Literature in Persian Language Pedagogy: Teaching Persian Grammar through Literature

The term grammar has been interpreted as a set of arbitrary rules about fixed structures in language such as verb paradigms and rules about linguistic forms. Grammar is unquestionably much more than this. As Batstone (1994) states, grammar is a broad and diverse phenomenon that characterizes three interdependent dimensions: form, meaning, and use. Teaching grammar is significantly essential for second or foreign language learning. Its main purpose is to help students carry out either verbal or written communicative tasks. This paper explores the use of literature in teaching grammar in second-language classrooms in general and Persian second-language classes in particular. After a brief discussion of various theories and methods of teaching grammar, the benefits, and challenges of using different genres of literature in Persian second-language classes will be examined by answering the following questions: Why are literary texts useful for teaching grammar in Persian second-language classes? What kind of literary texts should be selected and how to use them in Persian second language grammar classes?

Azita H. Taleghani is Associate Professor, Teaching Stream in Persian language, literature, and linguistics at the University of Toronto. Her research has primarily focused on second-language learners and heritage speakers’ pedagogy, linguistic approaches to modern Persian literature, Persian syntax and morphology, and web-based and online language teaching. She is the Associate editor and a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation’s Women Poets Iranica. She has published a monograph titled Modality, Aspect, and Negation in Persian. She is currently working on a another monograph on the “Grammar of Persian Simple Verbs for Persian Second-Language and Heritage Learners,” as well as co-editing the volume, “Persian Second Language Pedagogy: New Trends and Innovations.” Two additional projects that she has recently started to concentrate on deal with language and style in the poems of contemporary Iranian women poets as well as social deconstruction in the poems of ancient and medieval Iranian women poets. She has professional experience in lexicography and editing dictionaries. She was the Program Coordinator (Director) of Less Commonly Taught Languages in the Department of Language Studies at the University of Toronto, Mississauga from 2009-2023. She has published several refereed articles, most recently “Acquisition of Persian Differential Object Marker ‘rā’:  A Challenge for the Second Language Learners and Heritage Speakers, ” “Negative Forms of Persian Progressive Tense: Evidence from Monolingual, Second Language Learners, and Heritage Speakers,” “Archaism as an Aesthetic Techniques and Linguistics Process,” “Foregrounding and Its Role in Persian Modern Poetry,” and “Persian Progressive Tense: Serial Verb Construction or Aspectual Complex Predicate.”