Democratising Literature in the Foreign Language Classroom: The Role of Teachers and Teacher Educators

Using literature for education for democracy (the difficulty of defining democracy and democratic values notwithstanding) locates foreign language (FL) teaching within a values approach, setting itself in opposition to instrumental views of FL learning, where language is monetized and becomes a tool for financial gain. Such a view leads us to understand the way in which in a post-truth world where democracies are steadily weakening (Brown 2019), FL teachers face greater challenges and greater responsibilities than ever before. Many language curricula globally include values and citizenship (though the extent to which these are aligned with democracy is contestable, in line with the definitional issues above). However, the theoretical imperative to align language teaching with democratic values needs to be accompanied by principled pedagogies implemented with a consistency that will enhance its chances of success. These pedagogies are aligned with four important areas: the choice of works taught; the principled teaching of critical thinking; a participatory approach to the teaching of literature; and a focus on understanding the Other. This view of the role of the foreign language educator has implications for teacher education; this is vitally important, because language teachers who have been educated to use literature in their Initial Teacher Education (ITE) are more likely to use it later in their career (Duncan and Paran 2017). A corollary here is that prospective teachers need to be educated to be educators, not just language teachers. They need not only to have schooling in linguistics, applied linguistics and literature, but also be familiar with the pedagogy and methodology of teaching literature in the classroom, and understand their role as educators. This rounded approach to ITE will then enable them to identify and bring out democratic values in the literature they teach in participatory ways that model democracy to the learners.