VOL. 3 (2024)

ISSN 2952-2013 pp. 44-58

https://doi.org/10.33776/linguodidactica.v3.8162

Literary reading in Spanish as a foreign language (S/FL)

classes in Brazil

Lectura literaria en clases de español como lengua extranjera (S/FL) en

Brasil

Girlene Moreira da Silva

Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Norte IFRN, Brasil

Resumen:

Entendemos que el texto literario (TL) proporciona al es-

tudiante familiaridad con las formas y usos del idioma

estudiado, además de la oportunidad de adquirir cono-

cimientos prácticos, funcionales, comunicativos, cultura-

les, discursivos y literarios. Con esto, puede ser un alia-

do sólido para el éxito de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje

de lenguas extranjeras, con el objetivo de desarrollar la

competencia comunicativa y, especialmente, la compe-

tencia lectora de los aprendices de idiomas. En Brasil, ya

han pasado quince años de enseñanza, investigación,

extensión y prácticas para la inclusión de la literatura en

las clases de español, considerando las actividades rea-

lizadas en el Grupo de Investigación LEER - Literatura:

Estudio, Enseñanza y (Re)lectura del mundo, en el Centro

de Investigación de Enseñanza y Lenguajes (NUPEL) y en

el Instituto Federal de Educación, Ciencia y Tecnología

de Rio Grande do Norte (IFRN). Este artículo presenta da-

tos de una encuesta realizada con veintisiete estudiantes

de secundaria de escuelas públicas en Brasil y un profe-

sor de español de estas clases, con el objetivo de investi-

gar las percepciones de los estudiantes después de par-

ticipar en un trabajo sistemático de prácticas de lectura

literaria en español en la escuela secundaria brasileña.

Los instrumentos que sirvieron de base para nuestras re-

ﬂexiones fueron: los protocolos de observación de clase

realizados por el investigador, así como las respuestas de

los estudiantes al cuestionario de evaluación aplicado al

ﬁnal del año escolar. Después de llevar a cabo nuestro

estudio, notamos que los estudiantes comenzaron a te-

ner más conﬁanza y a sentirse más capaces de entender

e interpretar textos en español. También señalamos que,

para la mayoría de los estudiantes participantes, la nove-

la fue el texto elegido como el que más les gustó, segui-

do por el teatro, la poesía y el cuento, respectivamente.

Palabras claves:

Lectura de alfabetización; español como lengua extran-

jera (S/FL); estudiantes brasileños.

Fecha de aceptación: 09 de marzo de 2024

Abstract:

We understand that the literary text (LT) provides the stu-

dent with a familiarity with the forms and uses of the lan-

guage studied, in addition to the chance to acquire prac-

tical, functional, communicative, cultural, discursive and

literary knowledge. With this, it can be a strong ally for

the success of teaching and learning foreign languages,

in order to develop the communicative and especially

reading competence of language learners. In Brazil, it has

already taken ﬁfteen years of teaching, research, exten-

sion and practices for the inclusion of literature in Spani-

sh language classes, considering the activities carried out

in the Research Group LEER - Literature: Study, Teaching

and (Re)reading of the world (Grupo de Pesquisa LEER -

Literatura: Estudo, Ensino e (Re)leitura do mundo), at the

Research Center of Teaching and Languages (Núcleo de

Pesquisa em Ensino e Linguagens - NUPEL) and at the

Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology

of Rio Grande do Norte (IFRN). This article presents data

from a survey conducted with twenty-seven public school

high school students in Brazil and a Spanish language

teacher from these classes and aimed to investigate the

perceptions of students after participation in a systematic

work of literary reading practices in Spanish in Brazilian

High School. The instruments that served as the basis for

our reﬂections were: the class observation protocols ca-

rried out by the researcher, as well as the students’ res-

ponses to the evaluation questionnaire applied at the

end of the school year. After carrying out our study, we

noticed that the students began to have more conﬁden-

ce and feel more capable to understand and interpret

texts in Spanish. We also point out that, for most of the

participating students, the novel was the text chosen as

the one they liked the most, followed by theater, poetry

and short story, respectively.

Keywords:

Literacy reading; Spanish as a foreign language (S/FL);

Brazilian students.

