CHAPTER 2 6

Literature in the language classroom

Alan Maley

Introduction
Literature in language teaching has a long pedigree. It was a fundamental part of foreign language
teaching in the 'classical humanist' paradigm, where an understanding of the high culture and
thought expressed through literature took precedence over mere competence in using the language.
Indeed, in the teaching of European classical languages, such as Greek and Latin, the literature
was virtually all that remained of the language.
This central role of literature was carried over into TESL/TEFL in the early part of the
twentieth century. In many parts of the world, such as India, it remains integral to the teaching of
the language to this day. However, as the TESL/TEFL profession developed a more sophisticated
understanding of how languages are learned, and as the demand for English shifted its focus from
the small-scale production of scholarly elites to the mass production of large numbers of
functionally competent users of the language, literature came to be regarded as, at best, an
irrelevance and, at worst, positively harmful.
Among other things, this resulted in an unproductive debate between the 'ancients', staunch
supporters of Literatures (with a capital L), and the 'moderns', devotees of linguistic structures,
functions and the like, who would have no truck with literature. To some extent this divide
continues, especially at the college/university level. In more recent times, however, there has been a
gradual rehabilitation of literature and its value for language teaching. Nonetheless, the role of
literature in language teaching remains contentious, owing to widespread differences in interpreta-
tion of the precise nature of that role. It is to these differing interpretations that I turn my
attention in the next section.

Background
Discussion focuses on two sets of issues: 'What is literature?' and 'What do we mean by the
teaching of literature?'

WHAT IS LITERATURE?

The answer would seem to be self-evident, yet the question gives rise to continuing debate.
Traditionally, Literature (with a large L) has tended to be thought of as the 'best' writing produced
in a given language or society, and this collection of 'approved' works has constituted the literary
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canon deemed by authority to be fit to study. The syllabuses of many institutions still confine
themselves to the Beowulf to Virginia Woolf parade of great writers, with Shakespeare, the
Metaphysical poets, Jane Austen, Dickens and the rest featured prominently, and often excluding
any writer who is not yet safely dead.
In the post-modern, deconstructionist age, however, the classical canon has been under attack
as a bastion of power and privilege. The definition of what constitutes literature worthy of study
has been widened to include feminist and gay writing, genres such as detective fiction and horror,
and - most notably - the new literatures developing in countries such as India and Singapore,
where English has been grafted on to cultures and societies far removed from the metropolis.
A further enlargement of the field has taken place through the recognition of the widespread
occurrence of literary devices - such as parallelism, rhyme, rhythm and metaphor - in texts which
were not even written as literary texts - such as advertising copy, graffiti and public notices.
The debate about what constitutes literature is relevant to the claims literature has on the
language classroom since it broadens the range of texts which may be considered for treatment.
Classical texts are often burdened with linguistic, historical and cultural baggage which come in
the way of their usefulness as exemplars of contemporary usage. Contemporary quasi-literary
texts - such as advertising texts - come without this baggage and are perceived as more
immediately relevant by students.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE?

Literature is used and studied in many different ways and different contexts. The following are the
most common emphases:
1. focus on teaching language vs. focus on teaching literature;
2. language learning purpose (pragmatic focus) vs. academic/analytical purpose (intellectual
focus);
3. linguistic orientation (stylistics) vs. literary critical orientation (the new criticism, post-
modernism, etc.);
4. learning how to study literature vs. studying literature.
Considering each of these in turn, in (1) there is a clear difference of objective. At one end of the
scale we find literary texts being used as just one among many other kinds of texts. At the other
end, literary texts alone are the object of study, and they are studied for their literary qualities.
In (2) the difference is equally clear, as between a primarily pragmatic learning purpose and a
primarily studial, academic analysis of literary texts. Note that such an analysis can be either
linguistically or aesthetically motivated; see (3) below.
Point (3) refers to the type of analysis which is carried out: whether this is primarily stylistic,
seeking to understand the ways in which language is deployed to achieve aesthetic effects, or
primarily literary-critical, using aesthetic criteria (most recently with a heavy ideological focus).
Generally, linguistic analysis would be thought of (by linguists at least!) as an objective process,
whereas literary criticism is almost inevitably tarred with the subjective brush.
In (4) I make the distinction between learning how to study literature and actually studying it.
Widdowson (1975, 1992), among many others, has made the point that students are frequently
exposed to literary texts as if they already knew how to tackle them. This often results in
demotivation and a kind of pseudo-literary competence, with students merely parroting ideas
based upon received opinion. By contrast, students can be progressively introduced and sensitised
to the devices through which literature achieves its special effects before they embark upon a fully-
fledged study of particular literary works.
In practice, of course, the situation is not as simple as that. With rare exceptions, what we find
are complex combinations of the above emphases. And the specific approach adopted depends on

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factors such as language level, type of institution, examination requirements and students' cultural
orientation. However, given that the main emphasis of this book is on language teaching, I focus
my attention on that area, recognising that the use of literary texts to teach language can often
also open the way for an enlargement of literary understanding and sensitivity.

