A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR APPROACH TO LITERATURE TEACHING

Conceptual metaphor is used widely in both daily and written language. In educational contexts, applying the conceptual metaphor theory to teaching and learning has been proven to have a good impact on learners, enhancing their performance and facilitating their learning process. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a conceptual metaphor-based approach to the teaching of literature. This is an empirical study using two tests delivered to experimental and control groups of eleventh graders at a high school in Vietnam. The experimental group received the conceptual metaphor instruction while the control group got the traditional instruction. The research results indicate that the students in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group in terms of test performance. This finding confirms that this new approach to literature teaching produces positive results, which enables learners to understand a literary work better and enhances their metaphor awareness thus improving their learning outcomes. The results also illustrate the universality of conceptual metaphor rooted in human thought. This research has implications for both teachers and students who want to take a new approach to literature teaching and learning.