UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DEL LITORAL

UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE MISIONES

CICLO DE LICENCIATURA EN INGLS

Insensitive Reading: The Treatment of Literary Texts

in EFL Course-books

T E S I N A
Que para obtener el Grado de Licenciada en Ingls con orientacin en Literatura
presenta:
Barbara Liz Alvez

Directora de Tesina: Mgter. Mara Susana Ibez

Eldorado, Misiones, febrero de 2015

Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere thanks to Mara Susana Ibez MA for inspiring me to research on
the treatment of literary texts in EFL course-books and on Reader-response Criticism. I appreciate
her creative inspiration, guidance and patience. She spent endless hours reading different draft
versions of this thesis and writing extended emails with professional advice. This work would have
never come to its existence without her encouragement and supervision.

Table of Contents

Introduction....... 4

1. Chapter One: The readers and the text

1.1. Literature and Reception......... 8
1.1.1. How can literature be defined? ..... 9
1.1.2. Transactional Theory........ 10
1.1.3. Reception Theory .... 10
1.2. The Reading Process ......... 12
1.2.1. The reading process...... 13
1.2.2. Process of anticipation and retrospection ... 13
1.2.3. Aesthetic reading ..... 15
1.2.4. Efferent Reading ..... 16
1.2.5. Benefits of aesthetic reading of literary texts for EFL learners....... 17
1.2.6. The EFL course-book as teaching material and the inclusion of literary texts 19

2. Chapter Two: literature in English foreign language manuals

2.1. Literary texts and EFL course-books. 21
2.1.1. Wuthering Heights (1847), A Christmas Carol (1843) and The Rescue (1976). 22
2.1.2. Treatment of the literary texts in three EFL course-books... 24
I. Wuthering Heights in First Certificate Gold.. 24
II. A Christmas Carol in Opportunities Pre-intermediate ...... 32
III. The Rescue in New Lets Go For EGB! 2 ..... 39

3. Results and Analysis ...... 43

4. Conclusion .. 46

Bibliography .... 48

Page references to figures

Figure 1: Table of Cont ent s, in First Certif icate Gold

24

Figure 2: Reading sect ion - Unit Five, in First Certif icate Gold

26

Figure 3: Grammar Sect ion - Unit Five, in First Certificate Gold

28

Figure 4: Reported Speech/Direct Speech (1) Grammar Reference, in First Certificate Gold

29

Figure 5: Reported Speech/Direct Speech (2) Grammar Reference, in First Certificate Gold

30

Figure 6: Table of Contents, in New Opportunities Pre-intermediate

33

Figure 7: Before You Start, reading and listening sections, in Opportunities Pre-intermediate

34

Figure 8: A Christmas Carol, in Opportunities Pre-Intermediate

35

Figure 9: Table of Contents, in New Lets Go For EGB! 2

40

Figure 10: Unit 14, Part One, in New Lets Go For EGB! 2

41

Introduction
For the present research, I have chosen to work with three EFL course-books designed for
elementary, intermediate and advanced levels that approach literary texts written by British authors.
The primary objective of this study is to show that First Certificate Gold Course-book (Acklam,
Longman Pearson, 2000), Opportunities Pre-Intermediate. Students Book (Harris et al, Longman
Pearson, 2000) and New Lets go for EGB! 2 (Elsworth and Rose, Longman Pearson, 2001) direct the
process of reading literary texts towards certain specific instructional aims and that their approaches
rely on a view of language as a formal system. The methods employed by the editors of the above
mentioned publications to present the literary materials overlook the fact that literary texts could be
approached in other, more enriching and rewarding ways. They claim that the procedures they
suggest to read literary works motivate students and provide them with opportunities to carry out
intensive and extensive reading activities. I am intent on showing that such orientations may inhibit
learners to construct meaning in the way they would have done it if reading the works of art
aesthetically.
The course-book is a recurrent teaching material in most EFL classrooms. Favourers as well
as hostile critics have their views on the role it plays in todays ELT as an all-purpose medium. A
number of key functions are associated with its validity: it informs about the language, its cultural
and social status; fosters creativity, activity and independence on learners and teachers; motivates
learners for FL exploration and appropriation and also endeavours to develop their personalities,
ethical, moral and aesthetic qualities, etc. (Tandlichov in Jalali, 2001). Most of todays books are
viewed as packages with clear instructions for teachers and learners to work shoulder to shoulder
(Littlejhon in Ranalli, 2003:4). The language manual is considered the cornerstone for a language
programme when followed systematically, and it takes up half of the weekly teaching time (Jalali,
2011).
The fact that course-books attempt to impose an entire solution even for local and intricate
affairs has elements of risk (Allright in Ranalli, 2003). Opponents suggest that their methodologies
and models are questionable (Tomlinson, in Ranalli, ibid). They are deemed in teacher training
courses as objects that need to be disclosed and refuted (Edge and Wharton in Ranalli, 2003). The
global course-book is referred to as starring the multi-million dollar publishing industry of ELT,
which is implemented anywhere in the world whatever the cultural features of its users (Ranalli,
2003). Many textbooks constrain the adaptability of syllabi and approaches; language points are
covered superficially and the teachers sense of innovation becomes displaced (Tomlinson, in

Collins, 2004). A considerable number of designers present issues in restricted and disjointed ways
(Liszt in Crewe, 2011). Also, common theoretical and practical problems could be entailed by the
overlook of course rationale, added to matters of cultural appropriacy that are sometimes neglected
by publishers who are occasionally unaware of the impact that research in linguistics and language
acquisition have on teaching.
EFL course-books in general consist of lessons that teach grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation
and practise the four skills to some extent. Language is usually presented through articles from
magazines and newspapers, descriptions, emails, cooking recipes, conversations, etc. Some editors
overtly assure that their manuals provide for lessons which are motivating and successful, aimed at
encouraging learners to speak and think in English. There exists unavailability of a reliable criterion
for the appraisal of published course-books. The use of an evaluative framework consisting of a
number of factors such as rationalization, accessibility, user definition, layout, educational validity,
flexibility, etc. is strongly recommended (Sheldon, 1988).
The inclusion of literary texts in EFL course-books is restricted and frequently limited to
adapted texts according to the research carried out by Yildirim (2011) and Gmsok (2013). Editors
Richard Acklam of First Certificate Gold Course-book (Longman Pearson, 2000), Michael Harris et
al of Opportunities Pre-Intermediate Students Book (Longman Pearson, 2000), Steve Elsworth and
Jim Rose of New Lets go for EGB! 2 (Longman Pearson, 2001) are found among the designers that
incorporate adapted literary texts in their manuals. Added to the aim of language teaching, Acklam
asserts that reading between the lines is to be carried out in the 5 th unit of his language manual with
the examination of an excerpt of Emily Bronts Wuthering Heights (Acklam, 2000: 3). The author
of Opportunities Pre-intermediate Teachers Book (Longman Pearson Education Limited, 2003)
Patricia Mugglestone assures that the so-called Literature Spots included in Opportunities Series
will help students learn about important stories and writers from English literature and that they
can simultaneously develop their extensive reading skills (2003: 9). As for Steve Elsworth and Jim
Rose, they state in more general terms that their EFL course-book offers a highly enjoyable learning
experience for both students and teachers (2001: back cover).
I will try to show that the announcements of the afore mentioned editors are scarcely possible
to put into practice assuming that their course-books users follow the procedures they suggest in the
lessons that treat literary texts. In this research, I have the aim of exploring the extent to which the
texts that are incorporated allows students to take pleasure while reading. I shall show that reading

literature engages the readers in an enterprise that reaches far beyond the recognition of printed
words.
The interaction between the readers and the text has caught the eyes of investigators in the
field of literature since 1964. Louise Rosenblatt has been doing research about the relationships
between the reader and the text since then. She views the interactions as a continuum, a series of
gradations between the nonaesthetic and the aesthetic extremes (1994: 35). In efferent or
nonaesthetic reading, the readers attention is focused primarily on what will remain as the residue
after the reading (ibid: 23, her italics); readers concentrate on the concepts to keep in mind and the
guides to action. When they adopt the aesthetic attitude, their attention is centred directly on what
they are living through during their relationship with that particular text (1994: 25, her italics) and
they begin to imagine, intuit and think. This notion is linked to the assignation of lexicographical
meaning to the words and the experiencing of feelings, impressions and thoughts which allow
readers centre their attention in the elegance of the text and explore the work more profoundly.
Valuable reasons justify the inclusion of aesthetic reading alongside efferent reading in EFL
learning contexts. Joanne Collie and Stephen Slater consider the benefits of the deeper involvement
with literary texts:
Engaging imaginatively with literature enables learners to shift the focus of their attention beyond the more
mechanical aspects of the foreign language system. When a novel, play or short story is explored over a period
of time, the result is that the reader begins to inhabit the text [] Pinpointing what individual words or phrases
may mean becomes less important than the pursuing of the development of the story. The reader is eager to find
out as events unfold; he or she feels close to certain characters and shares their emotional responses. The
language becomes transparent the fiction summons the whole person into its own world. (Collie and Slater,
2008: 6)

