Hanuer's article "Focus-On-Cultural Understanding: Literary Reading in the Second Language Classroom"

To my understanding, this article is based on the idea that much of second language teaching involves teaching culture. Therefore, Hanauer argues that teachers should incorporate literary texts on controversial, debatable topics in their teaching of the target language.

Learning ways to interpret such texts helps familiarize students with certain cultural understandings of the foreign culture. This method also enables L2 learners to construct meaning based on an "insider's (or expert's) perspective" and their own interpretation of the text. As Hanuer states, "incorporation of literary reading tasks in the language classroom provides language learners access to cultural knowledge of the target language community." This approach welcomes multiple interpretative methods and encourages students to draw upon their own ways to construct meaning.

Hanuer also makes a distinction between referential and linguistic knowledge. The former, also known as cultural knowledge, "enables understanding," whereas the latter aids communication as it requires the learner to know how to construct a meaningful sentence in English.

I think this is a very innovative approach to teaching a foreign language. My question is: What about individual differences? Students with learning disabilities? What level of ESL students are we talking about here? Beginner? Intermediate? Advanced?