Fecha de recepción: 08 de enero de 2024

Literary reading in Spanish as a foreign

language (S/FL) classes in Brazil

Lectura literaria en clases de español como

lengua extranjera (S/FL) en Brasil

Girlene Moreira da Silva

Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande

do Norte IFRN, Brasil

Contacto:

girlene.moreira@ifrn.edu.br

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[ 46 ]

Literary genres, both in antiquity and in contemporary times, have always been studied from the

angle of literary theories, and do not gain prominence in linguistic studies, as if they were not part of

the numerous list of textual genres of the present day. We argue, however, that the literary text (LT)

can be a strong ally for the success of teaching and learning foreign languages, in order to develop

the communicative and especially reading competence of language learners.

Literary texts offer numerous possibilities for work, ranging from the goal to the training we intend

to achieve. Literature functions as an exponent of cultures and discourses from different regions

of different countries and offers numerous possibilities of choice to the teacher, mainly due to the

universality of literary themes and brings linguistic-communicative references that help in learning a

foreign language (FL).

Authors like Mendoza (1998, 2002, 2004, 2007), Albaladejo (2007), Silva (2011, 2016, 2022), Aragão

(2006), among others, argue that literary reading is present in S/FL classes and that it can help stu-

dents communicate better in the language they are studying.

This work presents data and activities resulting from an experimental doctoral research carried out

with students of the 2nd year of High School in a Public School in Natal/RN and the respective Span-

ish language teacher of these classes (Silva, 2016), as well as reﬂections of ﬁfteen years of teaching,

research, extension and practices aimed at the inclusion of literature in Spanish as a foreign lan-

guage (S/FL) classes in Brazil, but speciﬁcally in the states of Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte, con-

sidering the activities carried out in the Research Group LEER - Literatura: Study, Teaching and (Re)

reading the world, Research Center in Teaching and Languages (NUPEL) and the Federal Institute of

Education, Science and technology of Rio Grande do Norte (IFRN).

From the perspective of twenty-seven students on the contributions of reading classes to the devel-

opment of reading comprehension and their literary competence, our objective in this article was

to investigate the perceptions of students after participation in a systematic work of literary reading

practices in Spanish in Brazilian High School.

We argue that reading should be worked on in the teaching of S/FL in school, because just like Al-

baladejo (2007), we understand that from the development of students’ reading competence, con-

sequently, other skills will be developed.

In Silva (2011), we noticed that many high school teachers still have the idea that the most important

thing to be studied in a foreign language class at school is grammar. However, although it is easier

to evaluate the student by grammatical knowledge, the school cannot stop working on reading,

whether in the mother tongue or in a foreign language, because it is a valid means for teachers and

students in the acquisition of knowledge, by providing a rich ﬁeld of information, which is not limited

only to structural aspects of the language. It also is, according to Cosson (2014),

a process of sharing, a social competence. Hence, one of the main functions of the school is pre-

cisely to constitute itself as a space where we learn to share, to process reading (...). When the

school fails in this sharing, in the reading process, in the function of becoming readers, it fails in

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical framework

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[ 47 ]

everything else, because there is no knowledge without reading, without the mediation of the

word and its interpretation, of reading, ﬁnally (Cosson, 2014, p.36).

Silva (2016, 2022) found that Spanish-speaking high school students subjected to literary reading

practices showed signiﬁcant improvement in the following aspects of literary competence: reﬂec-

tion on an element of the narrative (literary code: narrator), reﬂection on an element of the narrative

(narrative time), identiﬁcation of knowledge about literary genres and reﬂection on an element of

the narrative; as well as in the following aspects of reading comprehension: understanding a text,

identiﬁcation or recognition of a textual element, reﬂection on the text, obtaining information and

interpretation: inference.

For Jouve (2012), literary reading is understood as “complex, plural activity that develops in several

directions” (Jouve, 2012, p.17), being a neurophysiological, cognitive and affective process. Accord-

ing to the author, the neurophysiological process has a subjective character and refers to percep-

tion, anticipation of structures and interpretation. The cognitive emphasizes the competence that the

reader must possess to continue a reading, and have some knowledge of the world. The affective, on

the other hand, appears in reading, according to the author, because it provokes different emotions

in the reader.

