Language Based Approaches in The Teaching Literature

TESL 624:
Integrating Language and

Literature
Language-based Approaches
in Teaching Literature
Prepared by:
NESTEVE ACEBUCHE
MAELT - 1
TESL 624: Integrating Language and Literature

POINTS OF DISCUSSION
Language-based Approaches in
Teaching Literature
12 Strategies For Teaching Literature
In The 21st-Century
Activity
Checking the box

Raise your hand (or press the thumbs-up
icon) to determine how often you practice
what the following statements say.
TESL 625: Instructional Multimedia

1. I choose a book that suits your students’ levels and interests.
2. I pre-teach vocabulary for discussing literature.
3. I activate the prior knowledge of my students about the selection.
4. I allow my students listen to an audio recording of the text while
they read.
5. I provide discussion questions to be completed or discussed at the
end of each chapter/section.
6. Allow them to express their ideas about the story or poem by
drawing a picture or acting out a scene.

PART ONE: Language-based
Approaches in Teaching
Literature

Language-based Approach in Teaching Literature
● It is an approach that remarks on how certain specific ways of
using the language in literary texts could have better impact on
student's’ understanding of the language .
• This approach uses LANGUAGE, by understanding it to fully

engage a LEARNER to better understand a literary text. One
cannot understand a text/piece by not knowing the language
first. LEARNERS MUST BE FAMILIAR OF THE
LANGUAGE USED FOR THEM TO REFLECT AND DIG
IN MORE OF THE BEYONDS OF A LITERARY TEXT.
https://www.slideshare.net/RauchaneTimBattikin/language-based-approach-244790990
Language-based Approach in Teaching Literature
• This approach helps students pay attention to the way the language is
used when studying literature.
• It is student-centered and activity-based for productive use of language.

It improves students’ language proficiency and incorporates literature
and language skills among the students (Dhillon & Mogan, 2014).
• It engages students more on experiences and responses (Aydin, 2013).

Role play, cloze, poetry recital, discussions, forum and debate, dramatic
activities, making prediction, brainstorming, rewriting stories ending
and summarizing are practiced in this approach (Divsar, 2014).
MASTERY OF A LANGUAGE
=
BROAD UNDERSTANDING
OF A LITERARY PIECE
Generally speaking, this approach focuses on a closer integration of language and
literature in the classroom, since this will help the students in achieving their main
aim which is to improve their knowledge of, and proficiency in, English.
McRae (1991) illustrates below the features of LBA for teaching
literature to ESL learners. This framework below serves as the basis in
designing the activities.
● Lexis - Choice of words in the text and their meaning potential
● Syntax - Word order - the way words are organized
● Cohesion - System of links throughout the text: temporal, verbal,
pronominal
● Phonology - Sounds of and within the text
● Graphology - The form, the shape and the script in the text
● Semantics - The study of the meaning and how the meaning is
achieved through negotiation of textual and contextual elements
https://melta.org.my/journals/TET/downloads/tet43_02_02.pdf
McRae (1991) illustrates below the features of LBA for teaching
literature to ESL learners. This framework below serves as the basis in
designing the activities.
● Dialect - Variation in language

● Register - Degree of formality associated to who is speaking to whom
● Period - When the text was written, for whom, tone, style used
● Function - How the text affects the reader, how it works, the message
and the author’s intentions
Sample classroom activities:
● Group Works
● Different language activities : like cloze tests, jigsaw puzzles, prediction
exercises, vocabulary building, etc.)
● Debate
● Other performance activities (like drama, role play, poetry recital, etc.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFERbXrcFso&t=185s
Why Language-based Approaches
Literary text as learning source has many advantages, among
others;
1. learners will have an ability to understand literature

2. learners will understand literary stylistics
3. learners will learn denotative and connotative meaning
4. learners will identify the specific expression from the literary works
which may not be found in other subjects
5. learners appreciate literary works
6. learners learn literature while learning English and vice versa
How can we employ this
approach in teaching
Literature?

Bear in mind that with the use of this approach, students are expected
to make meaningful interpretations of the text itself and expand their
knowledge and awareness towards the language.
● Example Scenarios: Reading Selection

