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What are some of the challenges to be faced when using literature in the classro

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farahdina:
Literary texts can present teachers and learners with a number of difficulties including:

    text selection - texts need to be chosen that have relevance and interest to learners.
    linguistic difficulty - texts need to be appropriate to the level of the students' comprehension.
    length - shorter texts may be easier to use within the class time available, but longer texts provide more contextual details, and development of character and plot.
    cultural difficulty - texts should not be so culturally dense that outsiders feel excluded from understanding essential meaning.
    cultural appropriacy - learners should not be offended by textual content.


Duff and Maley (2007) stress that teachers can cope with many of the challenges that literary texts present, if they ask a series of questions to assess the suitability of texts for any particular group of learners:

    Is the subject matter likely to interest this group?
    Is the language level appropriate?
    Is it the right length for the time available?
    Does it require much cultural or literary background knowledge?
    Is it culturally offensive in any way?
    Can it be easily exploited for language learning purposes?

farahdina:
Teachers can exploit literary texts in a large number of ways in the classroom. Classroom work with literary works may involve pre-reading tasks, interactive work on the text and follow up activities.

Pulverness (2003) provides some useful advice: Maximise pre-reading support.

Teachers can introduce the topic or theme of the text, pre-teach essential vocabulary items and use prediction tasks to arouse the interest and curiosity of students.

    Minimise the extent to which the teacher disturbs students' reading.
    Draw attention to stylistic peculiarity.
    Help students to appreciate the ways that writers use language to achieve particular effects.
    Provide frameworks for creative response.

irina:
Good to know. :)

Shampa Iftakhar:
Nice to know ... :)

fatema_diu:
keep on!

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