The Role of Literature in EFL Classroom from an EIL Perspective
Quite recently, there has been an accumulated body of beliefs and claims advocating the beneficial role of literature as a legitimate vehicle through which a foreign language can be taught. Though this argument seems to be alluring, it can be problematic and target of much criticism if an English as an International Language (EIL) perspective is adopted. This paper first elaborates on the advantages of employing literature in EFL classroom. Then it furthers to argue that from an EIL perspective the fact that literature is highly culturally loaded, can potentially pose a threat to the cultural integrity of the learners. The final argumentation is that if literature is aimed to be employed for teaching a foreign language, it should not be monocultural literature, but it should be in the form of multicultural and multinational literature, otherwise, becoming too preoccupied with monocultural literature, in this sense, will culminate into more linguistic imperialism, self-marginalization, self-alienation, cultural colonialization and hegemony.
LITERATURE AS A FACILITATOR OF TARGET CULTURE LEARNING
The purpose of this study is to investigate how literature courses, involved in the curriculum of the department of English Language Teaching from the second year to the fourth year, help students to acquire the target culture in EFL classes. Since learning a language does not mean only learning the lexical structures of any language, culture holds an important place in internalizing the way of thinking and appropriate use of target language. This study has been designed in a naturalistic environment, thus interview and observation were used as the main data collection techniques. The study was designed as a descriptive qualitative research. Participants were chosen by the help of an experienced colleague working in the above mentioned department for three years, and most of the participants were under her supervision, thus this case facilitated the process of interviewing participants. The findings showed that the literature courses contribute much to gain the target culture due the very nature of literature reflecting the society and traditions of society in which it was written. In addition, leaarners may have the chance of comparing thier own culture with target culture and this facilitates their learning. However, some missing points and misapplications were reported by students in providing a more appropriate environment for reflecting the target culture.
Cross‐Cultural Testing: What To Test
WITH EVER INCREASING numbers of people crossing national, linguistic, and cultural boundaries in order to study and to work, it becomes more crucial to provide instruction and orientation so that they can function effectively in their new locations. A corollary need is to identify those people most in need of instruction or orientation, and to determine what the content of instructional and orientation programs should be. Considerable work has already been done in devising techniques and tests for the identification of those persons who intend to cross linguistic borders but who haven't sufficient language ability for their new undertakings. Applied linguists and language teachers have done much to determine what the content of foreign language instruction properly should be. Experience, especially that with foreign students in the United States, has shown, however, that measures of language ability alone have limited power to predict who will be able to function effectively in the new linguistic and cultural environment. This is no longer surprising, if indeed it ever was. It has become a cliche to observe that some foreign student is performing poorly because he is "suffering from culture shock." Such cultural orientation programs as are administered by universities, fellowship sponsoring agencies, professional societies, etc. are handicapped to the extent that participants cannot be "graded" on their lack of cultural understanding before these (usually brief) orientation programs a re well under way. They likewise suffer from too little information that specifies which aspects of the new culture are not understood by the participants. There exists, therefore, a clear need for test instruments and procedures which can supply reliable and valid measures of cultural understanding. As a stimulus to further attempts, as a guide for test construction, and because it is a by-product of an instrument which may soon be in use, Seelye's "Field Notes on Cross-Cultural Testing" is a welcome beginning.1 And