Teaching Language in Context

Use of Short Stories to Teach Integrated Language Skills

Abstract

This paper intends to present how Literature may be used in ESL classes to develop students’ integrated skills, with special focus on developing communicative competence. The aim of this research is to initiate teachers of English as a second language into a task based approach to teach language. The goal of all language teaching in the present scenario is communicative competence. The use of a literary text, like a short story The Diamond Necklace is to provide a sample for the justification of the contention that teaching language in context is a more effective method of increasing communicative competence as well as learning grammar and vocabulary. A short story being a literary text provides ample scope for the integrative learning of the four skills, as diverse activities can be devised on a literary text. The methodology adopted is the application of interactive activities built on the text in the classroom, during the reading of the short story, so that contextualized learning results. The time frame of application for this methodology can be one semester, as the text being not a too long one can be exhaustively used for exploitation and subsequent application. It is worth mentioning that the results are amazing. Not only does a literary text engage students in its real life situations it initiates them into context based learning of vocabulary and grammatical structures. The most important finding is that through interactive activities based on the text, communicative competence is built.