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. vocabulary, grammar and
pronunciation) is very popular within the field of foreign language learning and teaching
nowadays. Moreover, in translation courses, many language teachers make their students
translate literary texts like drama, poetry and short stories into the mother tongue, Turkish.
Since translation gives students the chance to practice the lexical, syntactic, semantic,
pragmatic and stylistic knowledge they have acquired in other courses, translation both as an
application area covering four basic skills and as the fifth skill is emphasized in language
teaching. 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.
2.1. 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
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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.
4. 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.
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