Although we know that it is impossible to dissociate the linguistic knowledge present in a written

text and that, therefore, when working on literary reading, the teacher also uses it for a linguistic ap-

proach, we defend that literature is not underused as a simple instrument to give examples or work

linguistically isolated sentences. Reading should be in the foreground, helping the student in the

development of their reading and literary competence.

By favoring the understanding and interpretation of literary texts, we provide that literature becomes

more visible and attractive to the student, building their literary competence, which involves “both

interpretation and creation skills that, equally to knowledge, refer transversely to many other con-

cepts and areas of knowledge” (Sanz, 2006, p.18). It involves, therefore, a series of varied knowledge

ranging from linguistic, cultural and historical.

We therefore argue that the teacher, by using literary texts in foreign language classes, provides the

student with an understanding of human behavior, in addition to enhancing their training as a com-

plete and conscious human being. And, surely, this teacher will ﬁnd one (or more) literary text(s) for

each topic you want to work on in your foreign language reading classes (love, youth, birth, death,

etc.), because “through literature, we have access to a great diversity of texts, since the multiplicity

of forms and the plurality of themes are typical of literary discourse” (Cosson, 2014, p.49), resulting,

therefore, in a valuable resource for the classroom.

The reading classes carried out throughout our work were written texts and always with a commu-

nicative focus. Communicative foreign language teaching is one “that organizes learning experi-

ences in terms of activities/tasks of real interest and/or need of the student so that he/she is able to

use the target language to perform real actions in interaction with other speakers-users of that lan-

guage.”(Almeida Filho, 1993, p.47). It seeks, therefore, to teach what is meaningful and what makes

sense for the student.

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For the selection of texts, we follow the guiding principles proposed by Silva (2016), as well as the

theoretical contributions of Accquaroni (2007), Albadalejo (2007), Aragão (2007), Mendoza (2022,

2004, 2007), among others, in which we consider that:

• The texts chosen must be accessible, authentic, that allows the integration of various skills and

that are motivating. In addition, it is necessary that the teacher knows well and has done previous

readings of such texts;

• The choice must be made based on the preferences of the students and the teacher, one cannot

exceed the other;

• The teaching practice must work the affective ﬁlter, always observing the motivations of the stu-

dents, raising their self-esteem;

• The planning should contain pre-reading, reading and post-reading activities, which work on pre-

diction, understanding and interpretation, according to the need of the class;

• The LT cannot be used only as an example, as a pretext for other subjects, it must be used for the

formation and enrichment of communicative competence, from reading comprehension;

• The LT is not the only type that has resources that allow students to develop language skills, howe-

ver, a systematization with literary reading provides an improvement in the development of the

skills of literary competence and reading comprehension;

• The most extensive works can be worked on in the classroom through fragments well selected

by the teacher, it must contain a unity of meaning in itself and be an important part of the work,

in addition to following the other criteria already mentioned, since this can stimulate students to

read more complex works;

• The LT goes far beyond a source of culture, it is a source of communicative situations that enables

an appropriation of linguistic and sociocultural forms of the language studied, in addition to fos-

tering the literary reading habit of students;

• Reading and group activities should be stimulated, since the exchange of knowledge that these

activities provide allows a better development of the communicative formation of students;

• Reading comprehension and interpretation should be the focus of literary reading classes; however,

this does not prevent the teacher from developing activities that stimulate other language skills.

The formulation of our proposals was based on the contributions of Cosson (2006. 2014), Mendoza

(1998, 2002, 2004), Solé (1998), Silva (2011, 2016), among others, which indicate that the literary

reading class should be structured in three distinct moments, being them: the pre-reading, intro-

ductory moment of the LT, where the teacher captivates the student to the theme to be worked seek-

ing to resume the previous knowledge of the students; reading, where the student has contact with

the text and performs the reading procedures (it can be mediated by the teacher, alone or both);

ﬁnally, post-reading, in which the teacher works the text with related activities, in order to make the

student systematize the entire subject addressed.

Regarding the importance of literary reading in teaching foreign languages, we highlight that some

studies have been carried out internationally, such as those carried out by Chou (2022), LeBlanc,

Mussa, & Fente (2020), Spann, & Wagner, Siepmann (2023), among others. However, they always

focus on English as a foreign language and not Spanish as a foreign language.

