Short Story in an ESL Freshman English Course: Bridging the Gap between language and literature

Abstract

[EN] In recent years, the place of literature in language teaching has regained its impetus and the prominent role it plays in promoting linguistic, cultural, intellectual and academic benefits has been acknowledged. Nevertheless, the place of literature in language teaching context in Turkey is still approached to be an outside source to be assigned as extensive reading rather than to be a classroom worthy material to be utilized in class. This article describes a literature lesson at a Freshman Englih level and outlines the steps to be taken to implement language based activities to promote ‘language awareness’ and to foster ‘meaning construction’ and ‘cultural awareness’ in a process based classroom setting. The steps also show that ESL Freshman students have much to gain from literature when the text is explored through language based activities without losing the literary nature of literature.Keywords: literature; short story; esl; once upon a time; freshman English; turkey