Re-thinking the Practice of Teaching Literature to Enhance EFL Students’ Civic Skills: An Algerian Perspective

Abstract

Besides the undisputable role of literature in teaching civic virtues through exposing students to characters and themes that accurately exemplify and truly represent civility, teaching literature can serve a means to inculcate in students various civic skills, such as conflict resolution, leadership, negotiation of meaning and constructive criticism. Yet, to attain such skills, teachers need to reshape their teaching practices to be in conformity with the principles of modern education that champion active learning methodologies. The present paper argues for the necessity of rethinking the traditional teacher-centered methods in teaching English literature in the Algerian context as they tend to reduce students’ active participatory roles in learning. In response to this, a number of suggestions have accordingly been put forward to enable students reach more independency in dealing with literature. This orientation of thought stems from the belief that active learning is conducive to active citizenship.