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The present research can be classiﬁed, regarding its objectives, as explanatory. This type of research

“aims to deepen the knowledge of reality, looking for the reason, the why of things” (Andrade, 2010,

p. 112) and according to Gil (2010), these researches are “the ones that deepen the knowledge of

reality, because they aim to explain the reason, the why of things” (Gil, 2010, p. 28).

Within the notion of research described by Rudio (1986), our study falls into the so-called caus-

al-comparative study, in which, according to the author, the researcher starts from the observation

of the phenomenon that was produced, and seeks to ﬁnd, among the various possible causes, the

factors that are related to the phenomenon or contribute to determine its appearance. Thus, the

independent variable (such as, for example, the insertion of literary genres in classes), which can be

manipulated and measured, causes effects on a dependent variable (such as, for example, the de-

velopment of literary competence) that should only be measured, and not manipulated.

The research participants were twenty-seven high school SFL students of a public school, aged be-

tween ﬁfteen and sixteen years old, 60% (sixteen) girls and 40% (eleven) boys. The students were in

the 2nd year of high school and were subjected to reading literary texts in Spanish during the 2015

school year.

The instruments considered for the data presented in this article were the student experience as-

sessment questionnaire, as well as the protocols for recording observed classes and the didactic

material produced by the researcher and the teacher.

Because we believe that understanding what students think is essential for understanding how the

process of teaching and learning a language occurs, at the end of the school year, in order to obtain

information about the level of awareness of the development of their reading comprehension skills

in Spanish, as well as about the acceptance (or not) of reading activities, we applied an evaluation

questionnaire, consisting of four questions, only for students in the experimental groups.

During the classes, we recorded the experiences and facts in a class registration protocol, since we

understood that only in this way would we be able to account for this complex universe that is the

classroom.

According to Marconi & Lakatos (2005, p.192), observation “is a data collection technique to obtain

information [...] and it does not consist only in seeing and hearing, but also in examining facts or

phenomena that one wishes to study” (Marconi & Lakatos, 2005, p.192) and, with this, in our obser-

vations, we also recorded our impressions and our observations regarding the teacher’s work with

the texts, as well as the reception of the students, in addition to the results of the exercises carried

out in the classroom with the texts (which ones seemed more accepted, which ones promoted great-

er discussions, level of deepening of the students).

3.Methodology

3. 1. Research subjects

3. 2. Research instruments

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The classes were carried out working on communicative competence focusing on the development

of reading comprehension skills and literary competence. Although all classes were reading, we still

worked on writing, listening and speaking skills. We used ﬁve distinct literary genres: poetry in ﬁve

classes, short stories in four classes, fragments of novels in three classes and fragments of theatrical

works in three classes, totaling ﬁfteen classes with literary reading. For the sake of text limitation, in

this article, we will present only ﬁve classes: one of each genre worked.

The class with the small poetry Hombre de color took as its main theme the issue of racism, more

speciﬁcally color prejudice. This small poetry can be accessed online (verbiclara.wordpress.com).

The teacher only worked on the prediction after delivering the text and, many of the students, read

before giving any opinion, which compromised the pre-reading phase. The reading was performed

easily, since many of the students identiﬁed with the reading and did not have many vocabulary

questions. Regarding the genre, the teacher explained that it was a poetry, literary text characterized

by the composition in verses structured in a harmonious way.

The post-reading phase was more coordinated and there was a participation of students, who re-

ported situations in which they suffered prejudices (by hair type, color, among others). We saw that

many of the students projected themselves to the text, proving that “in the poetic instant of the text,

the individual recognizes himself as the subject of his own destiny, identiﬁes himself with the joys

and sorrows of the text and begins to understand his own joys and sorrows” (Cruz, 2012, p.210).

The ﬁnal activity consisted of completing the sentence “ El *prejudicio es______”. At ﬁrst, the students

were frightened and said that they would not know how to do it. However, the teacher encouraged

them and said it was a one-line sentence. They tried to write on their own and when they couldn’t,

they called the teacher to ﬁnd out how to write some word they were trying to put in the sentence.

After ten minutes, the students read the sentences and the teacher wrote them on the board: “El

prejuicio es la pura ignorancia”/ “El prejuicio es un color sin color” /’El prejuicio es horrible”/”El

prejuicio es una manera de agresión a los humanos” /”El prejuicio es intolerante”/”El prejuicio es

caótico”/”El prejuicio es una cosa muy mala” /”El prejuicio es una manera de ver algo como no es”

/”El prejuicio es una soledad”.

