As a future English teacher I have being constantly wondering how we can teach our students the value of reading, as well as how they can understand the role that it plays in their lives. Besides, I have to recognize that through this year I have been trying to find the answer to explain my students the intimate connection between literature and life. However, what this literature course has been teaching me is that life provides the raw material on which literature imposes an artistic form and that its use can also be a powerful pedagogic tool. Literature to me is the communication of the writer's experience of life, but this connection between literature and life is not as simple as it seems. It has always been open to polemics among the great and noted critics of the world. Moreover, both reality and imagination play their role in great literature. Thus, literature is not merely a photographic copy of real life, nor is it a complete denial of life.

As an internship student I have been realizing that students do not like to read nor enjoy such process and most of them share the same idea about what literature means to them. The typical answer I got from them was that they do not understand what they read, because they were not motivated to read while being children, as well as they did not have the habit of reading. I strongly believe that in order to face this situation with our students, we as teachers need to teach them the value of literature by telling them that literature is part of our cultural heritage which is freely available to everyone, and which can enrich our lives in all kinds of ways. Hence, once we have broken the barriers that make studying literature seem daunting, we find that literary works can be entertaining, beautiful, funny, or tragic. We can also teach to our students, that through literature they can convey profundity of thought, richness of emotion, and insight into character. Literature takes us beyond our limited experience of life to show us the lives of other people at other times. Pieces of literature stir us intellectually and emotionally, and deepen our understanding of our history, our society, and our own individual lives.

In the following lines of this essay I will present some ways to make literature more interesting to our students by using the novel Oliver Twist written by Charles Dickens. Besides, I will provide some ideas to apply it inside the classroom.

I strongly believe that what we can teach to our students about literature is that we can gain a lot from it in many ways, but the most rewarding experiences can come in those moments when we feel the author has communicated something personally to us, one individual to another. Such moments can help validate our personal experience at a depth which is rarely reached by everyday life or the mass media. At some level, whether we believe in pleasure , politics or philosophy as the goal of reading, all of us who study literature believe that it is important not only in education but in life.

Regardless of the difficulties the practitioner can encounter, using literature is motivating to students. They are exposed to different themes which as rule curricular textbooks do not include. In addition, novels like Oliver Twist can be helpful to educate the whole person by examining the values that the story presents us therefore, we as teachers can encourage learners to develop attitudes towards them. It is important to observe that most of the values and attitudes that we can encounter, students can relate them to the world outside the classroom. And last but not least, literature broadens the sense of language as more than just for practical use, it encourages interaction. Literary texts can be effectively mined for discussions and sharing feelings or opinions.

As I mentioned before, literature as a tool in the EFL classroom is a viable option. A well thought selection of literary texts, such as Oliver Twist can help educators to create inside the classroom groups discussions based on students reading and the different approaches of understanding of the novel. Group discussions are fun and magic for students, because they have the power to transform our students from passive, rather shy, reticent students into students who eagerly point at their texts in order to support their arguments while sharing their opinions in English.

Using Dickens’s Oliver Twist we as teachers can introduce students to the novel by making them research and report on the social context of Victorian society and through the identification of social problems in our contemporary society make them relate both realities. As a second step of this activity, teachers can create group of students in which they can collaboratively research Dickens’s life, his concerns, his style of writing, his plot construction, etc. Other collaborative groups can research about the social context of the Victorian period, for instance about women's rights, education, the prison system, and social classes. After doing all that research process group discussions can start, even if they have not read a single page of the book. In the last step of this activity each group of students prepares a multimedia presentation for the class. As students read the novel, presentations are held at appropriate points. For example, students researching the prison system make their presentation early on, when Dickens portrays the first convict as a dehumanized animal. The teacher and the class can evaluate presentations using a mutually devised rubric, combining measures for depth and breadth of content as well as quality of presentation.

To conclude, I believe that since school teachers start to use group discussions of the books they read, the process of reading can be more fun and challenging, because such process is going to be share with their classmates and guided by the teacher and they are not going to be reading by their own, alone with their thoughts. It is amazing to observe how students really enjoy to share their experiences, so we have to take advantage of what they really like in order to make them feel part of the class, as if it they were constructing the course. In a nutshell, we as English teacher in foreign context can promote the language by opening student’s minds and making them to express their feelings and the emotions that they can get from a novel, though such amazing opportunities, educators and learners can create new waves of thought and calm the idle minds of this generation of students.