Title: All Summer in a Day
Author: Ray Bradbury
Genre: Science-Fiction
Summary: A group of children press against the window of their underground classroom on the planet Venus,
watching as the rain outside begins to slow. It has been raining ceaselessly for years—on Venus, the sun comes
out once every seven years, but only for an hour, and today is the day when scientists predict that the sun will
appear. The world outside is awash with tidal waves and a perpetually growing and collapsing jungle. These
children are the first to grow up on the planet, which was colonized by rockets from Earth the generation before.
In their eagerness, the children are tumbled together like unruly weeds.
A number of language-based activities for exploiting this literary piece
with the language learner can be conducted in the classroom.
A few examples could be:
Activity 1.
Different section of a dialogue from a play are given to groups of students, and each group has to rewrite the
dialogue in reported speech using a range of verbs (e.g. suggest, mumble, wonder etc.) when they are finished,
they give their reported versions to members of another group to transform into dialogues, which are then
compared with the originals from the paly.
Activity 2.
After they have read it, students are given three different summaries of a short story. They have to decide which
summary is the most accurate.
Activity 3.
Students are given three different critical opinions of a play or novel they have read. They have to decide which
they find the most convincing or accurate.
PART TWO: 12 Strategies
For Teaching Literature In
The 21st-Century

12 Strategies for teaching literature in
the 21st century by Terry Heick:
1. Use combinations of media–classic and modern together, leveraging one
against the other. Music, video streams, short videos (like TikTok), video
games, plays, poems, film, posters, poems, essays, novels, podcasts, etc.
2. Have students analyze diverse media forms for their strengths and
weaknesses–and involve both classic and digital forms.
3. Have students turn essays into videos into podcasts into letters into simply-
coded games into poems into apps.
https://www.teachthought.com/literacy/strategies-for-teaching-literature/
4. Allow students to choose media while you choose themes and/or academic
and/or quality standards.
5. When designing units, choose the media first, then the standards.
6. Insist all student work ‘leaves the classroom’ and is published–then design
units accordingly.
7. Use RAFT: Role, Audience, Format, and Topic/Tone/Theme. The RAFT (Role,
Audience, Format, Topic) writing strategy, developed by Santa, Havens, and
Valdes, helps students understand their role as a writer and communicate their
ideas clearly by developing a sense of audience and purpose in their writing.
• Role of the writer: What is the writer's role: reporter,
observer, eyewitness, object, number, etc.?
• Audience: Who will be reading the writing: the
teacher, other students, a parent, editor, people in the
community, etc.?
• Format: What is the best way to present this writing:
in a letter, an article, a report, a poem, an
advertisement, email, etc.?
• Topic: Who or what is the subject of this writing: a
famous scientist, a prehistoric cave dweller, a
character from literature, a chemical element or
physical object, etc.?
8. Use a thematic focus to design units, assessments, project-based learning–
whatever activities students ‘touch.’ One of the hallmark characteristics of classic
literature is that it endures. This is, in part, due to the timelessness of the human
condition. Love lost, coming of age, overcoming obstacles, civil rights, identity,
and more are all at the core of the greatest of literary works.
9. Use tools for digital text annotation on pdfs, note-sharing, and more to help
students mark text, document questions and insights, and revisit thinking or
collaborate with others during the reading of classic texts.
10. Create social media-based reading clubs. Establish a hashtag that anchors year-
long discussion of certain themes, authors, text, or whatever other category/topic
that makes sense for your curriculum.
11. Have students create and produce an ongoing podcast or YouTube channel on,
as above, relevant themes, authors, texts, etc.
12. Connect the old with the new in authentic ways to center the knowledge
demands of modern readers.
References
● https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324331407_THE_STRATEGY_OF_TEACHING_LIT
ERATURE_THROUGH_LANGUAGE-BASED_METHOD_A_COMMUNICATIVE_APPRO
ACH
● https://melta.org.my/journals/TET/downloads/tet43_02_02.pdf
● https://www.slideshare.net/RauchaneTimBattikin/language-based-approach-244790990
● http://1kitaliterature.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_22.html
● https://eltweekly.com/2010/02/50-research-paper-language-based-approaches-to-using-literature
-in-teaching-english-by-dr-n-v-bose/
● https://www.studocu.com/ph/document/university-of-southern-mindanao/teaching-and-
assessment-of-literature-studies/approaches-to-teaching-literature/31280170?
fbclid=IwAR1PGAaCObulgQLHBb4ZTcnlyfr0aGltt_wrVdNQ-mWDqA4ubje8ES9DXOg

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TESL 624:

Integrating Language and

TESL 624: Integrating Language and Literature

Checking the box

TESL 625: Instructional Multimedia

TESL 624: Integrating Language and Literature

TESL 624: Integrating Language and Literature

• This approach uses LANGUAGE, by understanding it to fully

• It is student-centered and activity-based for productive use of language.

• It engages students more on experiences and responses (Aydin, 2013).

● Dialect - Variation in language

1. learners will have an ability to understand literature

TESL 624: Integrating Language and Literature

● Example Scenarios: Reading Selection

TESL 624: Integrating Language and Literature

TESL 624: Integrating Language and Literature

TESL 624: Integrating Language and Literature

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