There a numerous ways of promoting literary comprehension in the classroom.
Teaching sugggestions 28–30
An important goal of native language education is to get students to appreciate the beauty of their native language and to introduce them to the cultural diversity of their country and its literary manifestations – fairy tales, narratives, stories, poetry, etc. Each country, each culture has its own unique stories, a rich treasure in fables, fairy tales and traditional stories.
Many students will need additional help in order to imagine the contents of the texts. This pertains mostly to two groups of students: those from educationally disadvantaged families who have no access to literature at home, and those who are not so familiar with their country of origin and perhaps only spend their vacations there. Not only are they often unfamiliar with the locations of the action, but have no connection with the legends and heroes (the legendary character Rozafa is known to every child in Albania, but not to those in the Albanian migration). Moreover, there are frequently value differences between the countries of origin and the host countries, as the literature there is based partly on different norms and traditions, and refers back to a different distribution of roles, rituals and behaviors. This can also lead to frustrations and comprehension problems.
The following examples demonstrate how HLT instructors can facilitate their students‘ experiences with literary, i. e. linguistically designed texts, and how to practice the comprehension of literary texts with different assignments.