Using literature in ESL and the principles of Communicative Language Teaching
Among the reasons Van (2009) believes studying literature in the ESL classroom is advantageous (providing meaningful contexts, a profound range of vocabulary, enhancing creativity and developing cultural awareness and critical thinking), he mentions the fact that it is in line with CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) principles.
It is worth to elaborate this last point by specifying the ways in which literary exploration in the language classroom can go hand in hand with the main tenets of CLT.
Communicative language teaching (CLT) is considered an approach to language which is based on the theory that the main function of language use is communication. It has as a primary goal that learners develop communicative competence or ability. In other words, its aim is to make use of real-life situations where communication is involved.
Bradl (2008) defines communicative competence as “the ability to interpret and enact appropriate social behaviours, and it requires the active involvement of the learner in the production of the target language”. He also states that “such a notion encompasses a wide range of abilities: the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary (linguistic competence); the ability to say the appropriate thing in a certain social situation (sociolinguistic competence); the ability to start, enter, contribute to, and end a conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent manner (discourse competence); the ability to communicate effectively and repair problems caused by communication breakdowns (strategic competence)”.
The kind of activities teachers may use in communicative language teaching are the ones that require fre...
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...terpretations of the literary experience the book provided. From the chosen evidence the ‘planning for learning experiences’ and instructions could begin.
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Last semester I was a part of Chelsey Hauge’s Rhetoric and Composition class. Chelsey had our class take a trip to library to get more information about the resources and research techniques available to us, just as our Intro to Literary Studies class did on February 16th. I found both visits informative and helpful, though they were similar in many ways.
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In preparation for the Advanced Placement Literature and Composition exam, high school students must read many kinds of literature during the year-long course to familiarize themselves with different time periods, movements, philosophies, and genres. Advanced Placement students must learn to think critically, and be ready to find, analyze, and express literary connections through written analysis. The biggest challenge of teaching and learning Advanced Placement English is the difficulty covering the entire scope of literature in two semesters. Twentieth century literature often gets neglected. The pace of the curriculum can also limit the creativity of lesson planning and evaluation. Many teachers rely heavily on lecture, discussion, and a traditional analysis paper.
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Literature is a key component when speaking of literacy. Teachers need to provide students with endless amounts of practice experiences in reading to build their fluency rate. This should be done with different genres of texts and different levels. Reading a wide variety of literature help children develop rich vocabularies.
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