Does literature play a role in ESL and EFL classes; more specifically, in language centres in colleges of technology in Oman where English is taught to prime the students for their specializations in Engineering, Chemistry or Information Technology? Perhaps our intuitive response to such a question is 'No'. Why should students of science bother with what appears to some as contorted, artificially constructed language? Such a response, uninformed as it is, has been challenged by those stylisticians who work on the interface between language and literature. As a result we see a proliferation of pedagogic proposals that combine language and literature. In this short article, I review some such proposals, and in the process indicate, though briefly, what I deem to be their limitations.

Does literature play a role in ESL and EFL classes; more specifically, in language centres in colleges of technology in Oman where English is taught to prime the students for their specializations in Engineering, Chemistry or Information Technology? Perhaps our intuitive response to such a questi...