Literature in Persian Language Pedagogy: Taraneh Sanei

When Literature Is Accessible:
‘Authentic’ Materials, Language Awareness, and Teaching Persian in the Era of Internet and Social Media

The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies in collaboration with the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago jointly present 'When Literature is Accessible' on Saturday, December 6, 2025, 1 p.m. (Eastern Time: Canada and US).

Abstract:
This chapter addresses a niche area in language teaching through teaching literature by looking at what I call 'accessible' literature and its pedagogical potential. In the age of the Internet, Persian literature-classical and modern-has become publicly accessible in ways not possible before (e.g., weblogs, Instagram posts, etc.). I investigate how 'lay people', and not necessarily 'literary experts', share these literary texts, previously accessible only through published books/essays, online, and have dialogues with other users about them. I demonstrate how these interactions, one click away from students, create an invaluable body of 'authentic' materials. Drawing on my sociolinguistic research and background in applied linguistics, I first illustrate different ways technological and communicative affordances of online space (e.g., multimodality, connectivity, polynormativity, etc.) in interactions around Persian literature positively affect language learning. I then focus on challenging what constitutes 'authentic' materials for language teaching, especially in the era of online communication, by looking at data that use non-standard forms (e.g. non-standard orthography) while reciting and/or discussing Persian poetry, and the audience's uptake of these, and discuss the potential of this type of material to teach learners both at the linguistic and the metalinguistic level. Thus, lying at the intersection of Online Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogy with Persian literary texts at its core, the chapter offers insight for developing engaging and relatable literature-based educational materials.

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