At the end of the class, after the students left, the teacher acknowledged that she had forgotten to

work on the prediction before delivering the text and that, with this, she thought she had compro-

mised the beginning of the class a little. She also said that in the next ones she would do differently

and justiﬁed that it was the ﬁrst time she worked reading divided into three parts (pre-reading, read-

ing and post-reading). She also stated that, in the end, she was satisﬁed with what the students were

able to do, even in the face of adversity, and that she was able to work on vocabulary, writing, and

speaking.

As an example of the lesson with the short story genre, we present “ Una carta para un cartero” (el-

jardinonline.com.ar). The teacher explained, at the beginning of the class, that the text to be worked

on would be a story and when asking what the students remembered about the characteristics of

the story and the types of narrator, they talked about the character-narrator and the observer. The

teacher asked about the characteristics of each one, they said that the character is part of the story

4. Results and Discussion: Teaching

Spanish as a foreign language (S/FL)

with literature

4.1. S/FL classes with readings of literary texts

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and the observer is not. She added, further, the omniscient, and explained that, in this type, the nar-

rator knows everything about the characters and about the plot.

The teacher put the title of the text on the blackboard (una carta para un cartero) and worked on the

prediction. They were building a story complementing each other’s ideas: one began by saying that

there was a dog in one of the houses that the postman delivered the mail, then another said that he

had been bitten and went to the hospital. And then someone would write to him while he was there.

Then the teacher asked if postman was a profession and everyone said yes. Then she asks them what

professions were perhaps in that text. They spoke doctor, nurse, writer and veterinarian, as well as

postman.

When the teacher handed over the text, many complained about the length and said they would not

read, however the teacher insisted and, when they began to read, these students were expressing

their opinion: “Ah, it’s long, but it’s easy”. “Oh, well, it’s good to read.” Regarding this relationship

between reading and easy or difﬁcult text, Smith (1999) states that when inexperienced or learner

readers ﬁnd a text easy to read, they tend to read it as experienced readers.

At the end of the reading, the teacher asks the students if what they said about the story before the

reading was conﬁrmed. The students laughed and said they “got it wrong.” With regard to the pro-

fessions, they identiﬁed only that of postman and captain. The non-conﬁrmation of some predictions

made by students before reading shows us that

Formulating hypotheses, making predictions, requires taking risks, since by deﬁnition they do not

involve the accuracy of what was predicted or formulated. To take risks you need to make sure

that this is possible, that is, that no one will be sanctioned for having ventured. [...] the predictions

made by students are never absurd, that is, with the available information – title and illustrations –

they formulate expectations that, even if they do not come true, they could come true; although

they are not exact, they are pertinent (Solé, 1998, p.108).

In the ﬁnal activity, the teacher asked the students to write in Spanish what profession they wanted

to practice and why, completing the sentence “ Pienso ser un__ _ _ _ porque_____”. During writing,

students had difﬁculties with vocabulary and connectives in Spanish. Since there was little time for

them to write, the teacher could not ask them to read. Just collected the sentences to correct them

at home and give to students in the next class.

It should be emphasized, once again, that the activities designed for writing did not aim to train writ-

ers in Spanish, but to offer them the opportunity to produce texts in the foreign language studied.

At the end of the class, after the students left, the teacher told us that she was very satisﬁed with

the result of the classes and said that she was taking the activities to the 1st grade classes so that

she would be practicing more teaching practices with the use of literature and so that the ﬁrst-year

students already had this contact. The teacher internalized, therefore, that with each literary event

we participate in, we modify our relationship with the world and, as teachers, we can also modify

our teaching practice, working on literature, including in classes and grades that we had not worked

before.

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For the class with romance, we chose the ﬁrst fragment, to be worked on with the students, from

the book “El baile de la Victoria” by Antonio Skármeta. The teacher started the class talking about

victories (in a pun on the name of the book: El baile de la Victoria) and asked the students what they

needed to achieve victories and writes down on the board the answers: dinero, trabajo, alegría.

Before handing the text to the students, the teacher explained that the text of the lesson would be

a fragment of a novel. Then she read the summary of the work and only then handed the fragment

to the students with a situation that occurred only with one of the characters in the work: Santiago.

