Teaching Literature

Lecture 1
 1. Introduction
• In the context of Teaching English as a Foreign Language
(TEFL), teaching literature has always been controversial and
questionable.
• For most reasons, the problem seems to persist partly in
whether literature should be taught for teaching linguistic and
communicative competence or as an end per se, and partly in
the wide gap between the substantial contents of literature
syllabi, because of the nature of the subject, and the methods
and techniques to be used to carry these programmmes out.
 1. Introduction(contd.)
Brandes (1986, p. 12) claims that:

Learning what is meaningful and relevant

depends partly on what is taught and partly
on how it is taught.
 1. Introduction (contd.)
• With the emphasis on what Brandes considers, we believe
that if teaching literature fails to achieve its goals, it is not
merely the fault either of literature as a subject or the
weaknesses of the learners, but rather of approaches, methods
and strategies used by teachers and educators to handle the
huge bulk of literature.
• Thus, developing methodologies for teaching literature
comes to be a very urgent recommendation on the part of
both researchers and teachers to make the process more
effective and consistent.
 1. Introduction (contd.)
• Since literature is a reading-centered task, teaching
literature cannot work without considering highly the skill
of reading.
• Efficient literary reading however remains a hindrance in
the way of teachers and learners because of the absence of
consistent techniques and strategies that could facilitate the
task.
 1. Introduction (contd.)
Miliani (2003, p. 46) argues that:

One should not forget that if we are to

establish relationships with literature, it
is through reading. Unfortunately, this
skill has been and is still given rough
handling by the educational system,
society at large and the learner himself.
 1. Introduction (contd.)
• Thus, developing methods and pedagogies to integrate
efficient reading skills and strategies in literature course
seems to be a very urgent requirement.
• Therefore, reading remains the only means and the most
efficient skill to enhance the students’ capacities in coping
with the bulk of literature.
 2. Pedagogical Implications for Teaching
Literature
• The inclusion of literature in any course depends partly on the
nature of the syllabus and partly on the objectives set for the
course.
• In the context of Teaching English as a Foreign Language
(TEFL), teachers and educators have always been inquiring
about the utility of literature in language learning.
• The inclusion of literature course in teaching foreign languages
dates back to the days when the grammar translation method
was dominant and literary texts were a main source for foreign
language teaching.
2. Pedagogical Implications for Teaching
Literature (contd.)
• With the structural approach, literature was highly
considered for the great body of vocabulary, structures and
texts of all types and genres it provides.
• In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the communicative language
teaching approach ignored the role of literature and
questioned its contributions to the classroom.
• Yet, in the last fifteen years, literature has been
reconsidered within the language teaching classes.
 2. Pedagogical Implications for Teaching
Literature (contd.)
• Widdowson, Slater, Mackay, Carter, Long, Brooks, Lazer,
Harmer and Hedge are among the most dedicated supporters
to the return of literature in the language classroom.
• Widdowson (1984, p. 162) asserts that:
Literature, and poetry in particular, has a way of
exploiting resources in a language which has not
been codified as correct usage...It has no place in
an approach to teaching that insists on the gradual
accumulation of correct linguistic forms.
 2. Pedagogical Implications for Teaching
Literature (contd.)
• Widdowson has questioned the role of literature in the
structuralist approach which emphasized correctness in
grammatical forms and restricted lexis, the thing which did
not allow the various uses of language.
• Widdowson also argues that grammar translation method and
the structuralist approach, by definition were incompatible
with the teaching of literature, though they exploited and
used its bulk.
 2. Pedagogical Implications for Teaching
Literature (contd.)
• With respect to these views, applied linguists, especially
those who belong to the Communicative Language Teaching
Approach called for a return of literature in the language
classroom, yet, with a different pedagogical approach for
non-native students of English.
• Long (1986, p. 42) points out that:
The teaching of literature is an arid business unless
there is a response, and even negative responses can
create an interesting classroom situation.
 2. Pedagogical Implications for Teaching
Literature (contd.)
• Clearly, Long is pointing at a reader response approach which
stresses the value of individual and unique response to text
and frees the reader from stereotyped and conventional
responses often provided by teachers.
• Rosenblatt (1985, p. 40) pinpoints the idea as follow:
The reading of any work of literature is, of necessity,
an individual and unique occurrence involving the mind
and emotions of some particular reader and a particular
text at a particular time under particular circumstances.
 2. Pedagogical Implications for Teaching
Literature (contd.)
• Within reader-response approach, reader and text mutually
affect one another as labelled by Rosenblatt (1985, p. 40) a
transaction with the literary text.
• She also maintains that transaction is an aesthetic reading
through which the reader engages with ideas in the reading
text relying on his/her prior experiences.
• From this transaction the reader creates a new unique and
personnel experience.
 2. Pedagogical Implications for Teaching
Literature (contd.)
• The students therefore should be encouraged to express
themselves freely about a literary text and slightly assisted to
appreciate a literary text since literature encompasses artistic,
social and cultural elements that are detected and approached in
several different ways by different readers.
• Accordingly, reading instruction should not seek to control the
reader’s experience but to facilitate the reader’s own structuring
of that experience.
• Hence, the teacher would assume a role of an enabler for the
transmission of knowledge.
 2. Pedagogical Implications for Teaching
Literature (contd.)
• This implies motivating students by selecting appealing
works to which they can respond emotionally and
linguistically in order to render reading a literary text an
enjoyable and responsive experience.
• Moreover, the reader-response approach stresses the
necessity and the pedagogical value of developing the
students’ critical abilities and awareness, so that they would
become critical readers and not passive accumulators of what
has been delivered to them in class by their teachers.
 2. Pedagogical Implications for Teaching
Literature (contd.)
• On the whole, according to the proponents of reader-response
approach, Rosenblatt (1985), Long and Carter (1991); and
learner-centred approach, Tudor (1996), a good pedagogic
approach to teaching literature should aim at eliciting the
students response to the text and guiding them to a personal
discovery, thus bringing in them the continuous love,
enjoyment and appreciation of literary texts.
• This would eventually develop the students both language
and literary competence.
3. Teaching Literary Text Approaches

