Between page and screen: teaching Wuthering Heights to ELT students

Abstract

ABSTRACT The teaching of literatures in English is often centred upon pedagogic models where the literary text is approached as the primary source of meaning. These pedagogies tend to foreground traditional forms of literacy whose ultimate goal is to develop learners’ reading and writing skills, while fostering a respectful attitude towards the literary canon. The increasing dissemination of new digital media and their impact on how we communicate call for a pedagogy that takes account of multimodal processes of meaning making by which literary works are made to signify. Drawing on theoretical developments in such disciplines as Multiliteracies and Adaptation Studies, this article puts forward a didactic sequence for teaching Wuthering Heights to students pursuing English Language Teaching (ELT) programmes in higher education contexts where English is used as an additional language. Aimed at developing students’ literary literacy, this model consists of several tasks in which both the novel and screen adaptations of it are deployed as sources of meaning. Reconfiguring traditional conceptions of literacy, the juxtaposition of literary text and film as a method to teach literary literacy promotes the development of interpretive and pedagogic skills ELT learners need to become active makers of meaning and competent teachers of English.