Teaching Literature for Aesthetic Purpose: University Level English Language Teachers' Lived Experiences

Abstract

Literature is a fertile discipline of multiple models of creative language use and aesthetics. Aesthetics in literary texts is an internally rooted quality that is embedded in contexts, plots and themes. Such aesthetics manifested in the literary texts draws the emotional attachment of the readers and it becomes the matter of discussion in classroom from the pedagogic purpose. The present study aimed to explore the experiences of university level English language teachers in teaching literature for aesthetic purpose. For this, five English language teachers teaching at M. Ed. Level were purposively selected and interviewed to collect data. The collected information was codified and analyzed under different qualitative themes. The findings showed that teaching literature for aesthetic purpose is an advanced level pedagogic practice that requires teachers' and students' intellectual exercise and their involvement in cognitive process. Teaching literature for aesthetic purpose is not a separate pedagogical practice from teaching literature for language enhancement and it regards language development as base. Under this pedagogical practice, as students' interaction occurs with their peers, group, and their teachers, they get opportunities to put forward their arguments, share their views using aesthetic experiences, evaluate their analysis using the tools of judgement and move to logical conclusion on particular issues of the literary texts. For this, they analyze the texts subjectively or objectively using different critical lenses. Likewise, students have close attachment with the emotional elements of the literary texts and the analysis of these emotional elements lead them to the sense of empathy. The teacher initiated or free discussions on the themes or issues of literary texts under this pedagogical practice enhance students' criticality, creativity and inference. However, teaching literature for aesthetic purpose is not free of challenges.