Literature in the EFL Classroom: Points to Ponder

Abstract

In a highly demanding world, learners are expected to embrace the four Cs: collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. Best practices in the current century’s education, therefore, require tools that hone life skills, facilitate student engagement, and build upon solid research whilst supporting higher-level thinking. With the four Cs in mind, the current article seeks to emphasize the significant impact literature can have within English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. Speaking in general terms, there are three major benefits a literature-based program enjoys. These are: enhancing students’ scope of literature comprehension for aesthetic appreciation purpose, highlighting a wide range of the ideals discussed in great works, and developing different aspects of foreign language acquisition. Emphasizing literature-related experiences is, thus, essential for the twenty-first century education. Section Two highlights a number of reasons for utilizing literature within EFL contexts. Section Three discusses several studies conducted in the EFL classroom. Section Four portrays some activities and strategies that can be used to emphasize quality teaching of literary passages. Section Five proceeds to present the criteria the author has proposed for selecting literary texts within EFL contexts. Lastly, Section Six concludes with some recommendations for EFL specialists to consider.