Adopting literature circles to content-based instruction

Literature circles are a student focused, task based learning approach (TBL), that until recently had been used predominantly as a tool for first language acquisition. In giving the responsibility to students and, by making language input extensive rather than intensive, literature circles can also offer L2 instructors a valuable new tool to help raise outcomes where fluency is the goal. After describing the literature circle model for language learners (see, Furr 2007), its inherent strengths and possible drawbacks, an adaptation for use in content instruction is made. Finally, by highlighting the practical integration of this adaptation into a 15-week university semester a new learning milieu (the content based reading circle) is described.