Enhancing Discourse Competence Through English Literature

Literature and Discourse Competence

Discourse Competence involves understanding and producing messages beyond the sentence level, including both spoken and written forms. In the primary stage, short narratives, poems, songs, dialogues, and descriptions provide excellent instances of language in context.

Discourse analysis rests on the notion that language is more than a sentence-based phenomenon. Therefore, literature in schools is a valuable resource to improve discourse competence.

Key Concepts in Discourse Analysis

• Context
• Cohesion and Coherence
• Bottom-up and Top-down processing
• Sentence-based vs. Discourse-based approaches

Literature and the CEF: Basic Competencies

The outline below focuses on the pedagogical advantages derived from working with stories in relation to the essential blocks of general and linguistic competencies in the Common European Framework (CEF).

Pedagogical Advantages of Stories

• Contents: Stories and narratives can reinforce grammar and syntax, foster vocabulary, and promote awareness of sounds (Linguistic Competence).
• Procedures: They help students acquire listening skills and concentration, rely on visual support, and predict language and meaning.
• Existential Competence (Attitudes): Stories provide learning and growing experiences while exercising imagination and creativity.
• Learning to Learn: Working with stories favors strategies for learning English and study skills such as memorizing and organizing work.

Selecting Texts for Young Learners

There are several useful criteria for selecting books and texts for young learners to ensure they are age-appropriate and educationally effective.

Children's Literature in the English Language

English literature is a premier resource for language acquisition. A primary selection of titles may be drawn from what is categorized as teenage and children’s literature in English. This type of literature is a relatively recent phenomenon that rose independently during the second half of the 18th century.

Authors, Periods, and Genres

Traditional stories include Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or The Beauty and the Beast. More modern stories include Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit or A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. In these works, we find many short stories containing repetitive language where the same characters interact within various socio-cultural elements.

There is also a group of well-known collections for English-speaking children that, because of their simplicity, do not require adaptation, such as the famous Postman Pat or Thomas the Tank Engine.