Report from Middle-Earth: fan fiction tasks in the EFL classroom

Abstract

This study builds upon work in task-based language teaching and literary studies to explore the use of fan fiction as a pedagogical tool in a technology-enhanced university foreign language class. A task-based fan fiction project, The Blogging Hobbit, modelled on blog-based role-play storytelling found in online media fandoms, was carried out in a first-year university course for undergraduate learners of English who were also training to become secondary school English teachers in Sweden. Students were organized into groups, in which each member was responsible for voicing a single character from Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit in a blog-based collaborative role-play of a missing moment from the story. Findings revealed that carefully sequenced collaborative fan fiction could facilitate analysis of a literary text, learners’ use of creative writing techniques, and language development, particularly at the level of lexis.

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