• The traditional approach

• Language-based approach
• Reader-response approach
 3.1 The traditional approach
• It is conceived that because of the special features of
academic content of literature and also because of the
traditional methods of teaching literature, the role of the
teacher in literature course is basically that of instructor and
transmitter.
• Regarding this view, the teaching of literature in our
universities has become mainly lecture-based with teacher-
centred approach.
 3.1 The traditional approach (contd.)
• As a consequence, the student becomes a parrot-like capable
of simply repeating and “vomiting” what has been presented
in class.
• Mililani (2003, p. 2) states that:
Thus, the course (of literature) becomes a simple
transposition of the teacher’s impressions and feelings to the
learner towards a literary work, and not an intellectual
exercise for the latter who should seek and discover
meaning by himself with the means and strategies provided
by the teacher.
 3.1 The traditional approach (contd.)
• Actually, in most literature courses, the teacher first assigns a
text for students to read generally before class.
• Then, in the classroom, the teacher’s attention will be
centered on the background information and explanations
about some thematic and stylistic features of the text.
• In this teacher-centered approach, the learners have only few
opportunities to do the task by themselves and formulate their
own feelings and responses about the reading text.
 3.1 The traditional approach (contd.)

• Generally speaking, this approach does not consider too

much the learner.
• Learners, thus read large amount of literary works, but
whether their capabilities of assimilating, appreciating
and analyzing is actually questionable.
 3.2 Language-based approach
• With the attention of looking for a more effective approach
to teaching literature to EFL students that would help
learners interact profoundly with literary texts and
reconsider the teacher’s role, a language-based approach
seems to be a very appropriate alternative that most of
contemporary applied linguists and educators are calling
for.
 3.2 Language-based approach (contd.)
• Miliani (2003, p. 2) affirms that:

Literature rarely seems as an opportunity for

language use, hence the need for a
language-based approach to the teaching of
literary texts in order to develop knowledge
OF literature not ABOUT literature.
 3.2 Language-based approach (contd.)
• Arab (1993, p. 135) also affirms that:

