The Sleeping Beauty:Literature / Bridging the Gap Through Empowerment of an Individual Outlook

The ‘compartmentalized’ teaching practices in the Turkish context where students are put in the two categories of social or science major geared towards the university entrance exam has its reflections on the ELT academic... [ view full abstract ]

The ‘compartmentalized’ teaching practices in the Turkish context where students are put in the two categories of social or science major geared towards the university entrance exam has its reflections on the ELT academic context, where language learning fails to be treated as an organic, ‘whole unit’ but is approached as a tool to pass the many proficiency exams at the tertiary level. The medium of instruction in English has, on the surface enabled many students with ‘a satisfactory grammar, speaking, listening and writing conduct’ to pass the proficiency exams while offering very few if any authentic learning opportunities where ‘thinking’ occurs. One of the remedies to bridge the gap between the language as a ruled-based system and language as a socio-semantic system is the implementation of literary texts in ESL contexts empowering an individual focus and interpretation to the language (Brumfit and Carter 1986; Maley and Duff, 1990; Carter and McRae, 1996; Gilroy and Parkinson, 1997). Facilitating improvement in the skills of higher thinking abilities and activating the techniques of contextualization (Gajdusek 1988); in other words the development of the ‘the fifth skill’; the skills of thinking  in English (McRae 1996:17), is one of the many benefits stated to have come out of the incorporation of literary texts. The session will outline how implementing ‘literary texts’ may achieve lessen the gap between secondary and higher education reagrds to initiating ‘the fifth skill’; thinking’ and leading to the development of language skills, higher thinking skills, personal growth, cultural enrichment.

The session will outline how implementing ‘literary texts’ in an ESL context may achieve lessen the gap between secondary and higher education. Initiation of ‘the skills of thinking in English’; ‘the fifth skill’,... [ view full abstract ]

The session will outline how implementing ‘literary texts’ in an ESL context may achieve lessen the gap between secondary and higher education. Initiation of ‘the skills of thinking in English’; ‘the fifth skill’, development of language skills, higher thinking skills, personal growth and cultural enrichment will be explored .