.e. reading, writing, listening
and speaking) and language areas (i.e. semantic, grammar and phonology) is very popular within the
field of foreign language learning and teaching nowadays. Moreover, many language teachers make
their students translate literary texts like drama, poetry and short stories into the mother tongue.

In the following section, why language teachers use literary texts in the foreign language classroom and
main criteria for selecting suitable literary texts in foreign language classes are stressed so as to make
the reader familiar with the underlying reasons and criteria for language teachers’ using and selecting
literary texts.

Reasons for Using Literary Texts in Foreign Language Classes

According to Collie and Slater (1990:3), there are four main reasons which lead a language teacher to
use literature in the classroom. These are valuable authentic material, cultural enrichment, language
enrichment and personal involvement.

In addition to these four main reasons, universality, non-triviality, personal relevance, variety, interest,
economy and suggestive power and ambiguity are some other factors requiring the use of literature as a
powerful resource in the classroom context.

1. Valuable Authentic Material

Literature is authentic material. Most works of literature are not created for the primary purpose of
teaching a language. Many authentic samples of language in real-life contexts (i.e. travel timetables, city
plans, forms, pamplets, cartoons, advertisements, newspaper or magazine articles) are included within
recently developed course materials. Thus, in a classroom context, learners are exposed to actual
language samples of real life / real life like settings.

Literature can act as a beneficial complement to such materials, particularly when the first “survival”
level has been passed. In reading literary texts, because students have also to cope with language
intended for native speakers, they become familiar with many different linguistic forms, communicative
functions and meanings.

2. Cultural Enrichment

For many language learners, the ideal way to increase their understanding of verbal / nonverbal aspects
of communication in the country within which that language is spoken - a visit or an extended stay - is
just not probable.

For such learners, literary works, such as novels, plays, short stories,etc. facilitate understanding how
communication takes place in that country.

Though the world of a novel, play, or short story is an imaginary one, it presents a full and colorful
setting in which characters from many social / regional backgrounds can be described. A reader can
discover the way the characters in such literary works see the world outside (i.e. their thoughts, feelings,
customs, traditions, possessions; what they buy, believe in, fear, enjoy; how they speak and behave in
different settings.

This colorful created world can quickly help the foreign learner to feel for the codes and preoccupations
that shape a real society through visual literacy of semiotics.

Literature is perhaps best regarded as a complement to other materials used to develop the foreign
learner’s understanding into the country whose language is being learned. Also, literature adds a lot to
the cultural grammar of the learners.

3. Language Enrichment
Literature provides learners with a wide range of individual lexical or syntactic items. Students become
familiar with many features of the written language, reading a substantial and contextualized body of
text. They learn about the syntax and discourse functions of sentences, the variety of possible
structures, the different ways of connecting ideas, which develop and enrich their own writing skills.

Students also become more productive and adventurous when they begin to perceive the richness and
diversity of the language they are trying to learn and begin to make use of some of that potential
themselves.

Thus, they improve their communicative and cultural competence in the authentic richness, naturalness
of the authentic texts.

1. Personal Involvement

Literature can be useful in the language learning process owing to the personal involvement it fosters in
the reader. Once the student reads a literary text, he begins to inhabit the text. He is drawn into the
text. Understanding the meanings of lexical items or phrases becomes less significant than pursuing the
development of the story. The student becomes enthusiastic to find out what happens as events unfold
via the climax; he feels close to certain characters and shares their emotional responses.

This can have beneficial effects upon the whole language learning process. At this juncture, the
prominence of the selection of a literary text in relation to the needs, expectations, and interests,
language level of the students is evident. In this process, he can remove the identity crisis and develop
into an extrovert.

Maley (1989:12) lists some of the reasons for regarding literature as a potent resource in the language
classroom as follows:

1. Universality

2. Non-triviality

3. Personal Relevance

4. Variety

5. Interest

6. Economy and Suggestive Power

7. Ambiguity

Universality - because we are all human beings, the themes literature deals with are common to all
cultures despite their different way of treatment - Death, Love, Separation, Belief, Nature ... the list is
familiar. These experiences all happen to human beings.

Non-triviality - many of the more familiar forms of language teaching inputs tend to trivialize texts or
experience. Literature does not trivialize or talk down. It is about things which mattered to the author
when he wrote them. It may offer genuine as well as merely “authentic” inputs.
Personal Relevance

Since it deals with ideas, things, sensations and events which either constitute part of the reader’s
experience or which they can enter into imaginatively, they are able to relate it to their own lives.

Variety

Literature includes within it all possible varieties of subject matter. It is, in fact, a battery of topics to use
in ELT. Within literature, we can find the language of law and of mountaineering, of medicine and of
bull-fighting, of church sermons and nursery talk.

Interest

Literature deals with themes and topics which are intrinsically interesting, because part of the human
experience, and treats them in ways designed to engaged the readers’ attention.

Economy and suggestive power

One of the great strengths of literature is its suggestive power. Even in its simplest forms, it invites us to
go beyond what is said to what is implied. Since it suggests many ideas with few words, literature is ideal
for generating language discussion. Maximum output can often be derived from minimum input.

Ambiguity

As it is highly suggestive and associative, literature speaks subtly different meanings to different people.
It is rare for two readers to react identically to any given text. In teaching, this has two advantages. The
first advantage is that each learner’s interpretation has validity within limits. The second advantage is
that an almost infinite fund of interactive discussion is guaranteed since each person’s perception is
different. That no two readers will have a completely convergent interpretation establishes the tension
that is necessary for a genuine exchange of ideas.

Apart from the above mentioned reasons for using literature in the foreign language class, one of the
main functions of literature is its sociolinguistic richness. The use of language changes from one social
group to another. Likewise, it changes from one geographical location to another. A person speaks
differently in different social contexts like school, hospital, police station and theatre (i.e. formal,
informal, casual, frozen, intimate styles speech). The language used changes from one profession to
another (i.e. doctors, engineers, economists use different terminology). To put it differently, since
literature provides students with a wide range of language varieties like sociolects, regional dialects,
jargon, idiolects,etc., it develops their sociolinguistic competence in the target language. Hence,
incorporating literature into a foreign language teaching program as a powerful source for reflecting the
sociolinguistic aspects of the target language gains importance.