She asked the students to silently read the fragment, and then read it aloud. Then she talked to them

about the text, about what they understood and asked them to make a relationship with the current

economic and unemployment situation in our country. They were motivated to speak, they said that

they were with many unemployed family members, especially older ones (this is not the case with

the character who is young). In addition, many of the students gave their negative opinions about

employing people like the character Santiago, who was an ex-convict.

At the end, the teacher divided the class into groups of six students so that they could write in Span-

ish some dialogue in which Mr. Santiago could get a job. Although they said they would not employ

ex-convicts, the written productions were with texts offering scholarships, as well as jobs as sellers,

bootblacks, gardeners and electricians, which shows us, in part, that when a student is exposed to

reading a literary text, the process of knowing himself and the world around him expands, thus mak-

ing literature a space for experimentation and transformation.

And ﬁnally, for the theater genre, we take a fragment of the work “Don Juan Tenorio”. The teacher

took the students to the newly opened language room, which, in addition to being air-conditioned,

is very spacious. The students followed excitedly into the room and, after everyone was accommo-

dated, the teacher began the class by asking the students what they knew about the ﬁgure of Don

Juan. The answers were given in Portuguese, but she noted on the board the words in Spanish: con-

quistador, picaﬂor, guapo, fuerte, gentil, valente.

Then the teacher explained that the text of the lesson would be a fragment of the theatrical work

“Don Juan Tenorio” by the Spanish writer José Zorrilla, and before handing the fragment to the stu-

dents, she read a short summary of the work to them.

After handing a copy of the fragment to each student, she asked them to read the text silently. After

ﬁve minutes, the teacher asked if there had been any doubt in understanding and the students ex-

pressed doubt in conjugated verbs in the second person plural (vosotros). The teacher reviewed the

use of Tú/Vosotros and Usted/Ustedes and then conﬁrmed the predictions made by the students at

the beginning of the lesson.

She also took a video with the staging of the play adapted for the students to recognize some of

the excerpts read in class, but only put it for ﬁve minutes, which was enough for the students to

recognize the part read and staged. After that the teacher asked:”¿Conocéis a un Don Juan?”and

automatically, they recognized two “Don Juan” in the room and the recognized ones were happy

with the nomination. Finally, the teacher divided the students into pairs and trios and asked them to

write a text summarizing what a Don Juan is for them. Some groups wrote texts portraying Don Juan

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[ 53 ]

negatively and others positively and expressed much interest in the text, commenting that they did

not know that the character was part of Spanish literature.

Finally, we highlight that after the literary readings, the students demonstrated more security and

more autonomy for reading in Spanish, choosing the reading strategies they would use and also

exercising an effective reﬂection on the text. Many related the text with their life and reading experi-

ences, thus bringing the reader intertext, which is defended by Mendoza (2004) as essential for the

development of literary competence.

The students were receptive to the readings and the proposed activities, worked and participated

spontaneously in the discussions and when the teacher told them that it was the last day of reading

literary texts, many students thanked and verbalized that they felt safer to read in Spanish and that

the classes had helped in their lives, conﬁrming the impressions we had during the observations. In

the following topic, we will bring students’ answers to the questionnaire after literary reading prac-

tices.

As we mentioned earlier, we bring here answers from the experience evaluation questionnaire, an-

swered anonymously by the students, in order to obtain information about their level of awareness

about the development of reading competence in Spanish, as well as about the acceptance (or not)

of the reading activities.

In the ﬁrst question, in which we asked if the student had liked the way the classes had been con-

ducted, all students answered “yes”. These data demystify the belief, which many Spanish language

teachers still have, as we have seen in previous research by Silva (2011, 2016), that S/FL students are

not interested in reading and that, in Spanish classes, they only like music.

In the same question, we asked the reason and realized that the texts were attractive to them for

several reasons, the main one being due to the fact that they were able to understand the texts. In

their speeches, we noticed that the few classes aimed at reading, have already attracted them and

made them change their view on the language studied. In their speeches, the students highlighted

that they took a break from the routine and were able to realize that the Spanish language can be

part of their daily lives.

