Literature and Language Learning in the EFL Classroom

Masayuki Teranishi, Yoshifumi Saito, Katie Wales, Yoshifumi Saito, Katie Wales

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137443663
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

This book examines how literary texts can be incorporated into teaching practices in an EFL classroom. It takes a multi-faceted approach to how English language teaching and learning can best be developed through presentation and exploration of literary texts.

Part I

Current Issues and Suggestions for New Approaches

1

Recent Developments in Uses of Literature in Language Teaching

Geoff Hall

1 Introduction

The preparation of a second edition of a book that has been noticed and used globally gave me a valuable prompt not just to correct earlier mistakes or poorly formulated sentences and sections, but also, more positively, to review activity in an undoubtedly very active field over the last ten years, 2004–2014. My survey in this chapter is necessarily selective and partial, but attempts to identify, with salient examples, some major ongoing developments, with references for readers to follow up for themselves.

One general underlying trend identified at the outset was a continuing and healthy thriving of literatures in English around the world, and the ongoing vernacularization of the language of literary texts. Another trend that is now clear is the increasing diversification of creative uses of language into new modes and forms, with the internet and the multimodal possibilities for imaginative writings offered ever more democratically to users of expanding new technologies (see, e.g., Unsworth, 2008). ‘Cross-over’ literature – above all the Harry Potter series, but including, for example, both adult- and child-focused marketing of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Haddon, 2004; see also Bland, 2013) – has shown the ongoing appeal of literature, with adaptations into film, comic books, internet games and more, along with a general interest in issues of creativity across education and arts and humanities faculties and beyond (e.g. Swann et al., 2011), all of which are of relevance to those interested in uses of literature in language education.

Those of us who advocate the use of literature in foreign or second language classrooms point to its potential to engage the feelings and minds of readers in meaningful communication, as well as the importance of carefully selected uses of language, patterned and played upon, to learners who need to focus on form as well as meaning. Literature, broadly understood, ideally meets both needs of language learning. Beyond this, as discussed below, research on creativity and on motivation is flourishing – and lending further weight to the case for using literature in language teaching both in and out of classrooms. ‘We must recover the seriousness of a child at play’, as Nietzsche wrote more than a hundred years ago. Nothing is more serious or more valuable than enjoying a good story or poem, although we need constantly to remind politicians and other stakeholders in education of this. Much cutting-edge research work in second language learning and classroom research today focuses on the importance of play and creativity in language learning as in learning and human progress more broadly. (Cook, 2000, was an important moment in the evolution of this research.) Dörnyei (2010), Lamb (2004) and others have revised old ideas of ‘instrumental’ and ‘integrative’ motivation in favour of more dynamic and contextualized understandings of identities of learners, now connecting through the internet, comics and other channels for popular culture. These imagined and aspirational selves, particularly of adolescents and younger users, again point to important roles for imaginative and pleasurable uses of language, particularly for learners of English, widely perceived as the key global language at present.

In terms of published research, I added more than 100 references to my revised edition, referring to relevant publications in LLE – about one a month for every month in the last ten years! Quantity of course is not quality (see, for example, critical views of Fogal, 2015), but the plethora or new publications suggests that the level of interest in this field is growing rather than declining. Professional interest groups such as the IATEFL Literature, Media and Cultural Studies Group and Global Issues Group, The C Group and the British Council’s literature resources website for students and teachers are thriving and expanding, while new journals, such as The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching in Japan, have recently appeared. An international research journal such as Language and Literature, which I have been privileged to edit since 2010, regularly receives submissions (of varying quality, admittedly) related to literature and language teaching. Elsewhere, articles of interest to our community have appeared in ELT Journal, Modern Language Journal (MLJ), Foreign Language Annals and others at national as well as international level. Important, wide-ranging critical overviews of research appeared in Carter (2007) and Paran (2008). High-level curriculum statements emphasizing the importance of literature and culture in language teaching have been issued by the Council of Europe in its Common European Framework (2001), while similar calls and directives were made more recently in the USA with the ACTFL (American Council on Teaching of Foreign Languages) Standards and ADFL (Association of Departments of Foreign Languages) Guidelines of the MLA (Modern Language Association) (some discussion in Kramsch, 2009).

All in all, then, as I suggested, a lot of activity is going on and much of it is available as published research, which can only be good for the progress of our field.

