language becomes a means for its own real function. It is not just a means for practice. Language becomes a means
in the hands of learners and manipulated by them to use their background knowledge to understand authentic texts,
e of
literature, the focus is "on process rather than product", the emphasis is on "negotiation rather than predetermination",
and the teacher "acts as facilitator" and "not just instructor" (17). The significant point is that
literature provides learners with texts which are above the level of their production/understanding. This aspect of
literature is in accordance with Krashen's acquisition-based methodology; that is, input +1 theory. In fact, literature
helps students to improve their reading comprehension of English. They give chance to the students as well as
teachers to set various forms of questions based on their contents. Through these questions, students become fluent
speakers and writers. Literary texts enable teachers to use different forms of questions to evaluate students' comprehension, such as completion, true or false, matching and discussion forms. Literature develops learners'
strategies; they listen and read for general meaning, predict and guess the meaning of unfamiliar words. Since, when
discussing about the contents of the subject matter, they have to verbalize their own thoughts, they develop higher
levels of thinking skills. Also, their frequent engagement with words reinforces students' tendency to induce
meaning from the contexts in which they appear. Memorizing words from a dictionary is a futile and exhausting job.
It results in failure and monotony. Literary texts provide us with a lot of opportunity to learn effectively to use
words in different contexts. Literature helps students to go beyond the surface meaning and dive into underlying
meanings; that is, it enables students to go beyond what is written and dive into what is meant.