Playing with form and meaning: Teaching English as a foreign language in high school

Abstract

First paragraph: The use of imaginative texts in English as a foreign language (henceforth EFL) has experienced different stages, according to Zyngier (2006) and Carter (2007). The first stage goes back to the beginning of the 20th century when literary texts were used in EFL teaching as models for writing and as ways into a culture. For instance, in the case of the grammar-translation method, learning a language implied proficiency in reading literary words in that language. The second stage, from the 40s to the 60s, was brought about mainly by the advent of audio-lingual methods, which held the view that such teaching should concentrate on language structures. As a consequence, literary texts were not used in EFL lessons any longer, being considered a special use of language which was quite distant from the needs of the learner. With the advent of the communicative approach in the 70s and 80s and its focus on language in context, literary texts made their way back to the EFL setting, now seen as sources of authentic language in use.