The Relevance of Teaching Different Literary Genres in the EFL Classroom

Abstract

Each literary genre is characterized by its own language patterns, its specific stylistic choices and its patterns of cultural orientation. Novels and short stories, for example, take advantage of their setting and plot to expand new degrees of realism. Plays, in contrast, are mainly around characters and their interactions, and they are written to be performed on stage. However, poetry is known of its various forms; it controls standard expectations about usage. Therefore, this paper comes to cast light on the importance of using various literary genres in EFL classes. Understanding these genres can help both teachers and students to be aware of their benefits in any classroom and to overcome the mismatch between literature as a content-based subject and literature as a rich authentic material used in language classes.