Berkeley. By Harry M. Bracken. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd.1974. 173. $7.40.

Teaching literature in a foreign language

“…One of the trends since the 1960s in literature teaching in FLT has been away from exclusivity, not only in the choice of literary texts, but in the level of students being given access to literature. Rodger's (1969) argument that only advanced students can appreciate deviance and other literary devices has come to seem less convincing, with the appearance of books for lower level students such as McRae (1992) and Bassnett and Grundy (1993) and research papers such as those in Sell (1995b).…”

“…A theme-based approach is enormously flexible, as the juxtaposition of the most diverse texts can produce surprisingly interesting contrasts and comparisons. This can be seen in McRae (1992), which brings together a wide range of representational materials: jokes, songs, poems, extracts from plays, novels, journalism. Other reasons for adopting a theme-based approach -to encourage learner autonomy and increase linguistic and communicative competence through classroom interaction -are given in McRae and Pantaleoni (1990).…”

Postscript: Pedagogical stylistics: Past and future

“…In the 1980s, a series of books that addressed issues at the interface of language and literature was launched (Carter, 1988), and a number of textbooks intended to sensitize students to verbal art appeared (e.g. Brumfit and Carter, 1986; Carter and McRae, 1996; Carter et al, 1989; Clark, 1996; McRae, 1991; Short, 1989, 1996; Short and Candlin, 1989; Simpson, 1997; Thornborrow and Wareing, 1998; Toolan, 1998; among others). They had a common goal: turn to stylistics “to help students discover ambiguities, layers of meaning and any irregular patterning within a text which a different approach might leave undiscovered” (Clark and Zyngier, 2003: 340; see also Verdonk, 2013).…”

Exploring Vietnamese EFL Students' Perceptions towards Literature Courses in English Studies Program

“…It forms a combination of cultural knowledge that enables students to acquire insights into the target language's history, beliefs, traditions, and customs, alongside its linguistic characteristics (Carter & Long, 1991). In a study conducted by McRae (1991), literature is fundamentally considered a study of language which allows students to unconsciously enhance their overall language competence. Moreover, according to Wijaya and Rahman (2021), literature can be understood as being associated with either artistic or aesthetic forms of writing, which creatively and imaginatively express ideas, emotions, and experiences.…”