Teaching Language Through Literature: The Waste Land in the ESL Classroom

This article intends to show how literature may be used in language classes to develop student’s knowledge of English. First, we examine the evolution of literature in the language classroom, then we give account of some reasons that justify its use in language classes, of the role of reading in language development, and of the way poetry is treated in the ESL classroom. The Waste Land is a good work to be used as a tool to develop student’s communicative competence in English. The article ends with a didactic proposal for ESL instruction based on the poem.