A RATIONALE FOR INTEGRATING LITERARY TEXTS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

An early writer on language teaching made the following case for using literature in the form of
poetry:
To leave poetry out of a language course . . . is to renounce an extremely effective and labour-
saving method of absorbing useful language. It is also to abandon opportunities to humanize
and warm what may also be a very dry and chilly traffic in words and information. It is to
renounce the hope of delivering us from the pedestrian writing - if not platitudes - of the
textbook writer. It is to neglect an important and powerful aid in establishing in the pupils'
mind a favourable mental set. It is to stop short of what might be most rewarding in the
pupil's experience of the language. (Billows 1961: 238)
Billows puts his finger on two, if not all three, of the reasons usually given for the teaching of
literature: the cultural model, the language model and the personal growth model.
Teaching literature within a cultural model enables students to understand and appreciate
cultures and ideologies different from their own in time and space, and to come to perceive
traditions of thought, feeling and artistic form within the heritage the literature of such
cultures endows. (Carter and Long 1991: 2)
In the language model, the text may be used as an example of certain types of pattern and
structure. A more important aim may be to help students find independent ways into a text in a
systematic manner. The personal growth model stresses the personal enjoyment and emotional
gain students can procure by engaging with such texts.
A number of writers (e.g. McRae 1991; Kramsch 1993) have stressed the difference between
referential texts, which are essentially vehicles for conveying information, and representational
texts, which require the reader to re-create in his or her own terms the imaginative world of the
text. Kramsch also stresses that the reading process itself is different from 'efferent' reading, where
the reader simply carries away information, and 'aesthetic' reading, where the reader interacts
emotionally and experientially with the text.
Maley and Duff (1989) draw attention to the motivating power of literary texts in terms of
their universality and their non-triviality, echoing Billow's comments on the texts usually found in
textbooks. They also stress how literary texts invite multiple interpretation, thus providing ready-
made material for discussion.
The rationale for incorporating literature is thus well established, even if it does not go
entirely uncontested. Edmondson (1997) has argued that many of the assumptions which underpin
the use of literary texts in language teaching cannot be sustained. Many also argue against the use
of such texts on the grounds of linguistic complexity and cultural remoteness from the learners
using them.

Research
I have already drawn attention above to the relative paucity of empirical research in the field. The
work that exists tends to fall into one of three main categories:
• theoretical debate, in which the author typically puts forward a set of assertions about what
literature (and/or literature teaching) is, or ought to be: Hall (1999: 3) is a good example of

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the genre, as is Edmondson (1997). These contributions to the debate are frequently
ideologically motivated, and may even be intentionally polemical. Nonetheless, they generally
rest on assertion and argument rather than on empirically based investigation. This is not to
say that they have no value, although it has to be said that they are often couched in language
which puts them beyond the range of most classroom practitioners.
• practical demonstration, in which the author presents a possible set of practical classroom
activities based on his or her own experience of, and beliefs about, the use of literary texts in
language teaching. An excellent example of the genre is Philip Chan's detailed description of
activities based on Catherine Lim's short story 'The teacher' (Chan 1999). Such practically
oriented contributions are usually set in the context of a particular rationale: theory with a
small't'.
• empirical research, which is usually small-scale and oriented to particular classroom contexts;
very often these are action research projects forming part of an MA or PhD study. As such,
they are relatively rarely published and, therefore, tend to be somewhat inaccessible. Most of
these research projects are qualitative and ethnographic in their approach. They are welcomed
for their focus on specific, local contexts. Although this makes their conclusions difficult to
generalise with confidence, they nonetheless offer suggestive avenues for application and
variation in other specific contexts.
One area of investigation which merits more attention is the evaluation and testing of teaching
through literature. The main work in this area has been undertaken by Spiro (1992). In developing
new-style test items, she is concerned to draw on a range of stimulating and fresh material, to
allow scope for personal response and creativity and to encourage empathy with the text.

Practice
In general, the literature teaching approach has shown a preference for practical exploration in the
classroom rather than for empirical research. This may in part be a legacy of literary criticism,
which is prone to assertion rather than proof. This notwithstanding, there is now a large body of
published materials on all aspects of using literature to teach language.
At the advanced level there are a number of books offering useful activities to develop literary
sensitivity through greater linguistic awareness (Short 1986; Carter and Long 1987; Birch 1989;
Carter and Nash 1990; Durant and Fabb 1990; Widdowson 1992; G. Cook 1994). Useful
collections of mainly practically oriented articles include Carter et al. (1989) and Carter and
McRae (1996). Both these collections would serve as an invaluable introduction to the area for
trainee teachers or the uninitiated.
At intermediate level the variety of resources is considerable (Maley and Duff 1982, 1989;
Maley and Moulding 1986; Collie and Slater 1987; Tomlinson 1987; Greenwood 1989; Maley
1989, 1994; Duff and Maley 1990; McRae and Pantaleoni 1990; Carter and Long 1991; McRae
1991, 1992; Bassnet and Grundy 1993; Lazar 1993, 1999; McRae and Vethamani 1999). All these
titles offer the teacher texts and activities for immediate classroom use, with only minimal
reference to theory.
For the most part, activities fall into one of two categories: those that focus on the linguistic
analysis of the text, and those in which the text acts as a springboard for a variety of language
activities, including discussion and writing. Not surprisingly, the kinds of activities in the second
category in particular draw heavily on techniques developed as part of the communicative
approach in general. They tend to utilise generalisable categories such as comparison, completion,
re-ordering, matching, extension and reformulation (for a useful taxonomy of these categories, see
Maley 1994). Techniques such as opinion and information gap, problem-solving and role-play/
simulation are also in widespread use, as well as a variety of activities to promote students' creative
writing.

