Literature as Content For ESL/EFL

1. Literature as Content For ESL/EFL introduction

2. objectives • List the benefits of using literature as content. • The importance of literature to extent learners’ awareness of their own communication. • List the six aspects of language development in literature. • Compare between efferent and esthetic reading. • List the advantages of stylistics • Use characterization and point of view in language development. • Use literary texts in integrating the four language skills.

3. The three benefits of using literature as content • Show the importance of form in communication. (how the language is used) • Good resource for integrating the 4 skills. • Raises cross-cultural awareness.

4. Defining literary texts • Language is used to convey a message by relating information. • Literature convey “an individual awareness of reality” • What makes literary texts unique is that the WHAT and HOW of the text communication are inseparable. • This makes literature valuable for extending learners’ awareness that how they say something is important in two ways. • What are those two ways? (refer to p. 319) • Example p. 319-320

5. Defining literary texts. Cont. • How something is said often contributes to speakers’ achieving their purpose in communication. • Deciding how something is said, speakers often communicate something about themselves. • The writer have the choice of what to say and what not to say. • The writer make grammatical and lexical choices to define spatial and temporal frames. • Kramsch’ example. (1993)

6. Defining Literary Text.Cont. • The particularity of literary text rests on the author’s use of six aspects of text development. • What are these six aspects? (refer to p. 320). • These dimensions of literary texts that contribute to the “what/ how of literary communication.”

7. Examples • Novels • Stories • Advertisements • Newspapers headlines • Jokes • Pun

8. Literary Text And The Reader • Rosenblatt(1978) defines literary texts in terms of how readers interact with them. • Interaction can be: • Efferent reading (the focus is on the message) • Aesthetic reading (is for entertainment( • Efferent vs. Aesthetic Reading • Define the two terms. Refer to p. 320

9. Stylistics and its advantages • Stylistics: literary text analysis. • Advantages: • A key to decode the text • Basing the interpretation of systematic verbal Analysis reaffirms the centrality of the language as the aesthetic medium of literature. • Easy for non-native speakers since they already have the systematic knowledge of the language. • other researchers say the focus on stylistics will prevent the reader from enjoying the text. • What do you think? Refer to p.321 to define practical stylistics.

10. Using Literary Texts to Develop Language • Pick a partner and choose one of the stories mentioned in p. 321-322 • What things did you like about the story? • What things did you not like about the story? • If you wanted to give your students a story to read, what characteristics should it carry to achieve language development?

11. Characteristics of a chosen literary text • Students will enjoy reading literature only if the text is accessible to them. • The teacher should make sure that: • the theme of the text is engaging • The linguistic and conceptual level are appropriate for the students.

12. Literary texts in language development • teachers can help students develop their language through literary texts by means of using: • Characterization • Point of view

13. Characterization • Readers assess characters in a story based on what the character says and does. • How to assess: • Listing the adjectives they believe best describe eachcharacter. • return to the text to justify their interpretations • Examine the language of the text.

14. Point of view • Three types of point of view: Refer to p. 323 and define the three types of point of view. • Spatio-temporal point of view (tenses & order of events) • Ideological point of view ( set of values, or belief system, communicated by the language of the text) • Critical literacy/ Critical reading (Critical literacy encourages readers to actively analyze texts and offers strategies for decoding the messages) • Critical readers thus recognize not only what a text says, but also how that text portrays the subject matter.  They recognize the various ways in which each and every text is the unique creation of a unique author.

15. Point of view cont. • Psychological point of view: • Internal (the story is told from 1st person point of view by a character who shares his feeling or told by someone who know the feelings of the characters) • External ( the narrator describes the events and the characters from a position outside of the main character with no access to their feelings)

16. Using literary texts to integrate skills • How to integrate the 4 skills? • Reading refer to p. 326 • Listening refer to p. 326 • Speaking refer to p. 327 • Writing refer to p. 328

17. Using literary texts to develop cultural awareness. • Four dimensions of culture: • The aesthetic sense. (in which the language is associated with the literature, film, and music of particular country) • The sociological sense (in which the language is linked to the costumes of a country) • The semantic sense (in which a culture’s conceptual system is embodied in the language) • pragmatic sense (in which the cultural norms influence what language is appropriate for what context) Refer to p. 328 to look up the meaning of these four dimensions

18. How to use a literary text to raise cultural awareness? • Choosing different texts from different cultures provides a medium for sharing and illuminating the differences and similarities of two cultures.