The Use of Gothic Fiction as a Second Language Teaching-Learning Motivational Input for Adolescents

It is indisputable that success in the acquisition of a second language is closely dovetailed with motivation. A direct rapport between motivation and language achievement can be traced, whereby the higher the motivation, the smoother the advances towards an effective acquisition of the target langu...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Nido, Almudena, Díez Cobo, Rosa María
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Burgos (UBU)
Repositorio:Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Burgos (RIUBU)
OAI Identifier:oai:riubu.ubu.es:10259/9960
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10259/9960
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
Young adult learners
Motivation
Gothic fiction
Adolescence
Extensive reading
Novela gótica
Lengua inglesa
Lenguas modernas-Estudio y enseñanza
Gothic fiction (Literary genre)
English language
Languages, Modern-Study and teaching
Descripción
Sumario:It is indisputable that success in the acquisition of a second language is closely dovetailed with motivation. A direct rapport between motivation and language achievement can be traced, whereby the higher the motivation, the smoother the advances towards an effective acquisition of the target language. This process has been thoroughly explored of late in the field of Second Language Learning (SLL). Experts have rightly pinpointed that motivation dynamics greatly differ when we attend to groups of learners that tend to have a meagre and oscillating engagement with the subject matter, as it is mostly the case with adolescents. Thus, what would be at stake in this paper is the discussion of how to pair teenagers’ preferences with pertinent teaching-learning tools in the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) context. Given that the greatest challenge is to engage students’ attention and to present contents and topics that are relevant to them, it is our contention that specific literary resources as those within the Gothic narrative genre can facilitate motivation in learner-centred experience in adolescence since they resonate with key anxieties of this period. We thus side with the growing current in SLL that, over the decades, has promoted literature and extensive reading as valuable contributions to language acquisition. Our specific proposal is to incorporate the reading of Gothic fiction into the EFL secondary curriculum as a motivational spur. If teachers introduce narratives in English that have particularly appealing subject matters for our students, the teaching-learning strategies would be greatly improved.