A Janus Faced Approach to Language Teaching and Literature

Abstract

A debate often raises its head amongst teachers of English, teaching literature and language. There are some teachers, who claim the superiority of teaching English literature, leaving the monotonous and lesser important work of teaching the language to newly recruited teachers or lesser experienced ones. The task of teaching English language at the primary school level is often relegated to teachers of other subjects having an English medium background. It seems there is a general consensus as to which is more important and which is secondary. What we fail to understand and notice is the complementary nature of both: without a proper expertise over the language one cannot fully comprehend or appreciate literature and without the help of literature there would be a dearth of matter to teach the language. In fact English language teaching and teaching of English literature are two sides of the same coin: Janus faced, but not contradictory