Teaching Language through Literature

 

"Every language is a temple in which the soul of those who speak is enshrined."

-Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

                                        Human thoughts are provided with a coherent flow from their complicatedness and abstractness to linearity with the help of language. English Language today has achieved the status of global language which perhaps dominates major day-to-day words uttered every day. It becomes evident to speak the English language for a global citizen and to speak it with utter fluency, learning of the language becomes an important aspect.  In India, English is taught as a second language. One of the ways to teach English is to teach it through literature. This blog is a thinking activity assigned by our Professor to explore some creative ways to teach Language through Literature to second language learners. This blog is one of the thinking tasks under the paper titled 'English Language Leaching'. Click here to navigate to Sir's blog titled- Teaching English Language through Literature - Teacher Resources

TEACHING LANGUAGE THROUGH LITERATURE

Points to ponder: 

Please click on the following links to navigate to the blogs

1) What sort of activities or tasks can be designed to teach language using a 'poem'. (presentation with proper illustration attached)

*****

2) What sort of activities or tasks can be designed to teach language using a 'novel' or 'short story'. 

*****

3) What sort of activities or tasks can be designed to teach language using a 'play'.

                                        The best possible way to introduce a play in the class, according to me, is to develop characters in the mind of the students. The students shall be introduced to the detailed plot of the play and then the teacher can enhance the impact of the play, the sights of the characters by making the students perform the play in class. In this manner, the students will learn the dialogues and may try to use them in their routine life. Some words, if they remember they may find it desperate to use in their daily conversations. 

*****

                                        Learning a language can become easier with the help of literature. The learners can improve their reading skills by reading a picture- story if they find any word difficult enough to understand its meaning, the flow of the story can become one of the tools to understand or develop the sense of the meaning of the word. Similarly, it is said that read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river, by reading, speaking skills would enhance. 

                                        Task-based language teaching is a student-centred approach to second language instruction. It is an offshoot of the communicative approach, wherein activities focus on having students use the authentic target language in order to complete meaningful tasks, i.e. situations they might encounter in the real world and other project-based assignments.

Thank you.