Learners could have the chance to react to printed works of art through the experience of
feelings (Manzo and Manzo, 2005). They can respond to these types of texts with their own
reflections and develop empathy for others when materials are approached as literary. They are
stimulated to use interpretative competences and search for deeper meaning, what signifies that
literary discourse reading is tied to higher-order literacy. Exploring particular literary works may
impact on the education of the integrity of the learners. It might as well elevate their emotional
awareness, foment their imagination and generate critical thinking (Lazar, 2009).
I will try to show that poems, novels and fairy tales are intricate webs of meaning and entail
many more elusive implications than other kinds of discourse. I will try to show that the elements
present in the texts could create in the reader a horizon of expectation that makes them treat the texts
as different literary forms. In EFL course-books, literary texts can be approached as artistic texts so
that the activities built around them may create a literary reader, i.e. somebody who enjoys narrative

and lexical creativity, depths of thought and feeling, ambiguity, metafictionality, fantasy and
lyricism. I will try to put in plain sight that the above designers suggest reading these types of texts
efferently and without sensing, thinking or imagining. Procedures aimed at raising awareness of
style, form, conventions, symbolization, referentiality, connotation, narrative complexity, sociocultural and historical sensitivity are generally absent. I will show that the cultural processes implied
in the original texts, the views on human relationships, and the ideas and sensations conveyed
frequently remain unexplored in the textbooks under study. I maintain that First Certificate Gold,
Opportunities Pre-Intermediate. Students Book and New Lets go for EGB! 2 treat literary texts with
the same methods they treat non-literary texts.
The first chapter of this research aims at exploring the implications of the term literature and
its relationship with the process of meaning making. I will also consider in this chapter the most
relevant positions of Transactive Theory and Reception Theory and I will try to show that procedures
to read literary texts that are founded on these theories are favourable for readers in educational
settings. I will consider concepts of the reading process, aesthetic reading, efferent reading,
anticipation and retrospection.
In the second chapter, I will consider the general characteristics of E. Bronts novel
Wuthering Heights, Dickenss fairy tale A Christmas Carol, and Serrailliers poem The Rescue and
the genres in which they are inscribed. Then, I will analyze the manner in which these three literary
texts are incorporated and treated in the aforementioned course-books from the perspective of
didactics: I shall critically analyze the rationale and ways in which texts are presented to achieve
specific goals. I will survey the overall objectives which the editors of First Certificate Gold,
Opportunities Pre-Intermediate Students Book and New Lets go for EGB! 2 claim their lessons aim
at and contrast them with the activities they suggest should be carried before, during and after
reading.
In the third chapter, I will systematize and comment on the results and analyses of the
treatment of the literary texts in the three EFL course-books in question.

Chapter 1: The readers and the text

1.1. Literature and reception

The editors of First Certificate Gold, Opportunities Pre-intermediate and New Lets go for EGB! 2
propose the reading of literary texts and the following of certain procedures. In this first part of the
chapter, I will define the term literature as an artistic form which engages the readers in an elaborate
process of meaning making. I will consider publications that claim that the words in a literary work
have certain potentialities that can be activated by the readers.
I will examine then the most relevant grounds of Transactional Theory linked with the
reading process and the proposal it makes as the most effective set of procedures to read fiction.
Transactive Theory considers the readers responses and the methods and procedures grounded on
this theory allow for their living through the artistic pieces and becoming aesthetic readers. I will
additionally take into account the most relevant perspectives of Reception Theory and the
phenomenon of Konkretization, which is linked with the active participation of readers while going
through literary texts.

1.1.1. How can literature be defined?

It is necessary to delve into the past to understand the association of the term literature with the
type of writing considered as presenting elegance of form and involving emotional repercussions. In
English, this notion was first linked with the work of the Warton brothers, The Enthusiast (1740),
acclaimed in the publication Two Pioneers of Romanticism: Joseph and Thomas Warton by Edmund
Goose (Miller, 2002). According to Joseph and Thomas Warton, much of the language of the
English poets from 1660 to 1740 was perceived as being stiff and sterile. The public to which they
were addressed had been exposed to the uneven violence and confusion of the seventeenth century.
Since then, most of the readership had commenced to long for regularity, plain sense and composure
(J. and T. Warton in Gosse, 1911).
The simplest ideas should be chosen and should depend for their poetical effect, not upon a redundant and
gorgeous ornament, but solely upon elegance of language. There were certain referents, certain channels of
imagery, which were purely symbolical, and these could be defended only on the understanding that they
produced on the mind of the reader, instantly and without effort, the illustrative effect required. (Gosse, Two
Pioneers of Romanticism: Joseph and Thomas Warton, 1911)

J. Hillis Miller refers to the connection between literature and the notions of reference and the
illusory (Miller, 2002). He holds that human beings possess a singular aptitude concerned with the
use of signs. A word is a sign that operates in absence of the thing it refers to. Reference is an
untransferable trait of words. The thing which the word designates exists. To substitute things while
they are temporarily not present, humans resort to words and literature exploits that potentiality. The
term is besides related to the domains of the illusory. The words in a literary work are a porthole on a
virtual world. They refer to people or things which are not anywhere in the phenomenal reality. In the
total absence of any corporeal referent, words have the power to go on signifying. Language in
literature is derouted so that it refers only to an imaginary world (Miller, 2002: 20). The readers are
transported from the familiar to another singular place which they will never see in the real world
(ibid).
Particularly, the opening sentences of artistic written compositions carry significant vigour.
They are Open Sesames unlocking the door to that particular works fictive realm (24). The readers
become the observers of a starting virtual reality. Such inaugural moments intrude into the readers
lives and command their attention. The printed signs take them to a new place. They are charmed
instantly and want to read more. Only by reading further will they be able to explore that unfamiliar
terrene.

1.1.2. Transactional Theory

Anthony and Ula Manzo (1995) hold that the approaches to the response to literature have evolved
considerably and that the text-based perspective which regarded the readers as relatively unimportant
has been left aside. The relationship between readers and text, and the contribution the former can
bring to the latter, have achieved notable force.
In the sixties, there emerged a view of the role of the readers when interplaying with and
interpreting the text as fundamental to the literary experience: Transactional Theory, which was
developed by Louise Rosenblatt (1964). This theory explains that there occurs an interaction between
the readers and the text, which is determined by the readers mental posture. Two modes, or
dominant attitudes to approach words in ink are engaged in a dynamic transaction between the
readers and text, the efferent and aesthetic stances. Rosenblatt asserts that the readers look to the text,
and the text is activated by the readers (Rosenblatt, 1978).
(...) A poem should not be thought of as an object, an entity, but rather as an active process lived through during
the relationship between a reader and a text (Rosenblatt, 1978: 20-21).

The moment at which the readers and the text meet, the latter is manifested and becomes a
certain kind of confluence granting the literary piece the nature of phenomenon (ibid). The text is the
set of linguistic visual or auditory symbols interpreted from a series of signs. Thus, in a reading
situation the text is thought of as the printed signs in their capacity to serve as symbols. It
produces the effect of a chemical substance which originates a particular event when merged in the
synthesis with other elements- a novel, a play, a poem (Rosenblatt ,1994).

1.1.3.

