I have been teaching language development for four years now to trainee primary school teachers majoring in English whose language competence ranges from intermediate to advanced. Language development is a core component of the lower primary teacher training curriculum, whereas British and American literature, which are taught in one class over two semesters, are relatively peripheral. As soon as I realised that there was a demand on the students’ part to talk more about books, I started to think of a literary approach to language and worked out a topic-based syllabus for foreign language classes where literary texts would provide students with a means of improving their academic skills in reading, listening, writing, and most of all speaking. G. Lazar’s Literature and Language Teaching (1993), J. Greenwood’s Class Readers (1988), J. Hill’s Using Literature in Language Teaching (1986), J. Collie and S. Slater’s Literature in the Language Classroom (1987) and J. McRae’s and R. Boardman’s (1984) integrated language and literature activities convinced me that the integration of language and literature teaching would be rewarding both for the teacher and the student. They also provided me with a wealth of ideas that proved successful in the classroom. 

Planning the course

While designing the syllabus for the language through literature course, I had to bear in mind that in a college for primary school teachers the students’ need to improve their functional competence in English is a much higher priority than studying literature. Consequently, the purpose of the class is preferably to learn through and not about literature; where a thorough knowledge of literature should not be the goal, and being an expert is a ‘plus’ rather than a ‘must’. A topic-based syllabus uses literary texts as vehicles to achieve a higher level of language competence. I have never aimed to achieve ‘literary competence’, that is the ability to understand, appreciate and critically evaluate written works of art while dealing with the texts (Collie & Slater, 1987); although a degree of affinity for arts is certainly a prerequisite for such an endeavour. The syllabus which I compiled is rather flexible in the sense that the same topics can be used with different literary texts with any class, moreover, the topics can be integrated or compared to each other. Here are the topics and the texts I use in English classes with my 2nd and 4th year students.
 
 

Week	Topic	Year	Literary texts
1-2.	Family	2nd	Graham Greene, 21 Stories or: J.D. Salinger, Nine Stories
		4th	D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers or: Arnold Wesker, Chicken Soup with Barley or: Tennessee Williams,  The Glass Menagerie
3.	Authority	2nd	Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland or: Joe Orton, Loot
		4th	George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty- Four  or: Joseph Heller, Catch-22
4-5.	Meaning	2nd	Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest or: Graham Greene, The Human Factor
		4th	Alan Sillitoe, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner or: Nathanel West, The Day of the Locust
6.	Language	2nd	John Fowles, The Collector or: J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
		4th	Nathanel West, Miss Lonelihearts
7-8.	Women	2nd	Margaret Drabble, The Millstone or: D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterl ey’s Lover
		4th	Edith Wharton, Glimpses of the Moon or: Kate Chopin, The Awakening
9.	Characters	2nd	George Orwell, Animal Farm
		4th	William Wharton, Birdy or: H.E. Bates, A Party for the Girls
10-11.	Conflict	2nd	Charles Webb, The Graduate +movie
		4th	Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest +movie
12-13.	People and Society	2nd	John Braine, Room at the Top or: Muriel Spark, The Public  Image
		4th	John Updike, Rabbit Redux or: Jean Stafford, The Mountain Lion
14-15.	Indifference	2nd	Christopher Isherwood, Down  There on a Visit or: Anthony Burgess, The Clockwork Orange
		4th	F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Choosing the right content for the topic requires a good deal of reading and research. The topics are selected to provide motivating opportunities for discussions, and they usually meet this purpose unless the texts are boring or irrelevant to students’ interest. In the minds of most learners, literature in any language is associated with being forced to read poems and books of no apparent relevance to their own lives. The result is no enjoyment and very little gain. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the element of ‘having fun’ should be a crucial part of selection. Therefore I gave priority to modern fiction and non-fiction over poems and drama, since the contents of modern prose are more relevant to their lives, the language is closer to their own vocabulary. Even if I am supposed to be in the best position to decide the needs of my students, in most cases I give them alternative texts to choose from when it comes to finalising the syllabus in the first class. I believe that letting students decide on the materials to be covered during the term helps to create a learning ‘community’ where everybody shares the responsibility for the success of the endeavour.

I will give an example. For the topic ‘Family’, my 2nd year students were given short stories by Salinger and Graham Greene to choose between, while the 4th year students could decide on either some extracts from D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers or Arnold Wesker’s Chicken Soup with Barley or Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. My reason for making a distinction between the reading material for the same topic lies in the difference between their level of proficiency, since in my experience the other factors of selection i.e. age, interests, intellectual and emotional maturity, literary knowledge and cultural background are negligible in the case of my students. When we were discussing the topic ‘Women’, the 4th year students could choose between Kate Chopin’s The Awakening or Edith Wharton’s Glimpses of the Moon, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, while the 2nd year students read extracts from Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone or D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, depending on the group’s choices.

H. E. Bates’ A Party for the Girls and William Wharton’s Birdy equally suit the topic ‘Characters’ and, since the students could not decide on either, they opted for reading both. I still consider it one of the highlights of my career. For ‘Language’, the big hit was Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, which was also relevant when we were dealing with ‘Conflict’ or ‘Characters’. When it came to ‘People and Society’, John Braine’s Room at the Top proved really popular with my 2nd year students - I suppose the hook was the evergreen topic of the love triangle.

