Charles Dickens

From Victorian Libraries To A Post Obligatory Secondary Classroom

Abstract

This article presents a teaching intervention based on prior research into Charles Dickens (1812–1870) carried out in a specific context: the British cultural legacy in the province of Huelva and the Portuguese Alentejo from the second half of the 19th century to the 20th. During the second half of the 19th century, British settlements were developed in the south of the Iberian Peninsula connected to mining enterprises, such as Mason & Barry in Mina de São Domingos in Portugal (1858–1966) and The Rio Tinto Company in Huelva, Spain (1873–1954). These settlements hosted libraries established by these British communities from the very beginning of their presence in these corners of the British Empire: the libraries of the English Club of Rio Tinto (Spain) and the Amélia Library (Portugal). They show not only the importance that reading had acquired in the Victorian society but also the relevance that reading habits and libraries had reached in the United Kingdom since the second half of the 19th century. The existence of these libraries allows us to develop a meaningful learning process of the English language through its own culture—the British culture—and a specific historical period—the Victorian era—bridging a doble distance in time and space. It can be defined as the study of an international cultural moment in an extremely local setting. Through an interdisciplinary methodology that promotes linguistic, digital, and plurilingual competencies, the aim is to apply the research findings in a didactic proposal that enhances the teaching-learning process of English not only as a means of communication but also as a literary and cultural medium. This didactic approach, along with its results, is described for a group of high school students from an educational center located near these libraries.