The students, in addition to attributing the fact that they were able to understand the texts as the

main reason for enjoying the classes, also mentioned that the classes were creative and interesting,

and that through them they were able to increase the reading experience. This positive attitude to-

wards reading may have contributed to them becoming habitual readers, since

Reading a text requires the reader to activate a series of knowledge, skills and attitudes (depen-

ding on their literary competence) to understand and interpret it. Of these elements, it is the third

(the interest, the taste for reading, the desire to read) that contributes most decisively in the for-

mation of habitual readers (Sánchez-Fortún, 2007, p. 250).

4.2. The insertion of literary reading practices

in Spanish language classes at school: contri-

butions from the students’ perspective

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The students also stated that the texts were well selected and that they were able to understand the

words and interact with their colleagues during the proposed activities. This interaction in group

activities was, as we observed during the activities and from these speeches, one of the factors that

favored the understanding of the text. Collie and Slater (1987) state that:

On a more practical level, working with a group, you can lessen the difﬁculties presented by the

number of unknowns in a literary text. Very often another person in a group will be able to provide

the missing link or ﬁll in an appropriate meaning of a crucial word, or else the task of doing so will

be shared. (Collie & Slater, 1987, p. 9).

In the second question, in which we asked if the students believed that they had improved reading

competence in the Spanish language, all students answered in the afﬁrmative. When we asked why,

they used the word “learn” to justify, adding differentiated learning by each group.

The students highlighted as their main reason the fact that they had learned new words, which

demonstrates that, for them, the improvement of reading competence is strongly linked to improved

vocabulary comprehension, which was one of the main difﬁculties pointed out by them at the begin-

ning of the school semester.

The second most pointed reason (having learned new pronunciations) leads us to reﬂect on two

points: 1) that there is a belief that one advances in learning a foreign language when one advances

in orality and 2) although it was not our intention, as we have already said before, we realized that

focusing on reading competence, we can advance in other skills, such as orality. According to Lazar

(2005), the literary text makes it possible to work with orality by promoting the exploration of opin-

ions and/or debates related to the topics discussed.

It should be noted here that this advance in orality was not measured by us, not least because it

was not the objective of this research, but it was one of the evolutions perceived during the class

observations, veriﬁed in our class observations, as well as in the students’ speech in the evaluation

questionnaire.

In addition to these two reasons pointed out by them for the fact that they believe they have ad-

vanced in reading competence, the students also mentioned that they have learned to understand

the texts better and to read more. Collie and Slater (1987) argue that, when exposed to the literary

text, the student becomes familiar with the varied structures of the language, manifested differently

in literature, allowing the development of writing practice.

In addition, as literary texts “are true interactive documents, that is, they seek, through keys, stim-

uli and clues, the implication and active response of the reader in the construction of mean-

ings.”(Sánchez-Fortún, 2002, p.137), the reader tends not to remain indifferent to it.

It should be noted that, in many of the students’ statements, we noticed that, although they pointed

out that the main reason that led them to believe that they improved their reading competence in

Spanish was the learning of new words, they also understood that the literal translation of word for \

word was not necessary. This data was very important for the research, because like Smith (1999), we

understand that, although a test and/or an observation indicates whether or not the reader under-

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stands something and has advanced or not in his reading competence, only the individual himself

can afﬁrm what he feels, whether he understands something or not, whether or not he has improved

his competence in something.

In the third question, we asked which text or activity the students liked the most and for what rea-

son. Most of the participants answered that the novel (fragments) was the text they liked the most,

followed by the theater (fragments), poetry and short story, respectively. From the students’ state-

ments, we noticed that there was a great acceptance of the fragments of romance and theater, since

these were the genres pointed out as more “likable” by the students.

The students also pointed out that through the theater they were able to practice orality. According

to Lazar (2005), when working on a part of a play, there is a possibility for the teacher to work on

orality, because “as most plays are rich in dialogues, using them with students is a useful and exciting

way to focus on colloquial language” (Lazar, 2005, p.138).

And ﬁnally, with regard to poetry and short stories, they recognized that they were interesting, but

justiﬁed, for the most part, that they liked them only because they were short texts, which leads us to

understand that they were not the genres that most seduced the students, even though they were

the most worked on. While we worked poetry in ﬁve days and short story in four, it was only three

days destined for the novel and three for the theater.

It is worth remembering that poetry and short stories were the genres chosen to be the most worked

(especially at the beginning of reading activities) because they were the two most read by students

in the reader proﬁle questionnaire answered before literary reading practices.

