RUNNING HEAD: A Critique on Teaching Study Skills for English Literature 1

Prof. Jonathan Acua Solano

Critique on Teaching Study Skills for English Literature

By Prof. Jonathan Acua Solano

Thursday, May 7, 2015 Twitter: @jonacuso

Post 167

For Long (1986), both literature and language teaching involve the development

of a feeling for language. And literature can provide a basis for extending language use

(McKay, 1986). And, as stated by Vincent (1986), if the reader must bring to the text

linguistic, conceptual, and cultural understanding of a high order, teachers must be

prepared to deal with literature in the classroom with more than the simple formalistic

approach to literature instruction, what Short & Candlin refer to as teaching about

literature instead of teaching literature itself.

Short & Candlin (1986) carried out, with the help of several colleagues from and

at the University of Lancaster (GB), a case study with three different groups of literature

teachers from around the globe, and one of these courses took place in Nanjing, China

with only Chinese instructors. The course organizers included three different instructional

strands: stylistic analysis (language & literary study), reading strategies (levels of

meaning, strategies, & difficulties), and curriculum design (purpose,

content/methodology & evaluation).

A Critique on Teaching Study Skills for English Literature 2

Prof. Jonathan Acua Solano

Based on Short & Candlins (1986) case studies at Lancaster and Nanjing, what

was suggested to course participants is that if a reader feels some need to process a

text as a literary artefact , he or she will attempt to apply a set of special interpretative

conventions. From my experience, this predisposition or literary indisposition can

trigger a high anxiety level when learners are faced with texts they are not ready to deal

with. Students should be confronted with literature from a different angle where they can

perceive the text not so much as a literary one (Short & Candlin, 1986). It is a shame

that the case study authors did not include other activities they developed along their

training courses.

Should literature be treated as something that is not connected to language? For

Short & Candlin (1986), if there is a distinct corpus of texts which can be called

literature, it would appear that the corpus will have to be defined at least partly in socio-

cultural rather than in linguistic terms. In other words, literature as the mirror stage in

Lancans words (Bruss, 1981) is a way to have the reader live life or its experiences over

again. What literature awakes in the reader/student is what really counts, and if

instructors are able to awake all this set of sensations, feelings and emotions, the

beginning of some sort of literary criticism can start to happen in terms of literary

appreciation.

A Critique on Teaching Study Skills for English Literature 3

Prof. Jonathan Acua Solano

Bruss, N. (1981), Lacan & Literature. The Massachusetts Review. Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring 1981). pp. 62-92. Retrieved on 2015, April 2, 2015 from the Jstor webpage at http://www.jstor.org/stable/25089121

Long, M. (1986). A Feeling for Language: The multiple values of teaching literature. Literature and Language Teaching. Edited by Brumfit & Carter. Oxford: OUP

McKay, S. (1986). Literature in the ESL Classroom. Literature and Language Teaching. Edited by Brumfit & Carter. Oxford: OUP

Vincent, V. (1986). Simple Text and Reading Text. Literature and Language Teaching. Edited by Brumfit & Carter. Oxford: OUP

Short, M. & Candlin, C. (1986). Teaching Study Skills for English Literature. Literature and Language Teaching. Edited by Brumfit & Carter. Oxford: OUP