Harvest Jahangirnagar Studies of Literature and Language ISSN- 1729-8326 Volume 22, 2006-2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Use of Literature in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) Md. Enamul Hoque Abstract Language teaching has historically alternated between scholarly and pragmatic approaches. This article describes the role of literature in EFL classes. Language, as we know, is a tool for communication. Learning a foreign language is more than memorizing all of the grammatical structures that are possible in a language. A vast majority of the people learns a foreign language for the purpose of communication. Their main objective is to be successful communicators in the foreign language. They naturally aim at mastering the four skills of language (LSRW). In teaching language, language and literature are allies not enemies. But finding appropriate literature to teach second language (L2) classroom has always been a major challenge. Selected text should not be too long, not too linguistically and conceptually complex, and not too distant from the world knowledge of the student and should generate students’ interest. It would be prudent if we can use interesting and knowledgeable literature in teaching language in an SL/FL situation.