Benefits and Applications of Literary Sources within the English Curriculum in Secondary Education

Abstract

[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.