Innovation in Language Learning

The present paper explores the use of literature and internet in the English language classroom. The study is based on a two years experience with undergraduate and  secondary school students, who read some of the most famous novels by Charles Dickens. This project was carried out by the University of Sassari and the Dickens Society, with the aim to promote the learning of English language, the reading of Dickens's novels and also to create a useful set of geotags for Dickens's amateurs curious about the geographical collocations of the literary places.Students (with a B1+ level of English) read the novels and created tags for the places mentioned in the text, later adding them  to the Placing Literature (https://www.placingliterature.com) platform.

The study will show an increased motivation for the students and an improved confidence and fluency in their language skills, due to the fact that they read the (long) novels with a specific task in mind, which made it more meaningful and also useful. The cooperative learning further helped students to use English as a vehicular language with positive effects on the students’ use of the English language and their coworking skills. Finally, an interest in reading more 'classics' was noted as a positive side-effect.