Una mirada crítica a los textos de un libro de texto: Propuestas de tareas de lectura alternativas a través de relatos cortos multiculturales en un contexto de educación secundaria

Nowadays, the approaches to English Language Teaching encourage instructors to combine the traditional linguistic competence with competences that integrate cultural elements of the foreign language. The main reason to introduce this cultural knowledge is based on the fact that any language is inherently associated with its native cultural features so that both competences must be acquired to provide students with a complete framework to use the foreign language appropriately. For this purpose, literature emerges as an advantageous resource to take into consideration. Namely, literary texts offer authentic representations of unfamiliar cultures and also provide learners with appealing stories that may develop personal skills such as critical thinking and the possibility of widening their perspectives regarding global issues. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is to offer viable solutions to integrate literary texts, specifically short stories, into the curriculum as an alternative to the traditional reading comprehension sections. It will be argued that using short stories contribute to the development of the linguistic and cultural competence of the students more effectively than the textbook’s reading comprehension sections. Moreover, an analysis of a coursebook’s texts will be discussed so as to assess whether the proposed activities are aligned with the principles of the communicative approach and the Jane Willis’ Task Based Language Teaching Framework.