Reception Theory

The Reception Theory -Rezeption aesthetic- develops a post-structuralist conception of the text as a
setting for the creation and growth of meaning. It is founded on the phenomenological tradition
which had been earlier proposed by Edmund Husserl, Roman Ingardens aesthetic and Hans-Geog
Gadamers hermeneutics. It explores meaning with special emphasis on consciousness. Ingarden
particularly, considers the literary text as having an artistic pole, which is the text written by the
author. It can offer the reader various perspectives, patterns and schematized perceptions. A novel, a
play, a short story, a scientific theory are entities made of sentences which are linked up in different
manners and act upon one another forming a correlative of a complex of sentences (Lodge, 1998).
There would be no artistic piece without the readers permanent active participation. In this light, the

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reader concretizes the work, which consists of arranged strings of words on a page that invite the
readers to frame language into meaning (Eagleton in Barry, P. 1987).
The aesthetic pole of the text connected with the readers realization of it has been identified
as the phenomenon of Konkretisation. According to Wolfgang Iser, this involves the action of
unveiling the subject matter of the written piece of art. The literary work is activated by the meeting
of text and readers. Their encounter allows for the emergence of meaning. It is a virtual confluence
that can never be exactly signalled and which brings the dynamic nature of the text into the open
(Iser in Lodge, 1998).
Iser asserts that the reality presented in a text impacts differently on several readers. Reading
stands for a creative process that goes beyond the perception of print. A literary text must therefore
be conceived in such a way that it will engage the readers imagination in the task of working things
out for himself (Iser in Lodge, 1998: 213).
The Reception Theory of Hans Robert Jauss employs the criteria of horizon of expectations
of a reading public which is the result of what they already understand about a genre and its
conventions. The horizon of expectations is detectable through the textual strategies genre, the
nature of fiction and poetical language, literary allusion- which corroborate, subvert, change or
ironize the expectations of readers (Maclean in Cuddon, 1991). Jauss considers literature as defined
and interpreted by its various moments of historical reception and, the placing of a literary work
within its historical horizon is a major premise of his proposal (Eagleton, 2003).
To sum up, readers have been ignored in discussions of the reading process for long. Readerresponse critics consider the readers as the central issue. Until the text is read it does not exist
because the readers are its creators. The meaning of the text is given by the readers with whatever
experience they bring to it (Guerin, W. et al, 2005).
Despite the potential dangers of subjectivism, reader-response criticism has been a corrective to literary
dogmatism and a reminder of the richness, complexity, and diversity of viable literary interpretations, and it
seems safe to predict that readers will never again be completely ignored in arriving at verbal meaning.
(Guerin,W. et al, 2005: 361)

The positions of the theories above referred to expound the nature of the readers activity in
the process of creating meaning and contribute to the foundations of this research.

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1.2. The reading process

First Certificate Gold Course-book (2000), Opportunities Pre-Intermediate. Students Book (2000)
and New Lets go for EGB! 2 (2001) propose reading literary texts through procedures that seem to
consider other operations than those implied in the process of reading literature and in the readers
contributions to the text.
I will describe the reading process from the perspectives of Transactional Theory and
Phenomenological Theory. I shall try to show that it is a complex and intellectual procedure that
requires the readers participation. I will then examine the process of retrospection and anticipation
which is tied to the process of reading literary works.
Moreover, I shall explore the concepts of aesthetic and efferent reading, which are proposed
by Transactional Theory. The former is concerned with an experiential, affective and associational
posture. As for the efferent kind of reading, it refers to the lexical, analytic and abstracting
constituents that determine a different stance. I will try to show that there exists the need to promote
aesthetic reading alongside efferent reading when exploring literature in the classroom in order to
orient the readers to respond to the text and find reading a pleasurable activity.
In the second part of this chapter, I will consider the ways in which the implementation of
Rosenblatts Transactional Theory can benefit EFL learners. Finally, I will inspect the reasons that
place most course-books as the dominant teaching materials of present day, their general
characteristics and goals. I will try to show what these types of books propose. I will report on the
findings of Yildirim (2011) and Gmsok (2013) which reveal that the employment of literary
discourse is uncommon in many EFL text books and that it is most frequently limited to adaptations.

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1.2.1. The Reading Process

Literature is dependent on the reading process in large measure. The dynamics of this process
according to Transactional Theory is grounded of Dewey and Bentleys terminology and
philosophical approach. Their formulation considers a known which assumes a knower, a knowing
is the transaction between a particular individual and a particular environment (Dewey and Bentley
in Rosenblatt1994: 17). The individual responds to the element of the environment: the text. During
the reading event each designs an environment for the other. The transaction encompasses the past
experience added to the readers present state and appeals.
Rosenblatt maintains that each reader is not static as if he were a blank tape registering a
ready-made message (1994:10). Readers are restless modelling a poem from their comebacks. They
have to resort to their past experience with the verbal symbols and to single out from the several
supervening recourses. To carry that out, they need to procure any situation to which those recourses
belong. At times, they have to reflect upon early parts of the piece for a second time in order to
perceive subsequent sections. They are absorbed in impressions, intuitions, prejudices, connections
and assumptions that had been summoned by the words and their referents (ibid).
Similarly, the Phenomenological Theory of Art claims that response to the text must be taken
into consideration as an important factor of the process of reading (Ingarden in Lodge, 1988). The
text possesses a virtual dimension which is activated at the moment of taking account of it. In the
light of the Phenomenological Theory, reading is conceived of as a pleasure when it is active and
creative (Lodge 1998: 213). Such faculty is an entire process of dynamic nature that begins when
the text imposes boundaries on unstated implications. These can be figured out by the readers
imagination and establish the situation given, endowing the text with deeper significance. The
readers set the work into motion and let their responses emerge. Readers and text play a game of
mental images on the stage which is grounded on the text (Stern in Lodge, 1998). The experience of
reading literature is a consciousness-stimulating operation (Iser, in Lodge, 1998).

1.2.2. Process of Anticipation and Retrospection

Wolfgang Iser maintains that reading literature is a rainbow-like procedure of perceptions, preintentions and remembrances. Every sentence bears a prior view of the following and forms a sort of
viewfinder for what is approaching; that prior view is altered and turned into the viewfinder of
what has been read. The whole process of anticipation and retrospection is the core of several means

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which permit the emergence of the virtual dimension of the literary text. The readers' mind works on
the raw material of the text making interrelations between the past, present and future (in Lodge,
1998).
While embedded in the stream of sentence-thought and after concluding his reflection of one
sentence, the readers are ready to figure out the sequence also as a sentence. This is connected to the
one he has just reflected upon. Here the reading process develops fluidly forwards. Now, if the next
sentence has no resemblance with the sentence he has thought, there occurs a gap. This vacuum
blocks the flow of sentences and the readers expectations might become frustrated. Such blanks may
be filled in diverse ways, meaning that one single text is open to different realizations. Innovative
readings of a text can be induced by repeated viewings. Every reader stuffs the gaps in his or her own
ways. The full potential of a literary text never becomes exhausted. The dynamics of reading is
revealed through this act (ibid).
In whatever way, and under whatever circumstances, the readers link the different phases of
the text together and it will always be the process of anticipation and retrospection that leads to the
virtual dimension, which in turn transforms the text into an experience for the readers (Iser in
Lodge, 1998: 217).
Terry Eagleton finds that the reading of the opening two sentences of John Updikes novel
Couples would imply a lot of unconscious activity (in Barry, 1987). The novel starts like this: What
did you make of the new couple? The Hanemas, Piet and Angela, were undressing. (Eagleton in
Barry, 1987). Eagleton speculates that the readers of that novel would grow puzzled after going
through these lines. For instance, they would infer that the inquirer cannot mind-read and thus this
person asks the addressee; that he esteems the others answer although there is not contextual
information suggesting that it would be an aggressive question; that The Hanemas might be a
grammatical apposition to Piet and Angela, showing that it would be their family name and that
they might be married, etc. (Eagleton in Barry, P. 1987). The readers make implicit connections, fill
in gaps, draw inferences and test out hunches; and to do all this means drawing on a tacit knowledge
of the world in general and of literary conventions in particular (Eagleton in Barry, 1987: 121).

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1.2.3. Aesthetic Reading

Rosenblatt identifies two modes, or dominant attitudes to approach words, that are engaged in a
dynamic transaction between the readers and text (1964, 1969, 1978, 1994). There exists a coherent
whole, a continuum in which the readers may adopt aesthetic and efferent postures. The transaction
is perhaps similar to the electric circuit set up between a negative and positive pole, each of which is
inert without the other (Rosenblatt, 1969: 44). As they focus on the experience of savouring the text
rather than on the intention of gaining information, they become aesthetic readers. For Joy Moss,
fiction is most effectively read from that stance, allowing the readers the access to the story world to
be lived through as a private experience (Moss, 2005).
Rosenblatt has gathered evidence from the responses of a group of readers who contributed to
the conception of aesthetic reading (1969). Some men and women were invited to read four lines of
verse by Robert Frost. On account of the commentaries they wrote about the piece, the stages
involved in the process of interpretation have been reconstructed. Their reactions had been diverse
and revealed the various senses and feelings aroused in them the moment after they had been given a
brief time for reading the following quatrain which title and authors name they ignored:
The play seems out for an almost infinite run.
Dont mind a little thing like the actors fighting.
The only thing I worry about is the sun.
Well be all right if nothing goes wrong with the lighting.
(Frost cited in Rosenblatt, 1969: 32)

