Today many representatives of the educational and psychological fields try to find new methods to make language acquisition more interesting, involving, and interactive. Rote memorization is not an option anymore. Reading books, listening to music, watching movies, and observing artworks have positively determined the language acquisition process. Since all these activities help students learn a foreign language, there is a question, of whether a comparison between literary and cultural works can also influence English language learning. As many foreign universities offer courses in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies (CLCS), my interest was to find out what kind of influence they have on language acquisition. In my investigation, I intended to explore the connection between making comparisons and improvement in language proficiency. To achieve this a 4-week experiment with 8 students majoring in English Philology was conducted. The students compared two literary trends, literary works on similar themes but written in different languages, literary and cultural works on the same topic and literary and cultural created on the same motives. The purpose of this study was to explore how the comparison between literary and cultural works influences lexis enrichment, grammar development, listening, writing, speaking and reading skills improvement. After the experiment was conducted, a self-developed questionnaire was sent to participant students. The analysis of the answers revealed that the majority of the students were engaged in language learning through CLCS, as they viewed the learning process as both interesting and useful. Questionnaire results revealed that the participants’ language skills level improved.

Authors:
Gwanza Basilashvili, University of Ausgburg, Germany

About the Presenter(s)
Ms. Gwanza Basilashvili is an MA student at the University of Augsburg in Germany, specializing in English and American Studies. She is passionate about actively contributing to the development and application of interactive teaching methodologies.

Connect on Linkedin
http://linkedin.com/in/gwanza-basilashvili

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