Works Cited

Brumfit,C.J. and R. Carter. Literature and Language Teaching. 1994, Oxford University Press.

David H. Jonassen. Evaluating Constructivist Learning. University of Colorado.

W.F. Collier. History of English Literature. Thomas Nelson & Sons. New York.

The Power of Literature in EFL Classrooms: “Literature trains the mind and sensibility.”

Final Paper.

OUTLINE:

Introduction:

- Why use literature
- Literature and cultural competence

Body:

- Literature and real life issues: Applying the case of “Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens”
- Teaching students to understand how writers respond to social conditions when witing.
-Advantages of implementing Literature discussions inside our EFL classrooms

Conclusions

September 1, 1939 by W.H. Auden.

I strongly believe that W.H. Auden was probably the first poet in English who felt that his writing during the twentieth century was an exactly representation of the disordered conditions and events that the world was facing during those war times.

As I mentioned before I believe that this poem is a work that is not so much far from a description or criticism of the German-Nazi decision to invade an innocent country; this work, these words and all these stanzas to me are a representation of his feelings, from the heart of a man who was living in a society filled with an oppressive nature.

Besides, I blive that despite such risk of oppression Auden went ahead and published this fabulous piece of poetry with conscious thought he was probably had to mask his true intentions because he was maybe afraid of what others would think or do against him. That it is why I think that for Auden was crucial to use allusion and symbolism as a way to depict in a better way his real feelings related what was surrounding him.

I have to recognize that this poem was really easy to understand and feel it, due to the fact that most of us were able to understand the consequences that a war can cause, even though we, the new generations have never experienced such a huge war like the first or second world War. For instance, we could observe through out this poem, that the author hypothesizes that the reason behind all of the recent evils (World Wars) that have occurred is "those to whom evil is done do evil in return". That was a way to Auden to show to the readers that; “what goes around comes around”, but at the end of the poem, in the last stanza, he mentioned that we all have a voice and seek a connection with one another that "dotted everywhere, ironic points of light flash out wherever the Just exchange their messages".

From my perspective his way of writing represents a way to tell thw society that we, human beings should learn how to live together and in that way build a better place to live. All of this leads to one main thesis; he stated that Evil exists, and that it will always exist, but one way to survive it is through the use of our voices, to love one another, to connect, and to speak with the truth.

In short, I believe that what Auden was trying to tell us, was that we at least have hopes to live in a better place, but such better place we will be able to reach it only of we love one another, if not we must die.

My comment about Alicia's reflection

First of all I have to recognize that I totally agree with Alicia's reflection about the short novel called "Odour of Chrisantemums" because in each line that she wrote I felt the same feelings she had about the plot. For instance, it was really interesting to read her thoughts about this story and the Rocking horse, in the sense that she believed that women like the main characters of each story were the guilty ones for making people believe that we were the weak gender.

From my personal point of view I completely believe that whta Lawrence did with this story was explore emotions and human imperfections in oder to show that it is really complicated to understand human nature. That it is why we are able to find through the story reality, as the reality that the bates' marriage represents in the story, an unfortunate woman who felt pity for her husband and her sad life living in the wrong place with the wrong man, a drunk one.

As Alicia mentioned in her reflection, I also have to say that the descriptions of the story were writen by Lawrence in a very realistic manner. For example, when Lawrence described the image of the traib rolling by, the woman backing up into the hedge and it workers image, we as readers can understand in a very easy way the realistic setting that Larence wanted to depict and in that way we are able to imagine the setting and feel that we are there.

Finally, it is important to mention that everyone of us can interpret this short story in our own way, due to the fact that we have different approaches of understanding according to our own experiences of life and in that sense we can interpret the story as we want, but it is really amazing to see how Alicia and I interpreted in the same way this story, both of us agree on the fact that even though the story is a chouvinist one, it is completely realistic view of the past world and today's world.

Alicia's Post

The Odour of Chrysanthemums

Independent women??

The Odour of Chrysanthemums and The Rocking-Horse Winner (both written by D.H. Lawrence) had something in common: MATERIALISM.. The worst of it? Materialistic women!

In the Rocking-Horse Winner we "met" Hester, the cold-hearted mother who couldn't love her children and blamed her husband for being "unlucky". When she thought about luck, she thought about rich people, because luck is what causes you to have money.

