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Forum's 25th Anniversary Survey

Like teachers, journal editors must pause from time to time amidst a busy schedule to assess the past and think about the future. As we look toward next year's 25th anniversary volume, we linger a moment to take stock of who we are, where we have been, and where we may be going. One thing is clear: the essential factor in this selfdefinition is our readership, individually and collectively. Readers are the sine qua non of every publication, the reason for its existence.

This is particularly true of the Forum, since its readers are to a great extent also its writers. Here we might add that even those readers who have received rejection slips for their submitted efforts have made a contribution, since every manuscript we receive, published or not, gives us a glimpse of the problems and achievements, the status of English teaching and the efforts to improve it, in various parts of an ever-shrinking world. Like all conscientious writers, we try to direct our thoughts not just to a "general public" but to the individual reader. However, we have no clear evidence of just who that idealized reader is. It occurred to us to try to find out, by asking you our readers—to let

us know a little bit about yourselves: who you are and how you perceive your professional interests and needs. Thus the Forum's 25th Anniversary Survey was born. We hope it asks mostly the right questions; if not, we hope you will add them yourselves and let us know the answers-which will help us to keep the Forum headed in the right direction.

This survey is vitally important to us. It is our first attempt to learn from our readers both who they are as individuals and what constitutes the English teaching profession around the world. With this issue of the Forum, the questionnaire (see page 47) goes out to more than 100,000 readers in 130 countries. We know that in many instances not only the time and effort but also the required international postage may be a real sacrifice, even a deterrent to sending us your answers. Still, we hope for a good return because we feel we need it. The Forum staff promises to acknowledge in a special way each returned questionnaire that includes a clear address. And we look forward to publishing the results of the survey in one of the early issues for 1987-the Forum's 25th Anniversary Year.

-ACN

Teaching Literature of the

United States to Nonnative Speakers

ILONA LEKI

The University of Tennessee

ILONA LEKI is an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, where she has been teaching English grammar, rhetoric, and U.S. literature since 1976. She graduated from the University of Illinois in 1975 with a Ph.D. in French, and taught French at several institutions before becoming interested in ESL. Her publications include a book on 20th-century French author Alain Robbe-Grillet and articles on teaching ESL. Dr. Leki has just completed a year of teaching at the Centro Colombo-Americano and the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín, Colombia.

When the audiolingual method became the prevailing methodology in foreign-language teaching, the study of literature as an aid to or purpose for studying foreign languages was abandoned as irrelevant. Recently, increasing numbers of foreign-language teachers have become interested in reinstating the study of literature into the foreign-language curriculum. Nevertheless, in some cases it is still not entirely clear why foreign-language students are asked to read literature.

What reasons might there be for requiring students of English to study literature in English, specifically U.S. literature?1 At my university, the University of Tennessee, the justification is that anyone graduating from a U.S. university, foreign students included, should have some passing acquaintance with the great works of U.S. literature and the great questions of the humanities posed by the writers.

In a program abroad there would seem to be three primary reasons for including the study of literature in the curriculum: (1) to acquaint students with literary trends, history, and analysis, (2) to teach them about U.S. social and cultural history, or (3) to help them improve their English by stimulating conversation and providing comprehensible input initiated by some literary text.

The basis for this article is the argument that curriculum developers must clarify in their own minds exactly why they want their students to study literature before they make literature a curriculum requirement. My second argument will be that, to whatever extent possible and desirable, students should have some input into the contents of the literature program.

Possible reasons for studying literature in EFL classes

In an informal survey I took in my literature classes in Colombia at the Centro Colombo-Americano in Medellín and at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, 75 percent of the students polled stated that their primary reason for enrolling in the literature class was to afford themselves the opportunity to practice their English. The remaining 25 percent were evenly split in their desire to learn about American social and cultural history and to learn about literary trends and techniques as the primary focus of the literature class.

This is a revised version of an article that appeared in the October/December 1983 issue of HOW, the journal of English teachers in Colombia.

1. Throughout this article I will refer specifically to U.S. (United States) literature rather than to English-language literature. My own expertise is in U.S. literature, and I do not want to presume to make statements about other bodies of literature written in English with which I have little acquaintance. I would invite those with expertise in other areas of English-language literature to adapt my comments on U.S. literature as appropriate.