A standards-based framework for the teaching of literature within the context of globalization

Abstract

The 2007 MLA report, Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World, calls into question many of the current practices in language teaching, their underlying philosophies, and even the structure of departments of foreign languages and literatures in light of the impact of increased globalization, which privileges the development of “translingual” and “transcultural” competence. Particularly at stake is the traditional role of literature in the foreign language curriculum, a role made all the more problematic within the context of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (2006), which are ambivalent as to how literary texts should figure into the foreign language classroom. Although three of the Standards’ Five Cs—Cultures, Comparisons, and Communication—have generated new paradigms for the incorporation of literature in the language classroom, very little research has been done in terms of Communities and Connections. This chapter explores why these two standards seem to have been passed over within the pedagogical literature and examines how they can figure prominently into a reconfigured foreign language curriculum that advances the goals of the Standards as well as those of the 2007 MLA report. The chapter further explores how literature can be repositioned within interdisciplinary practices that might serve to create new kinds of connections within the global arena, as well as how literature helps provide students access to new foreign language communities. Finally, the chapter concludes by illustrating the theoretical discussion with the description of an intermediate French language course designed specifically to meet the needs of students interested in Global Studies.