Wuthering Heights - A Speaking Activity in the English Literary Classroom

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 3,0, University of Göttingen, language: English, abstract: [...] In the first chapter of this term paper speaking activities (in general) in the classroom will be explained in detail. In chapter two I am going to show a literary unit concerning Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights, which gained her a major place in the context of Victorian novels and is still today a widely read and adapted book for theater and movies. Many famous novels of that time are still in the curriculum today but especially to children and teenagers it is complicated to achieve access to this specific time because of certain political or social situations unknown today and the involvement of difficult vocabulary. Although there are many famous movies adapting these novels it is not the teenager’s interest to watch them. When ‘there is no action involved’ so why not rather watch the new Harry Potter movie? Wuthering Heights offers interesting characters like Heathcliff, whom you can neither like nor dislike for his behavior towards Catherine. The story itself is full of tricky, distracting and ghostly elements which can raise the interest of the class and the story itself offers a basis for interesting discussions among the students. In chapter three, I am going to talk about the speaking activity the class will be doing during the approach of Wuthering Heights to get a better connection to its story and make the students speak about it. During the explanation of the activity in chapter three I will first talk about the aims of it explicitly, second describe the whole preparation phase, third the activity itself in its performance and fourth I will have a reflection on the activity and its possible application in class with its faults and potency. Finally, I will draw a conclusion about the standard of speaking activities in class and their further developments in the foreign language classroom. [...]