Stories Blossom: Boundaries Can Blur between Literature and English Teaching and Learning in English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

Stories Blossom:Boundaries Can Blur between Literature and English Teaching and Learning in English as a Foreign Language Eun Young Yeom (bio) The Potential of Children's and Young Adult Literature in English as a Foreign Language During my twelve years of teaching as an in-service teacher of English as a foreign language (EFL) at middle schools and high schools in South Korea, I witnessed that children's and young adult literature written in English was rarely incorporated into South Korean secondary EFL classrooms, mainly because of the college-bound, grammar-focused English teaching curriculum. Also, secondary EFL emergent bilingual students' full linguistic (i.e., both their home languages and English), cultural, and semiotic repertoires are often dismissed in South Korean curriculum; the most common home language, Korean, is regarded as a deficit to acquire higher English proficiency (Turnbull). Secondary EFL emergent bilingual students are often deemed as English learners with limited English proficiency, hence implying that they might not be proficient enough to decode the meanings of literary texts written in English (Harfitt and Chu). In an environment where their home language(s) and other semiotic repertoires are dismissed as deficits to make meaning of children's and young adult literature written in English (CYAL hereafter), secondary EFL emergent bilinguals' active meaning-making through CYAL cannot take place as often as it is supposed to. It must be noted here that EFL emergent bilinguals are making meanings with their full linguistic, cultural, and semiotic repertoires, which is called translanguaging (García and Li Wei). Their home linguistic, cultural, and semiotic resources can be an asset to make meanings of literary texts written in English. While mixing their home language(s), different modes for meaning, and even their feelings and histories (Li Wei and Lin), EFL emergent bilinguals are indeed able to decode meanings written in English and encode new meanings out of literary texts. That is, CYAL is not mere English tutorials to teach grammar, but "literature" that invites EFL emergent bilinguals to add their interpretations onto the text. To decode and encode the meanings inherent in CYAL, EFL emergent bilinguals fuse themselves into the text written in English; incorporate their full linguistic, cultural, and semiotic resources; and create new meanings of their own based on the text (Rosenblatt). In addition to [End Page 84] reading and learning authentic English through CYAL, EFL emergent bilinguals can become active readers whose inner worlds are not governed by teacher-centered lectures and explanations. The Potential of Multicultural Picturebooks Written in English in EFL Among children's and young adult literature, picturebooks can reap benefits in EFL contexts thanks to their comprehensible texts and visual appeal. Between EFL emergent bilingual readers and picturebooks, the boundary between the readers' "inner and outer world breaks down, and the literary work of art, so often remarked, leads us into a new world" (Rosenblatt 21). The new world might include experiencing alternative possibilities of lives, which the reader might have not been exposed to. For example, growing up in a racially and linguistically homogenous country such as South Korea, EFL emergent bilingual middle school students could not have a chance to live through the experience of being newly arrived immigrants with racial and linguistic minority backgrounds. The intersectionality of migration, race, and language could be lived through literature such as multicultural picturebooks regarding Korean immigrants in the United States. Korean EFL emergent bilingual readers might attend to certain elements of a multicultural picturebook and their past experiences, while incorporating their linguistic, cultural, and semiotic repertoires to make meanings, along with the feelings and thoughts evoked by the stories of newly arrived immigrants. New meanings, including insights concerning multiculturalism, could also be generated through book club discussions where active meaning-making through EFL emergent bilinguals' home languages and English uses are simultaneously integrated. If book club discussions are applied in EFL classrooms, EFL emergent bilinguals can imagine, vicariously experience, and critically think about multiculturalism thanks to teachers' and peers' facilitations during meaning-making processes. With the help of translanguaging, EFL emergent bilinguals do not stop at decoding English sentences but can reach into their "social imagination" (Wissman 18) regarding diversity through transacting with multicultural picturebooks. Stories...