Questions and Answers
What is a benefit of using literature in primary school ELT?
Why is authentic communication encouraged in teaching literature?
What is NOT a reason for teaching literature?
What is a benefit of teaching literature in secondary school (Gymnasium)?
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What is a type of competence promoted by teaching literature?
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What is a benefit of using diverse texts in teaching literature?
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What is a key criterion for text selection in terms of length and difficulty?
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What is the primary focus of literature for advanced students?
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What is a benefit of having a reading corner in the classroom?
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What is a characteristic of literature for primary school students?
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What is a goal for intermediate learners in terms of reading?
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What is a consideration for selecting texts for students?
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What is a key aspect of teaching literature in EFL classrooms using the Analytical Approach?
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What is a benefit of using literary texts in teaching inter- and transcultural competences?
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What is a characteristic of the Reader Response approach in teaching literature?
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What is a goal of teaching media literacy to advanced learners?
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What can modern adaptations of classics provide to advanced learners?
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What is a key aspect of inter- and transcultural competences in teaching literature?
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What is the primary aim of production-oriented activities?
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Which of the following is an example of action-oriented activities?
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What is the main objective of transforming a film scene into a poem?
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Which of the following is NOT an example of production-oriented activities?
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What is the purpose of rewriting a text from different perspectives or in different genres?
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Which of the following is an example of both production-oriented and action-oriented activities?
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What is the primary purpose of a pre-reading task in a literature classroom?
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What is a characteristic of a bottom-up, analytical approach in literature teaching?
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What is the primary purpose of a while-reading task in a literature classroom?
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What is an example of action-oriented work in a post-reading task?
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What is an example of production-oriented work in a literature classroom?
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What is the primary benefit of using creative tasks in literature teaching?
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Study Notes
Session 10: Literature and Film
Why Use Literature in ELT?
- Primary School:
- Knowledge of different genres
- New words in short texts
- Reading competence (comprehension)
- Fostering creativity
- Motivation
- Building self-confidence
- Listening to stories
- Speaking
- Secondary School (Mittel- und Realschule):
- Improving critical thinking
- Communicative competences
- Authentic language input
- Getting to know diverse perspectives (insights into different cultures)
- Developing empathy
- Fostering creativity
- Expressing thoughts and feelings
- Secondary School (Gymnasium):
- Cultural knowledge
- Exposure to non-standard forms of English
- Fostering analytical skills
Why Teach Literature?
- Motivation
- Reading skills
- Functional communicative competences (reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing)
- Authentic communication (encouraging questions, reactions, statements)
- Literary/visual competence (genre- and media-specific knowledge)
- Affective/emotional learning
- Critical thinking
- Social competence when negotiating meaning
- Intercultural understanding (change of perspective, empathy, tolerance)
What Texts Should We Teach?
- Literature for All Ages:
- Beginners: rhymes, songs, picture books, fairy tales
- Intermediate classes: short stories, poems, comics
- Advanced students: short stories, novels, plays, poems, graphic narratives
- Literature Everywhere:
- In the classroom: reading corner, classroom/school library, internet/mobile reading
- Outside of the classroom: independent study at home, public places, internet/mobile reading
Criteria for Text Selection
- Texts and films should be:
- Manageable in length and difficulty
- Interesting, engaging, motivating, and appealing to students
- Authentic and representative (with regard to the depiction of cultural phenomena)
- Adequate in terms of topic and age group
- Texts should:
- Be thought-provoking
- Add to a representation of diverse voices
- Enable active, creative, and critical reflections
- Allow students to develop literary competences
Primary, Intermediate, and Advanced Learners
Primary School
- Pleasure in rhythm, rhyming, harmony, (nonsense) stories, physical activity, and singing
- Interest in unusual and exciting stories
- Playful repetition and performance
- Vivid story-telling with the help of Big Books
- Holistic response
- Lexical, narrative, and visual understanding
- Describing and talking about pictures and stories, reenacting scenes
Intermediate Learners
- Life-long readers
- Various topics and genres
- Original texts
- Graded readers, simplified versions (adaptations of original texts and classics)
- Meaningful communication and interaction
Advanced Learners
- Media literacy
- Inter-, trans-, and intracultural similarities and differences
- Critical reflection on values and actions
- Modern adaptations of classics in comparison to selected scenes from the original
Inter- and Transcultural Competences
- Literary texts as authentic cultural products provide insights into foreign cultures and contexts
- Fictional characters and settings can help develop an understanding for other norms, values, and world views
- Change and coordinate different perspectives
- Develop empathy and sensitivity
Approaches to Teaching Literature in EFL Classrooms
Analytical Approach
- Close readings to experience form as meaning-producing itself
- Typical task: identify the rhyme scheme and the rhetorical features of the poem
- Content and context → interpretation
- Make students aware of how the text works and how it influences the reader in their reception
Reader Response
- Text as a source to be discovered and engaged with
- Responsive reading (dynamic interaction)
- Between reader and text
- Sociocultural schemata of text stimulate reader’s associations and ideas
- Reader infuses text with subjective mental images and interpretations
- Sharing and coordinating perspectives
- Recognition or critical resistance
(Text) Production-Oriented Activities
- Aims:
- Generating new texts
- Rewriting a text
- Creatively expanding a text
- Alienating the original
- Examples:
- Personal response in a reading or viewing diary or log, email, or blog
- Transformation of a film scene into a poem, a poem into a newspaper article, a film clip into a vlog
- Poster, a character profile of a protagonist, digital collage
- Book or film reviews edited digitally in teams and published online
- Alternative endings and various forms of rewriting from different perspectives or in different genres
Action-Oriented Activities
- Aim: acting out or transposing a text into a different medium
- Examples:
- Reconstructions of a text or film script from jumbled fragments
- Scenic re-enactments of a film scene or a dialogue, freeze frames, and spatial arrangements of certain scenes or conflicts
- Fake interviews with the film director or author
- Transformations into a different type of medium, for example, text into film, an image, a pantomime, music, or radio play
Classroom Approaches and Teaching Methods
- Pre-reading example:
- Bottom-up, analytical approach (decoding and analyzing the work)
- Creative task: students write their own story after hearing just the title and the first sentence
- While-reading example:
- Note down your impressions while reading the story
- Mood
- Spontaneous feelings concerning the characters and places
- Post-reading example:
- Action-oriented work: create a mind map about the characters and their constellations
- Production-oriented work: give the characters a voice through taking on their perspectives, write an email about the short story
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Description
Learn about the benefits of incorporating literature into English language teaching, including improving reading comprehension, fostering creativity, and building self-confidence.