2 Reading literature in a foreign language

In 2005 I noted the promising growth in research into second language reading as well as into the reading of literature, but also noted that the more specific questions raised by the reading of literature in a second language were under-researched. The assumption, generally, was that conclusions and findings for reading of literature or for second language reading could unproblematically be generalised and extended into second reading of literature in a second language. To some extent, this idea seems justified. Reading studies show that reading in a second language, at a broad level, raises issues familiar from studies of first language reading – the importance of vocabulary knowledge, strategies for reading, the tendency of weaker readers to rely on ‘top down’ strategies and so on. Beglar et al. (2012) suggest that readers need to read at a rate of about 200 words a minute if they are not to get lost or become disengaged. Bernhardt (2011) and others suggest that second language readers usually read at rates about 30% below their L1 reading rates – a finding that needs to be taken into account by teachers assigning reading materials. More a lack of reading skill than a language weakness, less successful readers of literature seem for a variety of reasons to often understand the words or the sentences but not the ‘point’ of a literary text. They fail to detect irony, or the significance of point of view, reading for story rather than plot, inferring weakly or problematically and so, again, missing much of the significance more fluent readers would find. Language command and reading skill can clearly be worked on together by students and their teachers.

Pedagogical stylistics is another area of research that has flourished in recent years; it can also support language and reading development (see a recent survey in Hall, 2014). More broadly, it is well-established that there is no absolute dichotomy between first and second language (we might prefer ‘more and less fluent’) processing of literary text. Hudson (2007) offers a state-of-the-art account of teaching second language reading in general, including a useful chapter (8) on genre and discourse, with a valuable discussion on the incidental acquisition of vocabulary. Zhang et al. (2008) show a clear correlation among Singapore primary school readers between language proficiency and effective reading. The two can advance together.

Nevertheless, Bernhardt (2011), for example, shows the relevance of the particular language of the text to be central to reading research – not all languages can be processed in the same way by all learners. Others continue to underline the role of culture. Thus Stott (2004), in a short but stimulating paper, reports that his Japanese readers paid attention and learned a good deal when they thought a passage they were reading about Japan had been written by a foreigner. Those who were told the truth – that it was a passage translated from classic Japanese literature – found it boring and learned less. Bernhardt (2005) argues that the effects of interest and the role of feelings in second language reading remain generally under-researched. Beglar et al.’s (2012) paper is relevant here again in showing that extensive reading for pleasure in a Japanese university context promoted faster reading and better comprehension. The paper also argues for the value of simplified reading materials. Bland (2013), on the other hand, argues against the need for simplified readers and emphasizes their shortcomings with some telling examples. Uden et al.’s (2014) article is interesting but something of a missed opportunity to investigate a frequently reported experience in more depth. The study is mostly concerned with vocabulary gains (or not) and sees reading almost exclusively as a linguistic issue. The researchers could have taken reader perspectives and perceptions more seriously (although reading group discussions were apparently held, they are not reported). The issue of graded and simplified readers versus ‘authentic’ literature remains a hot one and could stand more investigation.

A lot of often stimulating research on the use of extensive reading and graded readers has been published since 2005. This is relevant to the reading of literature both more broadly and more strictly understood, generally what might be called ‘advocacy’ research literature, by which I mean more use of extensive reading is being urged in such publications. Day et al.’s (2011) book contains several chapters of interest to those already using or thinking of using graded readers in an extensive reading programme. The collection also includes a chapter on a phenomenon seemingly growing ever more popular, the ‘reading circles’ movement (Furr, ch. 6 in Day et al., 2011). Shelton-Strong (2012) builds on earlier work by Furr, but with particular reference to attention and engagement by learners in a Vietnam British Council class. Lima (2014) has shown how reading circles can work for English teachers and more advanced learners online.

Elsewhere, Mantero (2002) shows the dangers of a teacher-centred, knowledge-based approach to literature teaching at university level, while by contrast Kim (2004) and more recently Scott and Huntington (2007) point to more valuable approaches, involving reading and discussion of literary texts, in US foreign and second language classrooms. Scott and Huntington’s (2007) paper is particularly valuable for identifying worthwhile roles and activities for the teacher in a literature in a second language classroom. This is exactly the kind of research I was calling for in my 2005 review.

This section on second language reading of literature must nevertheless again conclude that ten years on we still know too little about the reading of classic literature in a second language in any more delimited sense (rather than reading of graded reader stories, etc.). Studies like those of Mantero (2002), Donato and Brooks (2008) and Zyzik and Polio (2008) raise the fear that we are not learning much about literature use in second language contexts because not much actually goes on globally except incidentally and/or that what uses of literature there are tend to be unhelpful because the teachers are not trained to use literature in language learning contexts. This is the possible downside (I infer) of the increased and increasingly varied activity I report elsewhere in this chapter.

3 Creative writing in a foreign language

Creative writing is booming in English teaching classes and beyond worldwide (examples in Disney, 2014). It goes along with a wider interest in education in creativity more generally, as mentioned in my Introduction above. Literature, it is argued, can be a key resource for imaginative and personal uses of a new language being learned. Humanistic views of the learner here...