Literature in English Language Teaching

Abstract

Language as a means of communicati?n has been learned and taught for centuries.For every human the learning process starts unconsciously with learning their mother tongue and later it goes on systematically and consciously at school.However,in order to carry on commercial or social relations among different communities people have to learn two or even more languages. Therefore teaching of foreign languages has been an object of inerest to societies for ages. Many researchers belive that literature is useful in English language teaching.Value of literature as a useful source in language teaching is strongly defended by these researchers. Literature has a number of benefits which include but are not limited to availability of unique material, stimulation of reader's development and contribution to reader's vocabulary and cultural enrichment. Along with the abovementioned benefits diversity, interest, and vagueness, and universality, could be named as other advantages. This study reveals that literature increases all language skills since it extends linguistic knowledge through giving evidence of extensive and subtle vocabulary usage. Furthermore, it gives students the opportunity to strengthen language skills as it often enables oral discussions and exchange of opinions.