Abstract:
Educationalists and scholars have tried to devise ways of making
literature a more significant part of English language teaching programme and using it
in such a way as to further the learner's mastery in the four basic areas of listening,
speaking, reading and writing. Many of the activities and the ideas behind them can be
successfully adapted across different levels of English language proficiency.
The perennial problem of how to teach English language has in recent years
become increasingly guided by the dominant aim of promoting the learner's
communicative competence. Each novel, short story or play can spark off a wealth of
different activities. Tasks and exercises based on a literary text can provide valuable
practice in listening, speaking, writing as well as improving reading skills.
Moreover, from the teacher's point of view, literature, which speaks to the
heart as much as to the mind, provides material with some emotional colour that can
make fuller contact with the learner's own life, and can thus counterbalance the more
fragmented effect of many collections of texts used in the classroom.
One of the main reasons might be that literature offers a bountiful and
extremely varied body of written material which is 'important' in the sense that it says
something about fundamental human issues, and which is enduring rather than
ephemeral. On the positive side, literature provides a rich context in which individual
lexical or syntactical items are made more memorable. Above all, literature can be
helpful in the language learning process because of the personal involvement it fosters
in readers.
The main objective of this paper is to explain some ideas, approaches and
techniques that have been used in English language teaching and the use of literature in
the English language teaching classroom. The paper analyses the benefits of literature in
the English language learning process. The methodology includes observations, and
interviews with English teachers and scholars. Such an attempt would definitely
motivate and promote the students to learn the English language through literature. One
of our aims in teaching literature is to encourage learners to feel that they can read and
enjoy books on their own. Language enrichment is one benefit often sought through
literature.