This is why the language-based approach, which

not only softens the sudden exposure to marked
texts, but also extends the students word repertory,
as well as reading and writing skill, seem to be the
most appropriate.
 3.2 Language-based approach (contd.)
• The language-based approach entails the use of detailed
analysis of text to guide students towards meaningful as well
as personal interpretation.
• The teacher thus has knowledge to form aesthetic judgments
about the reading text.
• Besides, the reading texts should not be selected only for their
stylistic features, but also for the fact that they reflect the
learners’ interests in order to foster their engagement and
allow them practise their personal experiences in their
interpretation, typically as native speakers do when reading
their preferable works.
 3.3 Reader-response approach

• With respect to the language-based approach, the teacher

should not consider the learners as passive recipients, but
active participants in extracting meaning from text and then
responding to the underlying messages.
• Each reader will contribute to the final outcome depending
on their expectations and previous experience.
• The teacher’s role thus will be that of a mediator to help
learners interact with the text.
 3.3 Reader-response approach (contd.)
• As McRae (1991:97) supposes:
The teacher’s role is as intermediary between
author, literary work, and receiver in order to
open up a multi-directional sphere of interaction.
• Therefore, the teacher must shift from teacher-centred to a
learner-centred pedagogy that would allow him to assume a
role of facilitator and mediator, in order to lead his learners
towards an independent ability to read, assimilate and
appreciate literary texts.
 4. Literary Competence

• Most of English language and literature teachers are

familiar with Chomsky’s term grammatical competence
which refers to native speakers’ mastery of internalized
knowledge of rules and norms which govern their
language and make them generating and understanding
meaningful utterances.
• Yet, few of them are not aware of literary competence.
 4. Literary Competence (contd.)
• Lazer (2000, p. 12) argues that:

Effective readers of a literary text possess

‘literary competence’, in that they have an
Implicit understanding of, and familiarity with,
Certain conventions which allow them to take
the words on page of a play or other literary
work and convert them into literary meaning.
 4. Literary Competence (contd.)
• Literary competence thus refers to an analogous mastery
and knowledge of the roles and norms of literary discourse.
• This implies how a literary work, as distinguished from
non-literary, is to be read processed and comprehended.
• Within literary reading, the reader is very often confronted
with a language that uses metaphorical and symbolic
meanings which include figures of speech, metaphors,
simile, etc.
 4. Literary Competence (contd.)
• Teachers of literature thus have to familiarize their students
with such language use and should encourage them to process
any marked deviations from ordinary grammar and language.
• Moreover, readers should acquire a kind of competence to
enable them recognize literary genres since each genre will
require some specific knowledge on the part of the readers.
• Thus, reading a poem would activate the reader’s schemata-
knowledge-on rhyme, meter, rhythm, alliteration and images
while reading a novel would imply readers to concentrate
more on plot, characters, point of view, tone and so forth.
 4. Literary Competence (contd.)

• Each literary genre, actually disposes a particular set of

features which makes it read and handled in a particular way
with particular skills and activities.
• Besides, reading a literary text poses a crucial problem at
literary terminology level or metalanguage.
• Readers then have to be acquainted with the necessary key
literary terms to enable them exploring a literary text
appropriately.
 4. Literary Competence (contd.)
• For instance, if readers do not know foregrounding, foreshadowing,
irony, apostrophe, etc., they will just rely on literal meanings of
words, expressions and sentences that make-up the text.
• Literary competence is dependent on the reader’s awareness of
literary text’s devices, techniques and terms used by writers.
• This implies deviations of literary language, the use of metaphorical
language, and the specificities of literary genres, since each genre
presents a particular type of reading and knowledge, and literary
terminology which helps the reader add meanings that are not
apparent through the literal reading of language items.
 4. Literary Competence (contd.)
• On the whole, the more a reader is aware of the literary
style, devices, techniques, genres and terms, the more
literary competent he will be.
• So, teachers of literature have to consider the importance
of literary competence through incorporating some tasks
and activities in literary course.