Abstract:

The article gives an insight into the peculiarities of learning and teaching postmodernism literature to linguistic and non-linguistic students. The author writes about the findings on introducing the novel "The Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes into the academic process of future teachers of English and other students. The research has interdisciplinary character because it is carried out at the confluence of linguistics, literature studies and methods of teaching academic subjects.

According to data collected with the help of traditional research methods of observation, analysis and questionnaire, the author came to the number of conclusions. The most important of them is that reading postmodernism literature can increases students’ interests in English language. Classical literature is usually considered as a tool for teaching English because it is rich in different idioms, grammar construction and literary vocabulary. However, postmodernism literature can be even more attractive for English learners because of actual vocabulary which can be applied to everyday situations and topics which are popular among modern people.

Some excerpts from the novel can be used for reading and discussion. Among the possible topics, there is school life, first love, the role of music in our life, late-flowering love, and memory. Moreover, the second part of the book which is devoted to the inheritance can be applied while teaching English for specific purposes to law students. There are a lot of professional terms and topics for discussions based on juridical problems.

The most important thing about this book is that there are elements of different styles: from the colloquial to the style of scientific literature. Thus, this book is a valuable source while teaching English stylistics. Furthermore, "The Sense of an Ending" contains a lot of idioms, phraseological units which are discussed on English Stylistics lessons and Theory of translation lectures.

In conclusion, teaching postmodernism literature provides an opportunity to introduce various forms of work and a wide range of tasks: work in pairs and groups, compiling glossaries, doing matching tasks, categorizing, etc. Therefore, the postmodernism novel is useful while teaching English to linguistics students and non-linguistics as well and helps to enrich students’ vocabulary, develop their reading and speaking skills.

Keywords:

Teaching literature, postmodernism literature, linguistic competence, Content and Language Integrated Learning.