TEACHING CULTURE THROUGH LITERATURE

Language and culture are inextricably tied: language use is meaningful only in a context, and culture is part of such context. One important implication is that a language cannot be taught without its corresponding culture. The relevance of culture to FL learning is highly put in evidence when it comes to teaching literature. It has always been believed that literature offers an ideal means to teach about people’s way of life. Literature can be studied for a better understanding of culture as may culture be studied for a better understanding of literature. An effective way to make foreign language literature accessible to learners is, thus, to introduce them to the culture in which this literature was conceived. The aim of this paper is to present a 'cultural' approach to teaching literature. It delineates several literary genres and spotlights the way they lend themselves to teach about culture.