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Other heuristics used to generate activities include the 'what, how, who, when/where, why'
model. For any text, it is possible to examine:
• what it contains: language features, information, emotions, as well as what associations and
personal feelings it arouses;
• how it works: repetition, rhyme, rhythm, metaphor, parallelism;
• who wrote it, and who it was addressed to;
• when/where it was written: background information on the sociocultural and personal context
against which it was written;
• why it was written; why certain choices were made (e.g. why a poem not a pamphlet? why this
word and not that? why the omission of some information?).
All these questions have the potential to generate interactive language work which is meaningful
and stimulating.
Clearly, the appropriacy of the texts selected for a particular class remains a crucial factor in
the success of the approach. Texts which tend to be chosen are those that are not too long, not too
complex linguistically, not too far removed from the world knowledge of the students, and not too
anachronistic (for criteria for selecting texts, see Hill 1992). Above everything else, however, the
text has to have the capacity to engage the interest of the student.

Current and future trends and directions

The following areas are of particular interest and will doubtless continue to grow.
• Interest in oral literature, and in particular story-telling, has been revived. The work of
Andrew Wright - who through his story-telling workshops has virtually single-handedly
stimulated interest - is especially noteworthy (Wright 1996, 1997). Interest has been further
fuelled by the immense growth of demand for English among young learners worldwide, and
the corresponding demand for suitable materials (Ellis and Brewster 1991). Story-telling is
not, of course, confined to children: Dufeu (1994) has drawn extensively on a range of cultural
traditions in story-telling, and Rinvolucri and Morgan (1990) offer a range of approaches to
the genre.
• Reading literary texts aloud in performance also attracts favourable attention. This is a far
cry from the enfeebling practice of'reading round the class' of earlier days. The advantages of
scripting prose text for performance or orchestrating verse or dramatic texts are considerable
(Maley 1998a, 1999b; Cazden 1992; Kramsch 1993).
• Length and linguistic difficulty have always counted among the major problems in using
literary texts. Materials writers tend to select short extracts from longer texts to circumvent
the problem of length, and to rely on simplified readers to deal with the linguistic difficulty.
Relatively little work has been published on using longer complete texts (for exceptions,
however, see Collie and Slater 1987; Rossner 1988; Greenwood 1989; Lazar 1990). There is,
however, renewed interest in developing readers. Up to now these have tended to be pale
shadows of classic texts. While the simplification or abridgement of published literature
remains an option, there is now a new generation of readers written as originals, specifically
for the foreign language learning market (Maley 1997, 1999a; Prowse 1999). This new genre
of writing can be seen as authentic in its own right rather than derivative at several removes
from classic texts. Most major publishers of ELT materials now incorporate such original
readers in their lists, and the Cambridge English Readers list is composed exclusively of
originals. It is likely that the demand for this new genre of writing will grow.
• The growth of strong local literatures in English has triggered a corresponding interest in
incorporating such texts into language teaching materials (McRae and Vethamani 1999). As

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these literatures grow in confidence and acceptability, there is likely to be further growth in
this area too.
• The new literatures will also continue to fuel interest in using literary texts for cross-cultural
exploration. Literature is reflective of cultural presuppositions and practices. As such it lends
itself well to investigating similarities and differences between self and others, and to an
awareness and understanding of 'the other' (Kramsch 1993; see also Chapter 29).
• In an age of critical theory, it is unsurprising that literature can also form the basis for a
critical analysis of the distribution of power, not least as reflected in issues such as the role of
men and women in society, the consumerist agenda and the unequal distribution of wealth
and poverty. The recent growth of interest in global issues and globalisation will find a rich
source to draw upon in literary texts.

Conclusion
In this chapter I trace the development of a renewed interest in literature as one source of input to
language learning, offering a rationale for incorporating literature and drawing attention to useful
resources for teachers to access. It may seem anomalous in a market-oriented world of supply and
demand and cost-benefit calculation that there is still a place for literature. Perhaps the growing
interest in literature is one manifestation of the spread of parallel notions such as 'emotional
intelligence'.

Key readings
Carter and McRae (1996) Language, Literature and the Learner
Carter et al. (1989) Literature and the Learner
Kramsch (1993) Context and Culture in Language Teaching
Lazar (1993) Literature and Language Teaching
Maley and Duff (1989) Poetry in the Language Classroom
McRae (1991) Literature with a Small T
Widdowson (1992) Practical Stylistics

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