The readers had been asked to jot down what they thought as they read. Their annotations
reflected rudimentary literary responses. They admitted that another level of interpretation was
necessary (Rosenblatt, 1969). Here are some of their conjectures:
Sounds as if it could be the producer of a play giving encouragement to backers. (Rosenblatt, 1969: 32)
The third line seems most confusing. If I stick to my theory of producers talking to backers it really makes no
sense. (32)
Is it a summer theatre? But then there would be worry about the rain, rather than the sun. (33)
However, after a moment or two, the implied stage begins clearly to represent the world, and the actors, the
worlds population. (33)
I just got another idea: First line- the world will always be here. Second line- there will always be fighting. We
shouldnt worry too much about it. Third line- worries about the H-bomb. (34)

As reading the quatrain, they made fusing assumptions and intuitions, connections and
prejudices. The fashion in which the working out of Frosts quatrain issued back and forth and was
shaped by delicate alignment and meaning readjustment in search of a clear-toned synthesis unveils a
unique process (Rosenblatt, 1969). The analysis of responses uncovered the readers active concern

15

with the text in building a poem for themselves out of the lines (Rosenblatt, 1969: 34). They
choose from assorted indicators occurring to them in repercussion to the words. They reach some
context to which those indicators can be linked. They reinterpret early parts of the poem in the light
of later parts (ibid).The readers centre on the feelings, images, attitudes and connections evoked in
them. The reading of a cooking recipe or a scientific formula shall not serve as the basis for a general
model of the process. While going through a poem the readers adopt an attitude of readiness to
focus attention on what is being lived through during the reading event (her italics, 1988: 5).
Rosenblatt maintains that in a reading that results in a work of art, the reader is concerned
with the quality of experience that he is allowing under the stimulus and guidance of the text. No one
else can read the poem or the novel for him. To ask someone else to experience a work of art for him
is tantamount to seeking nourishment by asking someone else to eat his dinner for him (Rosenblatt,
1969: 39). According to Sandra McKay, the enjoyment attained by interacting with the text makes a
most important feature of the aesthetic mode of reading proposed by Rosenblatts Transactional
Theory (McKay, 1982). Manzo and Manzo (1995) hold that the aesthetic reading of a literary text is
linked with detecting more immerse meaning and hence, with higher-order literacy. What has been
termed higher order-literacy is directly associated with critical thinking. It entails a number of
functions that involve the activity of meditating between and beyond the lines and portray the human
race at its finest. Manzo and Manzo add that during the moments at which readers respond to the
work with all that they feel and think it is possible that they acquire empathy for others.

1.2.4 Efferent Reading

Rosenblatt defines this as an instrumental process in which the readers are interested in the
operations to be carried out in a practical situation (1964, 1969, 1988, 1994). This notion has been
given its denomination after the Latin effere: to carry away.
During the time of their relationship with the text, they are not predominately engrossed with
the actual experience. The residue after the reading episode is their primary business (Rosenblatt,
1969). To provide an example, a woman has just detected a fire in her kitchen and is reading the
directions for using an extinguisher which she has picked up but she has never used before. The
sound, the relationship of the overtones of those words, the associations with their context that the
words fire or flame might evoke are unimportant and ignored. Her attention is directed toward the
procedure to be followed through as soon as she has finished reading the text. It makes no difference
if someone else reads the text and paraphrases it, as long as the required plan of action was made

16

plain. The scientific text written in a particular system of symbols warns the reader right away to
disregard his sensuous responses and point to specific information. The same text could also be read
aesthetically, with a different focus of attention (1969).
The special system of symbols employed in a logical text alerts the readers to point to
operations indicated in the text. They become aware that they shall direct their attention to the
procedure pointed by the logical text which is written in a particular system of symbols. They learn
that they shall dismiss their sentimental or sensitive responses. Their emotionally-coloured reactions
shall be disregarded.
In efferent reading, the readers contemplate what the words denote, their well-known
referents so as to shape the prescription for the action to come. Their attention concentrates on what
to be retained after the reading event. Reading a legal brief, a textbook or a newspaper usually
implies the readers efferent posture (Rosenblatt, 1988). They predominantly drive outside the
perimeter of awareness those elements that do not serve their present interests. They have to centre
mainly on the universal referential aspects of consciousness and to ignore intimate aspects that might
distort or bias the desired publicly verifiable or justifiable interpretation. The hypothetical case of a
man who has ingested some toxic fluid by accident would do as an extreme illustration. He runs over
the label on the container to detect the counter poison. His chief purpose is to gain information
(1988: 7).
The skilled readers are better able to choose the more suitable stance, aesthetic or nonaesthetic to evoke an adventure which does justice to the text the more past experience they bring
to it (1969: 40). From the verbal context, they learn which is the more adequate attitude in relation to
the text. Since each reading is an event in particular circumstances, the same text may be read either
aesthetically or efferently (1988; 6). In both kinds of reading the text is the stimulus. For example,
the poem of a cow in a meadow found in a third-grade textbook and headed with the question: What
facts does this poem teach you? instructs the pupils to focus on something very different from a
poetic experience (1969).

1.2.5. Benefits of aesthetic kreading of literary texts for EFL learners

The EFL learners who become engaged in the aesthetic reading of a literary text become
beneficiaries of a number of advantages. Mei-Hsia Dai and Chiou-Lan Chern have researched about
the effects of aesthetic reading in EFL contexts with college students in Northern Taiwan (2011).

17

Their study provides empirical evidence that testify to the positive results of the implementation of
Rosenblatts Transactional Theory with EFL learners.
Mei-Hsia Dai offered an optional reading course addressed to university students that lasted
fourteen weeks. The participants were thirty-four EFL learners of low and low-intermediate levels.
The reading material which was employed for the course was Saint-Exuprys classic tale The Little
Prince (1943) in its English version. To collect data, the researchers proposed instructions that
required an EFL teachers assistance to orient learners to express their reflections. In this study, the
preliminary data were collected from learners messages shared on a special weblog. In later stages
of the course, more data were gathered from reflective written reports and exam essays produced by
the same group of participants.
In a first stance, the teacher asked learners to think of the rose, whose misdoing caused a
serious consequence (their italics). Students had to answer open-ended questions that asked them to
manifest whether they had experienced circumstances of feeling regret from having hurt somebody
or being hurt by others, and in case they had, they were encouraged to recollect what they did and
explain why they acted this or that way. The teacher offered a modelled personal response as an
example of the ideas students were suggested to express with their words. The task aimed at the
evocation of the students feelings toward the text being read. They were allowed to resort to their
native language to give their answers.
In a second stance, each student was asked to select one passage from The Little Prince that
most evoked his/her feelings and which made it possible to reflect in light of personal prior
experiences. Later in the course, they were asked to compose individual essays based on their
reflective reactions to the tale.
The analysis of the ways in which students responded to texts allowed Dai and Chern to find
that through the implementation of aesthetic reading, the learning process becomes active, dynamic
and personal. The blog reflection excerpts illustrated that the students transacted with the text and
and perceived their own strengths during the transactional process with a particular text (Dai and
Chern, 2011: 6). They claim that when learners respond aesthetically to a literary text, they are able
to interpret story events, transfer their experiences with literature to life, generalize and abstract.
Their study also reveals that meaning construction does not occur through transmission from teacher
to student but through the assistance of teachers (Dai and Chern, 2011). Both researchers regard the
importance of the role of the teacher as the facilitator, whose primary function is linked with the

18

appropriate scaffolding, i.e. temporary support to learners. Dai and Chern emphasize the importance
of the circumstances and events antecedent to the reading of the text as well as the learners likes:
The role of the background knowledge and interests of the students play a role, and students construct their own
meaning and knowledge as they seek to make sense of the text. Even though the text is the same, each individual
reader will have a unique experience (2011: 10)

Finally, Dai and Chern conclude that it is worth suggesting students to express reflections that
incorporate their personal life experiences. Learners can identify their potentials and transform their
view of things and of people in life when reading from the aesthetic stance.

