EXPLOITATION OF LITERARY TEXTS IN TEACHING ESL/EFL

Abstract

This paper describes and discusses how an English literary text can be exploited to develop a number of skills for ESL/EFL learners who may wish to achieve communicative competence in the target language. Literary texts, selected properly, can help students imitate the real-life situations in which they are expected to be able to use the target language. In this paper, I shall first describe the criteria, suggested by Brumfit (1996), used for selecting a literary text to be used in a classroom situation and then discuss how I used an English literary text to help my learners enhance their varied competencies in the target language. Finally, I summarize the results of a brief analysis based on my learners’ responses to the different activities designed using the English literary text I selected for classroom treatment.