Pixel International Conferences

In foreign language education (FLE) and general English teaching, the value of using literature has long been established as a mainstream component. On the other hand, literature as high art has led a fringe existence in teaching English for specific purposes (ESP), as ESP quite naturally and rightly encourages the use of texts stemming from students’ professional and academic areas of interest. However, there may be certain niche roles of literature in ESP classrooms, and it is the goal of this contribution to probe into the suitability and ways of integrating short literary texts and extracts into ESP materials. It is argued that literature, in particular prose and fiction, can support, enrich, and endow ESP courses with reflective, motivating, and enjoyable input. For that purpose, the contribution provides short extracts of literary texts and recommends genres likely to contain subject matter with the potential to appeal to workplace-oriented students. Moving from ESP to a more global view, it finishes with reflections on the role of literature in today’s society.

Keywords: ESP, literature, fiction, learner engagement, higher education.