1.2.6. The EFL course-book as teaching material and the inclusion of literary texts
Almost in every L2 and FL learning context, the textbook is the leading teaching resource. Wong
Lawrence has explored publications by researchers and commented on their findings. Most often,
educators see in this material a readily available source of ELT to centre on their instructive labour
and might not have their energy dispersed by preparation of materials (Edge and Wharton in
Lawrence, 2011). The syllabus of an ELT program is usually presented in a systematic way (Ur in
Lawrence, 2011) and in situations where appealing and original information require organization to
compile a good textbook can be of service (Mc Donough and Shaw in Lawrence, 2011). Basic
outlines on the form lessons can be delivered are exhibited (Hutchinson in Lawrence, 2011). Most
often, manuals are usually supplemented with a workbook, a teachers book and other subsidiary
resources (Masuhara & Tomlinson in Lawrence, 2011).
It is one of the least expensive and convenient form of access to learning materials that
presents structured and packaged contents (ONeil; Ur in Lawrence, 2011). Learners can improve
their linguistic and communicative abilities with the aid of this type of published books specially
designed for such purposes (Sheldon in Lawrence, 2011). Bibliography of this kind can turn into a
reference point for students learning process (ONeil in Lawrence, 2011) and could orient them in
keeping track of their development. Students are exposed to a collection of recourses for assimilating
on their own and consolidating knowledge even if they are instructed by incompetent teachers (O
Neil in Lawrence, 2011).
Findings reveal that literary texts and elements are used to a limited extent in EFL class
books. Askin Yildirim investigated about the inclusion of literary works in 6 ELT course-books
commonly used worldwide (2012). He employed the method of content analysis to identify the
frequency and variety of the elements related to literature. His study reveals that the use of literature

19

is rare and restricted to upper-intermediate levels (Yildirim, 2012: 147). Prose is predominantly
used in the course-books that have been analysed. Moreover, it has been found that noncanonical
works of literature are incorporated in a higher percentage than canonical texts. Regarding the
authenticity of the literary works, the researcher has detected that generally adapted versions prevail
in the course-books. Yildirim concludes that in the publications he has analysed literature cannot
find a central place and remains as a peripheral instrument to improve reading skills (ibid).
For the researcher Fatma Gmsok, when it comes to the role of literature in EFL classrooms,
she admits it is impossible not to refer to course-books, which she considers are the second primary
input source following the teacher (Gmsok, 2013). This researcher has carried out quantitative
analysis of twenty-two course-books from different levels which were published in the last twenty
years in order to find to what extent are literary texts used in ELT course-books. Twenty of these are
currently used in preparatory schools of state universities in Ankara and two are not employed any
more. She has reported that the inclusion of belletrist writing is sporadic and often incorporated in
upper-intermediate levels and above and states that it has decreased along the last decade. She has
found no inclusion of complete literary texts. Literature issues sparsely in the form of extracts from
novels, short stories, quotations, references to poems, characters and novelists, adapted versions and
summaries in the course-books under study. Besides, Gmsok maintains that the inclusion of
literature in language teaching depends on the teachers preference, for it becomes a subsequent
resource following course-books:
Therefore, teachers and instructors in material development units are left with a huge duty to supply learners
with literary texts which will function as a way of extending reading, encourage learners to use their imagination
and creativity (Gmusok, 2012: 131)

I maintain that reading a literary text entails a complex process in which the readers can
actively take part and experience pleasure in case they read it aesthetically. I have shown that the
term literature is associated with compositions elegantly written and which can have an impact on
the readers emotions. Besides, I have examined the perspectives of Transactional Theory and
Reception Theory, both of which address the reading process and I have referred to the term
horizons of expectations which is proposed by Jausss Reception Theory. I have considered the
proposal presented by Transactive Theory as an efficacious method of reading literature in
educational environments. Then I have referred to studies revealing that literary texts are not a
central instrument in EFL course-books and that they are usually adapted.

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Chapter 2: literature in English Foreign Language manuals

2.1. Literary texts and EFL course-books

In this chapter, I will analyse three course-books that approach literary texts for which I have singled
out the lessons that adapt renowned works of literature: Wuthering Heights (Bront, 1847), A
Christmas Carol (Dickens, 1843) and The Rescue (Serraillier, 1976). My selection resides in the
variety of responses these can evoke in the readers.
In first place, I will survey the general features of the literary genres in which the original
works are inscribed, being the novel, the fairy tale and poetry respectively in order to identify the
conventions and procedures that Emily Bront, Charles Dickens and Ian Serraillier have employed
in their works and which will create in the readers a horizon of expectation.
Then, I will analyse the manner text books present and treat the works above. I shall describe
the methods that the course-book editors Richard Acklam, Steve Elsworth et al and Michael Harris et
al employ to approach Wuthering Heights, A Christmas Carol and The Rescue. I will try to show
that these editors suggest activities that orient the EFL learners to focus their attention on other
aspects of the literary texts than the aesthetic. I will attempt to show that the ways they approach the
literary texts focus on the formal aspects of the English language. I will contrast the procedures they
propose with what they announce in the charts of contents and book covers.

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2.1.1. Wuthering Heights (1847), A Christmas Carol (1843) and

The Rescue (1976)
John A. Cuddon regards the novel as one of the most popular literary forms that has attracted writers
and readers since ancient times (c.1200 BC) and continues to do so in most parts of the globe
(Cuddon, 1999). With respect to its literary qualities, Angel Garca Landa and Susana Onega affirm
that the main feature is given by its ability to amalgamate narrative and reflection. It as well makes
public the inner life of characters, shows their behaviour and the connection between action and
character (1996).
Emily Bronts Wuthering Heights (1847) has achieved notable significance in the English
Literature of the Victorian period (1837-1901). Andrew Sanders (1993) considers that the narrative
complexity is the quality its readers have most admired. It balances the viewpoints of two major and
five minor narrators and plays with juxtapositions all along, between settings, characters and themes.
Throughout the narrative, nature and phenomena within nature continue to be wuthering and
turbulent. Readers need to figure out and interpret the events and train of thoughts proportioned by
each narrator. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar refer to this novel as a metaphysical romance that
evokes in the readers a feeling of its being at times about forces or beings rather than people
(Hussein, 2011: 118). According to Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer (2007), Emily Bronts
Wuthering Heights outshine the romantic fiction of mid-19th century.
The fairy tale is another genre that has interested a wide readership from different cultures.
Cuddon maintains that the major ingredients usually found in fairy tales are magic, charms and spells
and he adds that these tell stories which often interpret the human behaviour and psychology
(Cuddon, 1999). For Paul Davis, one of the most memorable tales ever written in any language and
that will remain in the English culture forever is Charles Dickenss A Christmas Carol in Prose, a
Ghost Story of Christmas (Davis, 1999). It is told in the frame of the fairy tale method and conceived
as an oral narration to be transmitted from generations. Dickens fiction is sharpened with a critical
sensitivity that there existed something seriously erroneous with the society of the Victorian epoch.
He directs the readers thinking to his characters speech and makes them aware of the stylistic
essence of the comic purpose (Sanders, 1993).
Poetry differs from the above forms to a great extent. Cuddon views this kind of discourse as
an art in its own that amuses with words and the harmonious flow of language (Cuddon, 1999). The
mode morphemes are assorted derives in sense and rhythm, eliciting from every syllable a sort of
tune which vibration and consonance sways. This certain power to please is not found in prose

22

(Cuddon, 1999; Moore and Booth, 2003). By means of their own ingeniousness and perceptions,
myriad of writers have composed for centuries works often with twain chief qualities: in first place,
the poem comes about as an invitation for the reader to appreciate life from another persons
perspective; secondly, it yields a sort of elixir for the mankind clamour of living more plentifully
(Cuddon, 1999). Poets make use of plentiful devices and techniques as rhyming, metaphor,
comparison, alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, repetition of words, imagery, even
format and singular usage issues (Kellem, 2009; Bainbridge and Pantaleo, 1999).
A poem telling a story involves features of poetry as well as of narrative. In many literatures,
the production of narrative poems has been proliferous since ancient times (Cuddon, 1999).
Contemporary poets still narrate through experimental new verse forms which shape and sound give
way to new structures. Their pieces report from the vision of an artist on events that may engage the
readers as if they were witnessing the moment being described. Some of circumstances might be
similar to the readers actual experiences (Booth and Moore, 2003).
Narrative poems are composed of units which are often measured and counter measured at
various scales or levels. Narration could be segmented into moves, subplots, episodes and events.
Point of view along with time and conscience can be segmented as well (Shoptaw in McHale, 2009).
The poem by the British writer Ian Serraillier (1976) is a narrative poem telling the story of a boys
dog, which nearly drowns in rough waters near the seashore and is finally rescued by a passer-by.
The most notable procedures the author employs are repetition, rhyme and consonance. The tone of
voice is sad in the beginning, then it turns into a happier tone as the boy recognises his pet and
perceives it has survived.
The elements present in the texts above will create in the reader a horizon of expectations that
will make them approach them as a novel, a fairy tale and a poem. The segmentation of longer texts
into shorter ones to be included in the course-books problematizes this process.
I maintain that the works Wuthering Heights (1847), A Christmas Carol (1843) and The
Rescue (1976) are texts with literary qualities that can be approached as artistic texts. I estimate that
readers can savour the words in these texts and take pleasure while reading in case they carry out
procedures that orient them to read aesthetically.

