Literature-based ESL for secondary school students, Custodio & Sutton, 1998.

In the article Literature-Based ESL for Secondary School Students, Brenda Custodio and Marilyn Jean Sutton argue that literature based-instruction develops literacy skills and prepare secondary-level second-language learners for mainstream classrooms. They mention that the advantages to a literature-based approach are the following: it promotes literacy development, provides language models, and integrates language skills. They also argue that one way to achieve literature-based instruction with middle school students is to use historical fiction as a vehicle to explore the required content of the curriculum. At the high school level, they suggest using theme-based instruction built around young adult literature.

Strategy : Describe the author’s point of view. (From course notes)

I am experiencing something similar to that in my English Literary Cultural Contexts course. This course is mainly about the history of British English. We acquire knowledge about historical facts and events through the reading of short novels and poems. For example, we learned about the Black Pest through Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, the slavery through Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and the labour in Victorian England through Engels’ The condition of the working class in England. I find that method of learning very efficient because I can remember the story I have read as opposed to a lesson in which the teacher is giving important dates that I won’t remember the following week.

Strategy : Establishing a personal connection with the text phase. (From the MELS)

by Karine Ledoux