This document summarizes and critiques an article by Long (1986) on teaching literature in EFL/ESL contexts. Long argues that literature teaching has traditionally focused too narrowly on identifying literary devices rather than engaging students creatively with texts. He proposes a more interactive approach where instructors ask open-ended questions to help students verbally respond to and interpret texts. The focus should be on student learning rather than teaching methods. Literature teaching should treat literary texts differently than regular readings and help students gain new insights through discussion.

1. RUNNING HEAD: A Critique on “A Feeling for Language: The Multiple Values of Teaching Literature” 1
Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
A Critique on “A Feeling for Language: The
Multiple Values of Teaching Literature”
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Tuesday, May 4, 2015
Twitter: @jonacuso
Post 163
The teaching of literature in EFL/ESL contexts has never been favored if compared
to other language skills or sub-skills. As Long (1986) puts it, “the teaching of literature
has lacked a consistent methodology for presentation to non-native speakers.” And this
is still evident in certain ways in which new literature instructors posit the teaching of
literature by means of “second-hand responses” (Long, 1986), as if non-native speakers
lack the ability to provide criticism and were only able to state what others have already
commented on a given piece of literature.
Long (1986) critiques the pervasive ways of approaching literature teaching to
simply circumscribe it to the “nineteenth-century survival” way of spotting “similes,
metaphors, and so on.” Long proposes a different approach to literature in EFL/ESL
contexts because these students cannot be paralleled with the native ones. That is, he
insists on the necessity to differentiate the way literature is taught in ELT as cases of
“text(s)-as-object,” as it regularly happens in EFL/ESL textbooks.

2. A Critique on “A Feeling for Language: The Multiple Values of Teaching Literature” 2
Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Though Long does not exactly state that the “literary text invites ‘high-order’
questions while [the] non-literary texts presupposes ‘low-order’ questions” (Long 1986),
it is important to treat the literary text differently from the
reading learners do in regular English-learning textbooks.
The ‘high-order questions’ can serve different purposes,
but its main one is connected to aid the learner/reader “to
get an insight into the text which might not be possible
otherwise” (Long 1986). Literature teaching should be
aimed at helping the student to verbally and creatively respond to a literary text by means
of the instructor’s help. As Long (1986) suggests, the teaching of literature should be a
multi-directional mode of presentation.
“The whole emphasis” of teaching literature must be “on the learning rather than
the teaching” (Long 1986). Instructors have been more concerned with how they are
going to teach in their literature class than with what it is that students are going to learn
and why. The “response channels” stated by Long (1986) need to be open so students
can cognitively interact with the literary piece to first verbally respond to it, and then
allow their creativity interact with the piece and produce their own interpretations once
their comprehension has been nurtured by the instructor.
Long, M. (1986). A Feeling for Language: The multiple values of teaching literature.
Literature and Language Teaching. Edited by Brumfit & Carter. Oxford: OUP