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2.1.2. Treatment of the literary texts in three EFL course-books

I. Wuthering Heights in First Certificate Gold
Certain substantial events of Bronts novel have been simplified and presented as an extract by
Acklam and Burgess in the Fifth Unit of their course-book, First Certificate Gold. There have been
identified two possible lesson objectives. The first is to read and become familiarized with the main
characters and part of the plot of the novel. The second, to learn and practise reported speech
structures of the English language with the aid of a simplified dialogue.
Before analysing the lesson, I will examine the announcements made in the contents chart
(Figure 1). From left to right, the table of issues indicates in first place, the name of the Unit All you
need is love. Then there comes the GRAMMAR section in which they state Reported/Direct Speech
as the linguistic patterns to be studied. The VOCABULARY section presents Ways of Talking and
Love and Marriage. The READING column of this module announces an extract from Wuthering
Heights followed by the idiom reading between the lines in parenthesis. The Oxford Advanced
Learners Dictionary of Current English proportions a clear definition of the idiom to read between
the lines: look for or discover a meaning in something that is not openly stated (Hornby, 2001:
1053). According to what is announced in the contents chart in the READING column of First
Certificate Gold, it could be inferred that editors will present Wuthering Heights as a complex text
which needs to be carefully read for meaning to be constructed.

Figure 1: Table of Contents, in First Certificate Gold

24

As for the lesson itself (Figures 2 and 3), it exhibits an excerpt of the novel, preceded and
followed by a set of tasks. This text is approached in both sections of Unit Five, READING and
GRAMMAR. The READING segment proposes three activities.
The account which opens the lesson is introductory (Figure 2). It reveals what has taken
place in the novel before the events narrated in the extract. The overall aim of this summary seems to
be that of providing the student with an overview of the story of the characters involved.
Activity One (Reading Section)
This is a two-folded task. Reading the extract in page 48 is suggested in first place. Then, the
association of the names of the main characters with their pictures which are included on the left side
of the same page is to be done afterwards (Figure 2). Learners are not informed that the extract is a
simplified text nor that the pictures belong to the American film Wuthering Heights (1939), directed
by William Wyler and starring Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier and David Niven. The extract
summarizes the segment in Chapter IX of the novel in which Nelly Dean narrates the turning point of
Wuthering Heights. She used to be the housemaid at that mansion and relates to her present master
some major events that changed the course of action of the story. She recalls the day her late
mistress, Catherine Earnshaw, disbosoms the secret of having accepted Edgar Lintons marriage
proposal in spite of her affectionate regard to classless Heathcliff. The latter overheard only the first
part of the talk and left the Heights broken-hearted.
After reading the extract in the manual, the learners have to carry out the second task
suggested in Activity One, matching the pictures on the left side with the main characters. The first
image from top to bottom corresponds to Catherine and Heathcliff; the second to Catherine and
Edgar and the third to Heathcliff. The order in which characters are portrayed here from top to
bottom perfectly coincides with the sequence of the most fateful events in the original text: Catherine
and Heathcliffs attachment since early childhood; then Linton becoming Catherines husband and
finally Heathcliffs leading a solitary life. After this association, the students could be more
acquainted with the narrative. The pictures convey a pictorial narrative, i.e. a semiotic sketching of
the sequel of events that are related in a causal and temporal manner.
Activity two (Reading Section)
It proposes that learners answer a number of closed-ended questions (Figure 2). The questionnaire
aims at the study of part of the novels intricate plot and the relationship between actions and
characters.

25

Figure 2: Reading section - Unit 5, in First Certificate Gold

26

Activity Three (Reading Section)

This is the last of the READING section (Figure 2). The prompt solicits that learners think of
adjectives that describe both, Cathy and Nellys personalities. This task is basically concerned with
characterization.
The activities above approach the plot of the novel, particularly, numbers One and Two, as
well as the introductory summary of the history of the families preceding these. Activity Three is
aimed at character portraiture.
Next in order, the GRAMMAR section of the lesson considers the structures of certain
utterances from the extract of Wuthering Heights in page 48 of the course-book and of others,
derived from these in terms of their functions in language (Figure 3). The main of the extract consists
of a dialogue, and the recurrent linguistic construction is direct speech. This section proposes the
study of both grammatical items, direct and reported speech.
Activity One (Grammar Section)
It is a matching exercise. (Figure 3). It is tied to the identification of the equivalents of indirect
statements in the extract: wh questions, yes/no questions, and commands. For example, She said
she was very unhappy corresponds with Im very unhappy! (line 7 in the extract), etc.
Activity two (Grammar Section)
This is a multi-staged exercise (Figure 4). It suggests the comparison between direct and indirect
speech forms in the previous activity, in first place. In the second, it prompts to carry out the analysis
of the tenses employed by elicitation of rules which determine the construction of reported
statements, questions and commands.
Thirdly, the last stage of Activity Two proposes the exploration the grammar rules for
reported/direct speech referred to in the Grammar Reference section of the book, where a general
definition is followed by further examples and analysis of tense change, tense preservation, time
expressions, reported statements, reported questions, reported orders, reported suggestions and
reporting verbs. The examples provided to illustrate these grammatical issues do not belong to the
extract (Figures 4 and 5).

27

Figure 3: Grammar Section - Unit Five, in First Certificate Gold

28

Figure 4: Reported Speech/Direct Speech (1) Grammar Reference, in First Certificate Gold

29

Figure 5: Reported Speech/Direct Speech (2) Grammar Reference, in First Certificate Gold

30

Activities three, four, five and six (Grammar Section)

These aim at providing further practice of reported speech, reporting verbs, position of verbs, objects
prepositions, etc. and have no connection at all with the extract in the course-book (Figure 4).
Activity six basically suggests writing a short story employing a mixture of direct and reported
speech and certain lexical items. It shall be on the theme of love, which is one of the major issues in
Wuthering Heights.
Editors of First Certificate Gold are primarily concerned with the analysis of the language in
the extract of the literary text in the GRAMMAR section. The category of direct speech is presented
by means of examples in context. Indirect speech is derived from these examples. The Grammar
Reference provided in pages 173 and 174 (Figures 4 and 5) is objective, restricted to the sentence
level and aiming at showing how language works. It pays attention to the physical form of
utterances. The clauses being studied are representative of the English language in general. The
linguistic description of the categories proposed in the course-book centres on syntax. The overall
objectives seem to be the presentation and explanation of linguistic patterns that are connected to
constructions permitted in the English language. The procedures in the READING and GRAMMAR
segments of Unit Five in First Certificate Gold orient the learners to focus on specific information
provided in the simplified extract of Wuthering Heights. Editors propose activities that centre on the
formal aspect of the English language. Their proposals lack activities which orient the readers in the
construction of meaning of the literary text. Besides, learners could scarcely familiarize with all the
circumstances in the novel narrated before the dialogue between Catherine and Nelly which is
presented in the extract. To read between the lines of a summarized passage which includes the
turning point of the novel is far from possible.

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II. A Christmas Carol in Opportunities Pre-intermediate

The course-book Opportunities Pre-intermediate is composed of eight modules that teach and
practise the English language. The last section in the book incorporates four Literature Spots, each
of which treats a literary text. Literature Spot 2 introduces Charles Dickenss A Christmas Carol
(Figure 6). The activities are built around a simplified version of that fairy tale and this text centres
on some peculiar events occurring to the curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge on 24th and 25th of
December, seven years after the death of his partner, Jacob Marley. He is visited by the ghost of
Marley and three more ghosts that show him a sequence of images, including past, present and yet to
come Christmases in his life. One of the visions reveals how his own death will be like unless he
changes his selfish ways. The lesson consists of two stages: Before You Start and Reading and
Listening (Figure 7).

Activity One (Before You Start stage)

This is the opening section of the lesson. It proposes a single activity that focuses on the authors
biography: Read about Charles Dickens. Have you read any of the books mentioned or seen films of
them?-The rubric indicates that the students will read background information about certain events
concerning Dickenss family, his oeuvre and the message he seeks to transmit in A Christmas Carol
(Figure 8).
This task gives the impression of having four objectives. The most evident aim seems to be
that of informing about the authors biography and works. The second objective is possibly that the
students understand Dickenss authorial voice regarding Victorian society. The third could be linked
to their understanding of the morale of the tale.
Then comes the Reading and Listening Stage, which proposes six activities:
Activity Two (Reading and Listening Stage)
The instruction Look at the pictures in the story. What do you think happens to the main characters?
(Figure 7) suggests the prediction of the tale by observing four images and choosing the statement
that best aligns with its plot (Figures 7 and 8). The primary objective could be to predict the major
events in the narration. The secondary is probably to learn relevant information about the main
characters and the relationships between these.
The cartoons proportion a sort of illustrated narration of events. The one at the top of the page
reveals part of the beginning of the story: Scrooge mistreating his clerk Bob Cratchit (Figure 8). The

32

illustration on the left: the spectre of Marley warning Scrooge about his ways. The picture on the
right illustrates the moment at which the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come takes Scrooge to his
tombstone. The picture at the bottom refers to the ending of A Christmas Carol: Scrooge turns a
better person after the visit of the spirits (Figure 8).

