Stimulating Language Learning through the Use of Literature

Abstract

The relevance of creative literature in relation to effective language teaching and learning, critical analysis, and the production of original writing in English has been overlooked in recent times in Nigeria. The present practice where literature is rigidly separated from language has reached a critical point resulting in a language learning process that has become divorced from the very elements that make language a powerful and an enabling communication tool. There is need to emphasize the linguistic relevance of literature and to reestablish it in the pedagogy of language teaching. This has become necessary as the teaching of literature becomes more sociological in approach and while English language learning is increasingly being reduced into a sterile process that inspires neither teachers nor students with consequent effects on the quality of overall learning.  It is here suggested that literature can be employed to stimulate a more productive language learning experience for ESL students through an intimate and immediate engagement with language in diverse literary contexts. The following calls for the integration of language and literature as it examines some of the obstacles that stand in the way of effective language learning. It also highlights some important characteristics and new teaching approaches of literature that can be utilized to bring about improvements in the quality of language learning.