The Place of Literature in a Task-Based Language Teaching Classroom: The Futo Experience

Abstract

This paper examined the deployment of literature texts in the teaching of language using the task-based constructive approach. The theory of constructivist language learning is one which advocates a learner-centred, task-based approach, contrary to older teaching methods where the teacher dominates the classroom or where rote learning is encouraged. In a constructivist learning situation, the learner discovers new knowledge for himself as he undertakes certain language tasks with the guidance of the teacher-facilitator. This paper studied the use of literature texts, rather than isolated constructed sentences, as material for language tasks in the teaching of Use of English at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO). The two areas of language examined in the paper were coherence in text organization and descriptive writing. The use of literature texts was found to be closer to authentic data than de-contextualised constructed sentences and, therefore, challenged and excited the learners more. The paper recommends a greater adoption of literature texts and other texts taken from real-life or near real-life situations as material in task-based learning.