Visual Materials, Staging, and the Internet in Literature Classrooms

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show, through applicable activities; how the use of visuals can alter the way we teach literature in English as a foreign language classrooms. I designed a syllabus for the course titled “Introduction to British Literature I and II” in which visual materials were used to teach some major literary terms and movements. Two main data sources; the instructor’s memos and prospective teachers’ opinions of these activities were collected for this research study. Fashioned so as to build a more interactive literature classroom, the syllabus was realized with second year pre-service 22 ELT teachers and the findings suggest that using visual materials in literature classrooms can energize and motivate prospective teachers, energize the classroom interaction, bring greater motivation, and nurture students’ need to concretize some of the abstract notions they studied. In this paper, descriptions of the tasks are given followed by the opinions of the students on these activities.