Using Historical Fiction to Enhance the Students’ Understanding of the Civilization Course

Abstract

Historical fiction was deemed by a number of educators valuable for the enhancement of historical understanding, mainly in the civilization course. This case study was designed to investigate the impact of historical fiction on the students ‘understanding of the civilization course. It was hypothesized that if historical fiction were used in teaching the civilization course, the students ‘understanding of the course would be improved. Thus, the study set out to answer the following three questions: what are the teachers ‘attitudes towards using historical fiction to teach the civilization course? what is the impact of using historical fiction on the students‘ performance in the civilization course? And how should historical fiction be implemented to enhance the students ‘performance in civilization course? To test the hypothesis, an experimental study was conducted on eight (8) third year students at the department of English at Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia University, Jijel. In addition, a teacher questionnaire was administered to four (4) teachers of civilization from the same department to gather information about the methods they use to teach civilization as well as to investigate their attitudes towards implementing historical fiction in the course. In answer to the first question, the results of the study showed that the teachers of civilization hold a positive attitude towards the idea of integrating historical fiction in the course. In addition, the study found that historical fiction has a strong impact on the students‘ understanding of the civilization course. At last, it was deduced that the use of historical fiction should be constructed to help the learners differentiate between fact and fiction.