Figure 6: Table of Contents, in New Opportunities Pre-intermediate

33

Figure 7: Before You Start, reading and listening sections, in Opportunities Pre-intermediate

34

Figure 8: A Christmas Carol, in Opportunities Pre-Intermediate

35

Activity Three (Reading and Listening Stage)

Read the story very quickly and check your answers - prompts the scanning of a simplified version of
A Christmas Carol and verifying whether the right answer has been chosen from options a, b and c.
The statement that best accounts the plot is c: He (the main character) is visited by four ghosts on
Christmas Eve, who make him change his attitude towards life (Figure 7). The rubric does not
inform learners that the text is oversimplified.
Activity four (Reading and Listening Stage)
It indicates three procedures to be carried out: Read and listen to the story. Match the characters with
the actions (Figure 7). Primarily, students will follow the lines of the text in the next page of the
course-book (Figure 8) and listen to a narrator simultaneously as the tape is played. The aims of the
first rubric may possibly have to do with working the basic abilities of reading and listening. Also,
with perceiving the story line and learning more about the chief roles in the tale.
The text in Figure 8 is a synopsis of Dickenss A Christmas Carol. It summarizes the story
narrated in the literary work and includes some of the interlocution taking place between the main
characters. The painful past episode of the death of Scrooges sister shown by The Ghost of
Christmas Past has been discarded. This important event is closely connected with the main
characters negativism.
Once readers have gone through the text, the same activity prompts to match the characters of
the story with a set of actions (Figure 7). The aim of this second instruction could rest on the
students recognition of the relationship between relevant events and characters.
Activity Five
This recommends the ordering of the events mentioned in the previous assignment: Now order the
actions in exercise 4 (Figure 7). As an example, the statement narrating the first most important
happening is provided: 1. Scrooges nephew invited him for dinner. The task directs the readers to
identify the organization of incident and character and the time sequence of the story. The readers
have to arrange the events mentioned in Activity 4 chronologically.
Activity Six
Read the story again and answer these questions (Figure 6) proposes seven closed-ended questions.
Students may be presumed to provide these retorts in accordance with what is expressed in the
editors text. The purpose might coincide with the aim of the previous tasks: perceiving the chain of
events and the motives of characters.

36

Activity Seven
The chief objective could be the expansion of the students lexicon (Figure 7). Moreover, the learners
can improve their pronunciation as they hear the phonetics of certain vocabulary items. First, they
are suggested to single out from the text five words they are not familiar with. Then, resort to the
monolingual mini-dictionary -companion to the course-book-, look up the meanings of the chosen
terms and finally enter these in the vocabulary books they should have been keeping.
Opportunities Pre-Intermediate Mini-Dictionary (Ruse, 2000) indicates the phonetics and
word class of a limited number of entries, followed by a concise definition and an example of the
word in context. For instance, if a learner picks these words from the text in the course-book, s/he
will find the following descriptions:
Christmas pudding /krsms pd/ A kind of soft dark brown sweet cake that people eat hot at Christmas
(Ruse, 2000: 9).
ghost /st/ noun, C. a shape or an image of a dead person that some people think they have seen: Do
believe in ghosts? (p. 21)

you

reply /rpla/ noun, C. (pl. replies) something that you write or say as an answer: I wrote to her but I didnt
receive a reply (p. 40).
tiny /tani/ adjective (tinier, tiniest) very small. Its one of the tiniest insects on earth (p. 50).
turkey /tki/ noun C/U meat from a bird like a large chicken: In Britain many people eat turkey at
Christmas (p. 51).

The assignment proposes the exploration of language at the word level. The student can
become aware of certain features which have been unknown until the moment they are recorded.
Activity Seven suggests the study of vocabulary.
To sum up, the editors present certain events in the life of Charles Dickens and some of his
renowned works. Then they suggest learners to carry out a number of procedures after reading the
text. The text in question is a synopsis of A Christmas Carol which also includes some dialogue
between characters. The procedures propose choosing the statement that best describes the chain of
events, matching characters with actions, ordering these actions chronologically and answering a
questionnaire about the characters and plot of the narration. It can be deduced that Harris et al orient
the learners to focus on the procedures to be followed once they finish reading the text. Their
treatment of A Christmas Carol centres on the public and verifiable interpretation of the tale. I
consider that the editors proposal promotes an efferent reading because the activities they
recommend guide learners to direct their attention to the remains of the text once the reading has
been completed. This lesson addresses information concerned to the biography of Charles Dickens

37

and A Christmas Carol. I estimate that the exploration of the literary text and of bibliographical
information, as it is stated in Opportunities Pre-intermediate Teachers Book, is circumscribed to the
perception of the chain of events narrated in the fairy tale and the identification of some major works
of the writer alongside certain circumstances in his life. The presentation of the lesson as a
Literature Spot has little relation with the treatment of the text as literary in the light of its elegance
of form and its likely emotional repercussion. Editors announce here the inclusion of literature when
they actually include reference to the literary work and its author. Finally, they suggest the study of
vocabulary items with the use of the Mini-dictionary, which instructs about the pronunciation, word
class and definition. I estimate that the learners are oriented to focus on the formal aspect of language
in this final task.

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III. The Rescue in New Lets Go for EGB!

New Lets Go For EGB! 2 consists of twenty units that study the English language, four of which are
titled Build Your Skills: units 4, 9, 14 and 19. These units include the stages of Reading (except unit
19), Listening, Speaking and Writing (except units 9 and 14).
The narrative poem The Rescue -about the saving of a dog from the perils of the sea- is
included in the first part of Unit 14. In the table of contents, editors Elsworth and Rose indicate that
the focus is reading and understanding a poem (Figure 9).
Editors propose to study the poem by means of a number of procedures that are suggested in
the different stages. In Unit 14, they incorporate a pre-reading section, Before You Start. This is
followed by the Reading, Listening and Speaking stages (Figure 10).

Before you Start section

It precedes the reading of the poem. The question, What do these words mean? To rescue; to
drown (Figure 10) could suggest learners to produce the literal meaning in their native language of
two infinitive verbs linked to the events in the poem.

Reading Stage
This section approaches verse 1 and some lines of verses 2, 3, 4 and 5 (Figure 10). Activity One
introduces The Rescue and proposes reading verse 1. There follows a short questionnaire to be
answered once the first part of the poem has been read through. The questions are closed-ended and
point to specific information to be found in the beginning of the poem. The objective here could be
that the students become acquainted with the context, characters and order of events.
Later in the same stage, Activity Two proposes the study of seven lexical items that are
mentioned in the next verses of the poem. The indication Here are some lines from the poem. What
do the underlined words mean? suggests that the students think of the meaning of words and
expressions in their native language.

39

Figure 9: Table of Contents, in New Lets Go For EGB! 2

40

Figure 10: Unit 14 Part One, in New Lets Go For EGB! 2

41

Listening Stage
Activity Three proposes two tasks (Figure 10). Before all else, students are asked to listen to the
narrator relating the whole poem, which is not provided in print. As the audio is played, a native
teenage boy enunciates the unabridged version. His voice is accompanied with a background piano
melody. Once the recitation is over, there are some additional closed-ended questions. Questions 1-4
centre on information about the characters and later events. Question 5 inquires about the tone of the
work.

Speaking Stage
According to the online Merriam Webster Dictionary, the verb speak is generally used to refer to a
number of actions as to say words in order to express your thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc., to
talk to someone, to talk about a particular subject or person, to say words to express yourself in
a particular way. The dictionary provides many more definitions concerning particular uses of the
term which are associated with these.
Activity Four is included in the Speaking Stage. The editors suggest that learners say verse 1
of the poem with the cassette. The learners hear the same recitation of The Rescue on the audio
tape they have heard on the Reading Section and recite verse 1 with the narrator. By speaking, the
authors seem to mean reciting, not any of the actions inherent to the definitions referred to above.
The editors announcement stating that New Lets Go for EGB! 2 offers a highly enjoyable
learning experience is debatable in their treatment of The Rescue. Their activities request the
readers to carry out a number of procedures that are linked with other concerns than the savouring of
the literary text.
Their announcement in the table of contents of New Lets Go for EGB 2 that states that the
focus of unit 14 is to read and understand a poem is arguable. Two activities of their lesson centre
on the semantic aspect of vocabulary items from the English language. Other tasks propose the study
of the characters and the chain of events narrated through sets of closed-ended questions. The
students are guided to perceive the logical sequence of the narrative. The learners are oriented to read
segments of the poem to carry out certain procedures that direct their attention towards information
that is verifiable. Then they are encouraged to listen to the poem in order to perform more operations
of the same kind after the listening. It could be inferred that their unit proposes methods that have
little in common with the interpretation of the text and their proposals aim at an efferent reading of
The Rescue.

