Reader-response theory and ELT

Much of the current use of literature in ELT involves a ‘personal-response’ approach, which aims at eliciting learner production of discourse in the target language. The approach has played a major role in literature's return to acceptability in ELT. This paper argues that the prevailing notion of personal-response limits the value of the responses. It then draws a distinction between reader-response and personal-response approaches, and demonstrates how the inclusion of reader-response theory in literature-based communicative language teaching will strengthen such instruction.