[eng] Literature is seldom analysed in depth and in context in the English as a foreign
language classroom. To make the most of its potential, the four skills should be
combined to approach learning communicatively and meaningfully, giving
activities authenticity and personalising them with the readers’ background
knowledge and previous experiences. Interdisciplinary activities, combined with
tasks focused on grammar and vocabulary allow for diverse abilities to gain
importance. Moreover, giving students a choice amongst various sources to read
boosts their motivation to use the foreign language, and discussing the
information in them, students are able to improve their critical thinking skills, by
generating opinions and defending them, questioning the veracity of the stories
and the underlying meaning of the texts. Hence, pre-reading, while-reading and
post-reading activities should attempt at engaging learners to read in the foreign
language with progressive autonomy, not only to learn but also for pleasure. In
this project, three adaptations from Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883), Dr Jekyll
and Mr Hyde (1883), and Kidnapped (1886) have been used as the basis to
design tasks that illustrate the benefits and applications of literature in a
secondary education English course, complemented with assessment of
students’ work departing from the teacher, peers and students themselves.