Activities

Each text offers different tasks and follow-up activities that mostly involve speaking and writing. Some texts initiate pair/group dramatization; others are more suited to discussions, debates and interviews. Prediction of the content of a text from the title or a paragraph or from other clues can serve as a brainstorming exercise, interviewing the author is suitable for pair- or groupwork, while the task of writing the next theme or chapter demands creativity besides good writing skills. I have used a variety of activities based on the literary texts from summary writing to academic essay writing to enhance students’ composing skills. One of the most popular writing activities is setting up a questionnaire about some of the issues raised in the text, which can often lead to lively discussions. The following example is part of a worksheet made by students on Salinger’s short story A perfect day for Bananafish.
 
 

Assessment

Assessment of students’ work in language classes - even if a literature- based approach is used - is to be based on language (form) and not literature (content). However, it is difficult to make a strict demarcation between linguistic and literary skills, since literary skills clearly involve linguistic understanding; form and content both equally count and form one inseparable unit. Credit can be given to someone who produces ‘intelligent utterances’ on the given subject, even if his or her literary understanding of the text is idiosyncratic.

Why literary texts?

To achieve a higher proficiency in English (particularly in spoken English), students have to be provided with appropriate authentic materials to work from. It would be possible to achieve the same language aims by using non-literary texts. Modern course materials have also incorporated many ‘authentic’ samples of language e.g. travel brochures, timetables, city plans, advertisements, newspaper articles which also satisfy the non-native speaker’s hunger for authentic language. While literary texts are regarded as ‘authentic’ materials, it must be admitted that most works of literature are not tailored for the specific purpose of teaching a language. However, the advantage of using literature in English classes is that they can offer a highly motivating, life-like context for language practice. For example, giving students different sections of a dialogue from a play which they have to rewrite in reported speech is a more vivid and interesting way of revising the structure and using a range of reporting verbs (wonder, mumble, lament, yammer etc.) than asking them to transform given sentences. I believe that the biggest advantage of literature is that literary materials; e.g., extracts from novels and plays encourage students to read the whole work, and they also develop a taste for literature.

Torture or delight ?

Before you come to the conclusion that I have found a remedy for all my troubles in the language classroom and all my devastating teaching experiences are in the past, I have to warn you of the disadvantages of this approach. The success of literature-based classes depends a lot more on the students’ active participation and their spontaneous reactions than in other classes where their reaction to a certain problem is more foreseeable. I would say that teacher’s preparation counts 35% while students’ participation counts 60% in this new attempt. 5% should be allowed for small mishaps: weather, timetable, high-technology, mood etc. In a traditional class the ‘blame’ factor is just the opposite: 60% for teachers, 35% for students. Disasters usually occur in the same proportion. Despite the most painstaking preparation, it can happen that my students come up with ideas I would never have thought of and the whole lesson will take an unpredictable turn. But the worst case scenario - when resolutions for changing jobs are silently made - is when they do not come up with anything at all in spite of all my sweaty attempts to take them out of a blissful state of intellectual hibernation.

Correcting students while they are exploring their thoughts, their feelings, i.e. themselves, is far from easy. It would be ideal to correct them after they finished contributing to the topic. The reality is that an intense discussion cannot be interrupted after each speaker, and afterwards it does not seem an issue anymore. Usually the most timid, ‘linguistically less competent’ students are hyper-sensitive about correction because they are afraid to be ridiculed if they cannot express themselves correctly; on the other hand they are the ones whose errors should not go uncorrected. If the group is not homogeneous as far as language level is concerned, the ones with a better command of the language tend to dominate, ‘declaring’ their ideas instead of sharing them with the rest of the group, and this can sometimes lead to personal conflicts. Giving a grade for active participation on the basis of the individual student’s contribution to the success of the lesson is one of the most difficult tasks a teacher has to face.

There are other factors besides testing that can shake enthusiasm for literature. The non-availability of sufficient copies of long texts, insufficient time available for extended discussion, and an unsuitable classroom setting can hinder discussion. Time consuming preparation is also tiring, and lack of teaching ideas can cause many headaches.

In spite of all the pitfalls and trials in using literature in English classes, I am convinced that the integration of language and literature teaching is worth the trouble. My observation is that literature has a significant effect on students’ utterances: especially when it comes to expressing their thoughts and emotions in English. Since they usually have a say in the choice of texts and are not forced to ‘study’ literature, even the most reluctant learners show some degree of enthusiasm. Many literary texts provide them with experiences of cultures and people otherwise inaccessible to them, thus broadening their minds and world-view. For those who enjoy the literature presented in language classes, reading will hopefully become a habit and a stepping stone to lifelong learning. After finishing the course last June, my students came up to me and asked for a reading list to pursue during the long vacation. Could anybody wish for more?

References

Collie, J., & Slater, S. (1987). Literature in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Greenwood, J. (1988). Class readers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hill, J. (1986). Using literature in language teaching. London: Macmillan.
Lazar, G. (1993). Literature and language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McRae, J., & Boardman, R. (1984). Reading between the lines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.