Personal - Response Approach VS Reader - Response Approach in Literature - Based English Language Teaching

The present paper deals with an issue in the fields of English language teaching (ELT) and critical theory (CT)--the personal-response approach (PRA) vs. the reader-response approach (RRA)--whose aims are eliciting learner production of discourse in the target language in literature-based classes at the university level.These approaches have played a major role in the literature teaching and learning within communicative language teaching (CLT). This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches and points out that the notion of PRA limits the value of the students' responses and demonstrates how the applying of RRA in literature-based language classes strengthens such an instruction. This paper takes into account some central issues of PRA and RRA such as the level of transaction, the type of transaction and the level of discourse production. Some aesthetic and socio-cultural aspects are also under discussion