Teaching values through literature

Abstract

The Master’s Degree Final Project I present here is encompassed within the category 4: Actions through Cross-curricular topics and it consists of Teaching Values Through Literature. The content of this work is a proposal of two action plans to be implemented through the English subject and designed for students in the 4th course of secondary education. This project is the result of my analysis about the way cross-curricular topics are tackled in the English classroom nowadays. During my working experience with the Practicum I could check that teachers deal with these topics very limitedly and English textbooks address them in an inadequate and insufficient way. Moreover, I could observe that most of the students were interested and enjoyed activities and tasks when they included a more active and participative learning. This way, I decided to create what I called action plans, each one focused on a particular cross-curricular topic and including activities following a task-based approach. I also chose to do it through literature, since I considered it is already an advantage in the field of value learning as literature exemplifies the essential dignity and worth of individual human beings Therefore, this is a proposal that could be understood as a way to improve the teaching-learning process and motivate students to obtain from them a more favorable attitude towards the English subject and literature, always having in mind the importance of transmitting values. The action plans are activities adapted to get closer to a more active and constructive methodology, in which I expect students would have a greater participation. Nevertheless, I have to point out that I have not had the opportunity to implement it in the classroom and see the results. Accordingly, the main objectives we try to achieve with this proposal of final project are the following: - To offer classroom resources to deal with cross-curricular topics in the 4th year of secondary education that can be adapted to other educational contexts. - To encourage the education across the curriculum. Learning a foreign language transcends the framework of the linguistic learning and contributes to the formation of the student from an integral perspective. - To teach values in the English classroom. With this project, I want to transmit values required for the self-fulfillment and the integration in the society: honesty, goodness, simplicity and tolerance. And priority values: respect for people, environment and things, responsibility and solidarity. - To promote tolerance and acceptation, increase interest towards different social and cultural realities and facilitate communication. Through interaction, students learn how to participate, express their own ideas and listen to others. They develop the skill to construct dialogs, negotiate meanings, make decisions while valuing contributions from their classmates and reach agreements.