Pedagogical Effects of Utilizing Literature in Foreign Language Education

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that utilizing literary materials in the educational practice of foreign language classrooms has educational effects. When students learn a foreign language by reading literary texts as learning materials, they can significantly cultivate their thinking skills, which is also suitable for developing meta-linguistic skills necessary for language acquisition.
Currently, in foreign language education, the recommended method of teaching foreign language is the direct method, in which the language learners are advised to master the language without using their native language as a medium. This situation is due to the communicative competence development trend in the 1980s when the main objective of foreign language education was to focus on developing communicative competence. When the direct method is encouraged, literary texts are not recommended as teaching materials. Teachers use their native language to make their students understand the complicated structure of sentences with grammatical explanations. This teaching style has been excluded so far because this pedagogy does not correspond with the concept of the direct method. On the other hand, literary texts could be considered ideal teaching materials for developing thinking skills. With the worldwide rise of critical theory in the 1980s and 1990s, the value of literature and literary studies began to be reevaluated. Lessons using English literature are practical in cultivating a meta-language, and by fostering a highly accurate sense of language, they contribute to the cultivation of language operational skills that will serve as a means of international communication. Literary texts can significantly contribute to developing communicative competence in foreign language education by developing practical skills and thinking ability.