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Chapter 3: Results and Analysis

3.1. The Reading Process and the Process of Anticipation and

Retrospection
The activities built around Wuthering Heights, A Christmas Carol and The Rescue seem to be
deficient in the provision of opportunities for learners to reflect beyond what the verbal symbols
denote and to construct meaning. Learners are unasked to carry out tasks that will activate the virtual
dimension of the literary works, which could consequently turn reading into an operation that may
hardly become active or creative and hence, could scarcely involve pleasure and enjoyment. It can be
inferred that the methods of treating the literary texts in First Certificate Gold, Opportunities Preintermediate and New Lets Go for EGB! 2 seem to obviate the relationship between the readers and
the text and the implications of the reading process. This appears contrastive with Elsworth and
Roses proclamation stating that their course-book offers a highly enjoyable learning experience for
both students and teachers. In addition, as learners read the simplified texts and segments of these,
they will have contact with fragments of the works, which problematizes the connection of the
phases of the text together and which is likely to impact counterproductively on the process of
anticipation and retrospection. It can be deduced that in First Certificate Gold, the conditions
inherent to the previously announced activity of reading between the lines of Wuthering Heights
seem to be barely provided for. Added to this, Mugglestones announcement that learners will
develop their extensive reading skills as they work with the Literature Spots in Opportunities
Pre-Intermediate contrasts with the editors suggestion to read the simplified text of A Christmas
Carol. It can be inferred that the methodologies in the course-books that approach the literary texts
overlook the positions of Reception Theory which explain the implications of the reading process
and the readers contribution to the text.

3.2. Horizon of Expectation

The simplification of Wuthering Heights and A Christmas Carol as well as the segmentation of The
Rescue could complicate the creation of the readers horizon of expectation which will allow their
perception of these works as a novel, a fairy tale and a poem respectively. As consequence, they are

43

likely to approach these texts as the other non-literary texts included in First Certificate Gold, New
Opportunities Pre-intermediate and New Lets Go for EGB! 2.

3.3. Efferent Reading

It can be deduced that the literary texts included in the reading stage of the course-books in question
are used as the means to introduce new language and syntactic constructions. The texts have been
adapted to suit the purpose of teaching linguistic forms and the methodologies with which editors
approach artistic works are similar to the methods that they have employed in their course-books to
treat other texts which are not literary, i.e. magazine articles, emails, recipes, etc.
It could be inferred that Wuthering Heights, A Christmas Carol and The Rescue are
ancillary materials in First Certificate Gold, Opportunities Pre-intermediate and New Lets Go for
EGB! 2 which supplement the other non-literary texts in these course-books. The form of the
linguistic signs is given relevance and the editors methods encourage learners to carry out simple
operations in order to perceive information that is present in the text in order to think how language
works. The learners attention is directed to the new vocabulary and syntactic constructions of the
English language which are in the text. It is unnecessary that the learners are creative for this, for
they are guided to reflect on the superficial meaning of the words in the text concerned with the use
of lexical items and the grammar rules that condition certain syntactic categories. Besides, the
literary texts have been manipulated so that they convey precise and verifiable information. Learners
are required to understand the chain of events taking place in Wuthering Heights, A Christmas Carol
and The Rescue which are presented as logical texts and the activities around them instruct
learners to focalize on explicit details as the factual aspects that can be derived from the excerpts.
Their primal proposal seems to be that of teaching the learners to concentrate on the openly and
confirmable interpretation. It can be deduced that their methods foster the efferent reading stance.

3.4. Aesthetic reading

The procedures suggested in the course-books request that learners elaborate other types of answers
than those concerned with their personal contributions to the meaning of the works and with the
savouring of literary texts. It can be deduced that the methods which aim at reading aesthetically are
overlooked in the three course-books. Consequently, there could be a few, if any probabilities at all

44

that the learners live through an intimate encounter with the texts, feel, think critically, imagine or
develop empathy for others. Moreover, the thoughts and sensations which are transmitted in the
original works are scarcely noticed in the course-books, so are the perception of interpersonal
relationships and the cultural circumstances assumed in Wuthering Heights, A Christmas Carol and
The Rescue. The learners could hardly become acquainted with the authors writing styles, literary
forms, references, associations, literary devices, complicacy of plots, cultural, historical and social
contexts. Learners are requested to adopt predominately one of the two stances that form the
continuum, being the efferent stance. Also, it can be deduced that the dynamic transaction with the
literary work will be incomplete, for they will hardly reach the other side of the continuum, the
aesthetic side.
A major consequence of the omission of the methodologies promoting aesthetic reading in
learning contexts implies that the students will have little chances to detect deeper meanings,
experience pleasure and thus become aesthetic readers.

45

4. Conclusion
First Certificate Gold, Opportunities Pre-Intermediate and New Lets Go for EGB! 2 are found
among the reduced number of publications that incorporate literary texts as the instrument which
supplements the non-literary texts. I have shown that the manner in which Wuthering Heights, A
Christmas Carol and The Rescue are studied respectively in the source books above conduct the
process of reading literature towards particular learning aims. The activities that editors suggest
centre on the study of the form of the English language and also orient the readers to direct their
attention to logical information. The methods employed by the designers to approach literary texts
are the same methods with which they treat other texts that are not artistic. Such mode of studying
literary materials contrasts with the announcements they make which are linked with intensive and
extensive reading.
The connotation of the term literature with artistic writings made up of refined words capable
of producing instant effects in the readers mind dates from 1740 in England, since the publication of
the work of Joseph and Thomas Warton, who point to the poetic repercussion of the signs. The words
in a literary work have the potential to continue conveying meaning for the reason that they refer to
people and things that belong to a virtual world and can substitute these while they are not present
and the readers contribution to the work is fundamental. Wuthering Heights (1847), A Christmas
Carol (1843) and The Rescue (1976) could evoke in the readers multiple responses resulting from
their relationship with the words in these texts. First Certificate Gold, Opportunities PreIntermediate and New Lets Go for EGB! 2 guide the learners to centre their attention on the remains
after reading the adaptations of the novel and the fairy tale and the segments of the poem afore
mentioned, excluding the opportunities to visualise, feel or meditate on what the words denote. Such
treatment limits the chances that learners explore the works in more gratifying and humane fashion.
Reader-response Criticism gives prominence to the readers contribution to the text and views
them as active agents in the creation of meaning. Rosenblatts Transaction Theory considers that the
efferent and aesthetic reading postures are engaged in the dynamic transaction between the readers
and the text. When readers become concerned with the affair of savouring the written signs and
living through them as an intimate experience, they come to be aesthetic readers. Ingardens
Reception Theory sheds light on the connection between meaning and consciousness under the
stimulus of the text. For Iser, the encounter between readers and text favours the creation of meaning
and Jauss maintains that readers employ the criteria of horizon of expectations which help
constitute their judgements of texts inscribed in different genres. I have tried to show that the

46

promotion of efferent reading as the only reading mode to read simplified texts of Wuthering Heights
and A Christmas Carol and the segments of The Rescue complicates the possibilities that learners
take pleasure, create meaning and frame their horizon of expectations.
The EFL manual is the most popular didactic material employed in learning contexts at
present time. The inclusion of literature is restricted in course-books and adaptations prevail over
authentic texts according to the research conducted by Yildirim (2012) and Gmsok (2013) to
which I have referred. In learning settings, the incorporation of aesthetic reading added to the
adoption of the efferent stance could permit an imaginative engagement with the literary text.
Reading literature with the aesthetic posture is more serviceable and fruitful in educational contexts
according to the research conducted by Dai and Chern (2011). The readers could start to think
critically and make judgements, depend less on the others opinions, familiarize more with their own
emotions and let their mind create when they read literary texts aesthetically. They could be aided to
take pleasure as reading representations in art of events and stories, original vocabulary, layers of
reflection and sensations, deceitful enunciations and fantastic, metafictional and lyrical
compositions. Literature congregates artistic texts that can be studied through methods that could
help to produce literary readers.
The benefits of using the course-book are innumerable for both, learners and instructors. Its
conditions of usually being a timesaver and an economic source have placed it on top of the list of
pedagogic and most readily available resources. Editors often overtly assure their likely advantages
but what they announce not always coincides with the material they actually design.

47

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