In The Odour of Chrysanthemums we met Elizabeth Bates, the woman who waits for her husband and when she realizes he's dead she gets worried about money! How is she supposed to live without her husband's salary??

I think these two short stories are very interesting. First, because they're realistic and familiar to us. Second, because I believe that women like Hester and Elizabeth are the guilty ones for making people believe that we are the weak gender!

When women think that men are the responsible ones of supporting a home and working for their families, they are saying that women aren't able to take the control of some situations.. Or is it just a matter of laziness? Anyway, this doesn't sound good for women..I think that many women try to fight for their rights, but they don't take this issue really seriously. From my point of view, society, in general, has been very unfair with women, but not because of this women need to make themselves look as the poor victims of History.

I really enjoyed reading Lawrence. I think he gave us very good examples of what we shouldn't do as women.

The Waste Land by TS Elliot.

Since the moment I started to read “The Waste land” by Elliot I wondered why it has been called “one of the most important poem s of the 20th century”, but I jut had to read the first lines to realized why it has been considered as one of the most important poems, because a phrase like; “April is the cruellest month" (its first line); "I will show you fear in a handful of dust"; and (its last line) are quite difficult to forget, due to the fact that they are very meaningful for anyone who has a sensitive heart.

Elliots’ greatest masterpiece “The Waste Land” impressed me a lot, because we can find all Eliot’s knowledge, about Latin, Greek, German and Sanskrit elements from mythology and history. Moreover what really called my attention was the first part of the poem in which it is intended to show the problems of life and death, on existentialism.

From that point of view in the first part of the poem we can come up with a final conclusion of it; life brings death and death brings life, like in a closed perpetual circle.

To conclude I’d like to mention that even though the poem was hard to read and understand, I could get at a first glance the importance of the poem as it was written in a realistic way, because if we observe the first stanza of the poem we are going to realize that it contains a few romantic and beautiful imagery from the past, which will not again reappear in the rest of the poem. These past almost pastoral imagery serve as a sharp contrast to the horrifying and real images depicted throughout the rest of the poem-degenerating, destructive, decomposing and debilitating, which in result creates a very disturbing picture of the wasteland-the world we live in.

D.H Lawrence: "Odour of Chrysanthemums" & "The rocking Horse winner."

D. H. Lawrence short stories such as “The rocking Horse winner” and “Odour of Chrysanthemums” are closely connected to me, because both are full of symbolism and realism.

I believe that these two stories are connected because even though they differ in the plot both are related to one another in the sense in which they show family issues with real and possible stories. That it is why both stories are full of descriptions of the spaces and emotions in order to keep a real and believable story to their readers and in that way engage more easily to the readers with the stories.

On the one hand we have "Odorous of Chrysanthemums” which from my own perspective, Chrysanthemums symbolize the Bate's broken marriage in this story. Mrs. Bates, Elizaberh does not like the smell of Chrysanthemums because it reminds her of Mr. Bates. She tells to the readers her dislike of the flowers to her children by saying "It was chrysanthemums when I married him, and chrysanthemums when you were born, and the first time they ever brought him home drunk, he'd got brown chrysanthemums in his buttonhole." When Mr. Bates dies at the end of the story, a vase chrysanthemums was knocked over and breaks. Mrs. Bates is quick to clean up the mess of the chrysanthemums, symbolizing her marriage.

To me, Mrs. Bates has an epiphany towards the end of the story. She is more upset about the financial aspects of her husband's death than the actual loss of him. She realizes that she wasted her time getting angry with her husband and judging him, even though he was just a hardworker trying to support his family. She realizes that she is the worse spouse and fears meeting him again in death.

On the other hand, “The rocking horse winner” that sustains its perfect pitch from start to finish. This story also tells to the readers another family conflict such as the lack of money inside the family house. The main point to compare both stories is to put on discussion both female characters of the story to realize that the major problem of 19 century women was that they tend to feel unhappy and frustrated, because of their lives as mothers and wives that weren’t allowed to be free or succeed.

To conclude, it is relevant to mention that these two short stories share an empathic point of view of the female characters, as well as they show the strong role of men in society. Besides, are simply realistic because in every detail of the stories we as readers are able to associate real life to the story and be more engage to the stories.