Four Good Reasons To Use Literature in the Primary School ELT

By Ghosn, Irma K.

Abstract

This paper presents four arguments in favor of integrating literature into English as a foreign language (EFL) classes for grade school children, particularly in cases where academic language proficiency is the ultimate goal of instruction but where English exposure and use is limited to the classroom and school.

The arguments include the following:

(1) authentic literature provides a motivating, meaningful context for language learning, and it presents natural language at its finest, promoting vocabulary development in context;

(2) literature stimulates oral language and involves the child with the text while exposing him or her to some aspect of the target language culture;

(3) literature can promote academic literacy and critical thinking skills, and has the potential of fostering private interpersonal and intercultural attitudes; and

(4) good literature deals with some aspects of the human condition and attempts to come to some understanding of life, either symbolically or metaphorically, and can thus also contribute to the emotional development of the child. (Contains 23 references.) (KFT)

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