Abstract:

In the last decades, language teaching has been primarily concerned with the development of productive and receptive skills such as listening, reading, writing, and speaking competencies and proficiency. The importance of reading literary genres such as belletristic, which was formerly considered a central element in acquiring a language, as had been discussed, for example, in the “Theorie der Unbildung“ by the Austrian philosopher Conrad Paul Liessmann, appears to have been fiercely neglected in the process of language learning these days.

In the past, teachers usually did not have to explain why their students should be exposed to Shakespeare, Goethe or Pushkin. Nowadays, teachers are urged to take a completely different approach if they still aim to integrate world literature in their language classes. The general goal of this study is to depict in how far it is possible to invite “non-reading” students to engage themselves voluntarily with central texts of world literature. It is, in general, of utmost importance to determine how to evoke modern-day students’ interest in reading.

The first step is to define a communicative situation and to activate the students´ pre-knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. After having been exposed to a certain text, for example the description of a person in Dostoevskij´s “Idiot“, or Dashiel Hammet´s “The Maltese Falcon”, students have to show their understanding of the respective text so that the teacher can provide them with any further material and background information needed. The more insight they get, the more interest in reading the entire book will be developed. Another objective of this study is to make students able to understand character development, even in complex literature. In this paper, the above-mentioned method shall also be applied in order to establish connections between Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Little Dog” and Bernhard Schlink’s “Der Vorleser” with a focus on investigating family issues in today’s modern world.

Keywords:

Language learning, World Literature, Skills and Education, Language proficiency, Skills transfer, Hammet, Pushkin, Dostoevskij, Chekhov.