Teaching Culture through Reading Literature in English Language Teaching

Abstract

English as a lingua franca (ELF) has become a standardized mode of communication between diverse sociocultural groups. Besides linguistic competence, English language learners should possess adequate intercultural competence to establish successful social relations worldwide. Therefore, one of the main objectives of English language teaching (ELT) has become the development of intercultural speakers (Byram 1997; Kramsch 1998). One way of achieving this is by using literature in the classroom because learners interpret literary texts from their personal experience and are thus engaged both at a cognitive and an emotional level. Their individual interpretations can nevertheless also lead to generalizations and enforcement of stereotypes about foreign cultures. Hanauer (2001) has developed a method called focus-on-cultural understanding to expose learners to different interpretations. The study explores whether his method can be successfully applied in the context of Croatian university education. The method has proven to be effective for raising learners’ cultural awareness, which could lead to further development of their intercultural competence.