Making the Most of Literature in the Language Classroom

The germ for this edited volume sprang from many conversations over the years with the ELT students whom I taught the course entitled ‘Literature and Language Teaching’ in the department of English language teaching at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University.

Reflecting upon them, I came to the conclusion that my classroom sort of mirrored a microcosm of the English language teaching world generally, making room for the questioning of the relationship between the study of language and literature. Should we be using literature as a tool for language teaching purposes at a high school and university level, or not?

This is a question which remains controversial still. Notably, it is in the forefront of debate today and teachers’ attitudes towards incorporating literary elements into foreign language teaching are ambivalent. Having formed part of Grammar-Translation method, literature became less popular when language teaching and learning started to rely mainly on the functional use of language. However, the effective role of literature in the EFL classroom has been recognized and many now think of it as providing rich linguistic input, potential source of genuine enthusiasm, and motivation for students to express themselves in other languages fluently.