And since we only work on novels and theaters in fragments, we realized that the beliefs of many

high school Spanish language teachers, that time is too short and it is not possible to work on frag-

ments of works or that fragments are not easy to understand, do not portray the current reality. Our

thinking on this topic remains that, when well selected, the fragments can awaken the student to

reading.

In the last question, the one numbered as four, we asked the students to comment on the reading

practices carried out during the school year (positive and/or negative suggestions and criticisms).

The students mentioned that the literary reading classes helped them in understanding and inter-

preting texts, and that they now feel more conﬁdent to read in Spanish.

In addition, some considered the classes to be great and stated that they felt pleasure in studying,

managed to learn while having fun, and traveled without moving. It is interesting to note that liter-

ature made students travel and have fun. Since many of them do not have the opportunity to visit

Spanish-speaking countries, the literary text presents itself as a window of a trip to contact with the

language and culture of the native speakers of the language. The world represented in the text, ﬁ-

nally, even distant in time or differentiated as an invention, led them to reﬂect on their routine and to

incorporate new experiences.

The statistical data resulting from the application of these activities and the proof of the effective-

ness of literary reading are described in Silva (2016) and Silva (2022) when we compared this group

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(called experimental 1) that read literary texts with another group that read non-literary texts (called

experimental 2) and the control group that was not subjected to any reading. Considering what

each question could evaluate, the students subjected to literary reading made signiﬁcant progress

in aspects related to reading and literary comprehension, which was not possible to detect in the

other groups. We understand that the fact that students in experimental group 2 and the control

group were not encouraged to read literary texts in classroom practices would partially explain why

their literary competence was not developed satisfactorily in comparison to students who did use

literary texts.

Despite the growing number of research that relates language teaching and the use of literary texts,

we are not aware of other research that investigates the improvement of reading and literary per-

formance of Spanish-speaking students in Brazilian high school, based on reading practices literary

activities, as well as the training of teachers already in practice to carry out these activities. Our study

therefore ﬁlls an existing gap, and, with this, we justify, once again, the relevance of our research,

mainly because it is a pioneer in the study, in practice, of the real contribution of literary texts in

teaching and learning the Spanish language. in high school in Brazil.

After carrying out our study, we noticed that the students began to have more conﬁdence and feel

more capable to understand and interpret texts in Spanish. We also point out that, for most of the

participating students, the novel was the text chosen as the one they liked the most, followed by

theater, poetry and short story, respectively.

Although our focus for foreign language classes at school is not the study of literature itself, we un-

derstand that literary texts should be used for the development of reading and literary skills, which

are skills that complement each other, in addition to the development of other skills.

Therefore, we recommend the insertion of the literary text in S/FL classes as an additional possibil-

ity in the classroom, helping the student to understand the language studied, as well as providing

students with the ability to reﬂect on what is being read, also serving as a boost of the interpretation

ability and the development of the student’s reading and linguistic comprehension.

Finally, we emphasize that there is neither a model to follow nor a list of rules on the didactic treat-

ment of literature in foreign language classes, mainly because the group of students is never equal

enough to apply the same methodology or activity (without adaptations) and obtain the same re-

sults, but the important thing is to ﬁnd strategies so that literature is part of our classes and for S/FL

students to exercise their right of access to literary reading in the foreign language studied.

Although these perceptions are subjective, they corroborate what we proved in the doctoral thesis

(Silva, 2016) and other study (Silva, 2022) that literary reading contributes more signiﬁcantly to high

school students of Spanish as a foreign language presenting better reading and literary perfor-

mance than other types of texts.

5. Conclusions

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To conclude, we point out some limitations of our study, as well as questions and subjects that would

deserve further research to further conﬁrm the efﬁciency of using LT in Spanish classes in high school

in public schools.

The fact that we did not record the classes, mainly because most students were minors, required

that the data be recorded by us only from the notes at the time of the observations and through the

memory recovered from some events that occurred. As a result, we may have left out aspects that

our observations, experience as a researcher and private experience do not reach.

Furthermore, although we observed advances in oral and written production, as they were not part

of the objectives of our study, there were no instruments capable of measuring these advances and,

therefore, they were recorded, but were not considered in the data analyzes and discussions.

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