Teaching literature at Slovak secondary schools (Text and context in literary education)

Abstract The teaching of literature (and at the same time the teaching of the history of national literature) together with education in the field of the mother tongue has always been one of the key areas of education in the Slovak school system, therefore they have always received due and even special attention. Literary education (teaching literature) is a specific school process of literary communication and metacommunication, which can be interpreted in two ways in secondary school conditions: the first represents literary education as a traditional and stable part of the subject Slovak language and literature. Its goal is to prepare the pupil for the maturita exam. The second view presents literary education as a way to search for the meaning of human life through a functional chain of reception and interpretation of artistic texts. A fundamental problem of current education in the field of literature is the transfer of information from the latest scientific research into school practice. Another long-term and permanent problem of teaching literature at Slovak grammar schools and secondary schools is that literary education practice overestimates the informative component of the curriculum focused on memory acquisition. The paper introduces and discusses the number of theoretical and practical problems which arise in connection with the above-mentioned problems, as well as with teaching literary analysis and organizing the complex of tasks related to the meaningful reading of literary texts.