Introduction:
I want to discuss that presenting English language within the Biblical context is worth trying with teenagers as they are far more reasons for studying the Bible than simply getting a better grip on the English language. For many millenia, the Bible has been the book that has inspired people of many generations.
Moreover, the Bible opens up a treasure store of insight and reflection upon human nature and upon the meaning and purpose of life. I would like to suggest that to study the Bible is to set out on a discovery of history, culture, and language. Yet, it is also to set out on a discovery of not only the world around us but also the world within ourselves. Thus, the teenagers learn about hope, joy, peace, forgiveness, truth, justice, and mercy. They learn about life.
In the theoretical part of the final project first, I shall give reasons for teaching English language items within the Biblical events as a meaningful and communicative context, I shall justify the pros and cons of using original or modified texts and emphasize the importance of stories in our lives. Second, I shall prove that the knowledge gained from the Bible-based stories can go as far as enriching and strengthening linkage and co-operation with other subjects. Third, I will reveal who teenagers are and why working with the Bible material may be useful for them. Then, I shall give reasons why we should encourage improving reading skills such as skimming and scanning as well as usefulness of visual literacy and importance of illustrations while presenting the Bible stories as they are effective in terms of getting the teenagers' interest and help the teenagers interpret and remember the content of the illustrated text. Lastly, I should prove that reading comprehension activities promote the teenagers' self expression and make the learning process more interesting and amusing.
Why The Bible?
MariAnne Dibbley states that the Bible is a book like no other. However, according to the statistics, the Bible is the world's bestselling book. The Bible's influence is not limited to Christians; Jews and Muslims also consider the Bible to be a sacred text. It is said that more than half of the world's population consider the Bible to be a major influence on their culture (Dibbley 2012: 4).
Contrary to all above mentioned facts, the Czechs are becoming increasingly pluralistic, secularized, and biblically illiterate. Many people today have little sense of how their language and culture have benefited from Christianity's influence. They do not realize that there are many phrases from the Bible that have become part of everyday language (Crystal 2010: 4). Moreover, the Bible has affected many poets, artists, painters or musicians and has also been a co creator of the moral development of human beings.
In other words the knowledge of the Bible is necessary for appreciating and deeper understanding of culture, language, literature, history, art, music and politics. The influence of the Bible on society has been important throughout history. Therefore, it worths mentioning Bible stories also in English lessons not just as a language input but as well as reinforcing other subjects connection and showing students that the linkage between the subjects can lead to better understanding of the matter. The Bible consists of many books and stories thus I want to stress the positive impact of stories on students.
The Importance of Stories:
Story-telling is as old as time. According to Ruth Wajnryb "we need to go no further than the stories that make up the bibles of any of the world's major religions to see the persuasive power of narrative (Wajnryb 2003: 1)." Further, she says that stories are important in terms of regeneration and maintenance of culture. She mentions the example from the Old Testament when Moses encouraged the Israelites before they reached the promised land to tell their story from generation to generation (Wajnryb 2003: 4).
Ruth Wajnryb states that stories are all around us and can sneak into our life and help us to identify who we are as many of them have a moral aim that can be perceived for instance in Biblical parables. Besides amusement, stories can also contribute to our emotional and intelectual development (Wajnryb 2003: 1). A similar idea is also supported by Andrew Wright who claims that stories help to distinguish people good and evil (Wright 2008: 13) and "offer values, perceptions, and behaviours which can act as sighnposts and paths for people to live by (Wright 2008: 144)." Moreover, he believes that teenagers with a good command of English would go into much deeper and intensive discovering and perceiving the story values than younger students (Wright 2008: 146). Eleanor Watts sufficiently concludes all the above mentioned ideas by saying that "stories are also invaluable to students learning a second language because stories set language in a meaningful context, link well to topics and cross curricular work, teach about ethical behaviour, develop fluency and enable students to make critical judgements and express opinions (Watts 2006: 6-7)."
To sum up, the above paragraphs suggest that dealing with stories in English lessons is a good idea. The question is whether to use them paraphrased or in their original version?
Can other subjects benefit from the English Bible-based lessons?
Over the years we can trail an enormous increase of content based teaching or learning English through content. Susan Halliwell describes content based teaching as integrating other subjects such as maths, sience or history into the English lessons with the focus on either language development or producing issues for teaching in other lessons (Halliwell 1992: 133). Gordon Lewis claims that this approach enables students to see that there is no barrier between English  and other  school  subjects.  Morever, this integration  carries the footprints of mutual dependence, reciprocal effect and enrichment (Lewis 2007: 11-12).
Jim Scrivener suggest that some school matters and topics can be elaborated and treated from various points of view in different subjects (Scrivener 2010: 329). Civics is a compulsory subject at the Czech Secondary Schools. Apart from other things, the main world religions are discussed. Czech lessons deal with the Bible stories from the literary point of view. Morever, the Biblical matter is also thoroughly discussed in the Czech optional subject called Religious Studies or Education that I used to teach myself. The students are faced with challenging questions about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, beliefs, the self, issues of right and wrong. Moreover, they are taught how to develop respect for others, including people with different faiths and beliefs and how to develop their sense of identity and belonging (Muronova, Muchova 2004: 6-10).
As the interpretation of the Bible stories and parables can be very difficult and often requires reading between lines and abstract thinking that very young children are not familiar with I suggest presenting them to teenagers.
Why should we improve our students'reading skills and strategies?
Catherine Wallace claims that "the most important resource that any potential reader possesses, whether reading in a first or any other language, is an awareness of the way in which we use language". Furthermore, she states "we use the language for a purpose and it only makes sense in context, that is as part of a larger text or in a situation (Wallace 1992: Introduction)".Â
Catherine Walter is persuaded that students'reading skills can be enhanced by getting involved in each exercise personally and by working in groups or pairs as students can be more motivated and more willing to communicate rather with a schoolmate than the teacher (Walter 1982: 3).
Apart from making students work in groups it is important to develop students'reading strategies as many students when reading texts tend to look up in a dictionary every single word they do not understand and therefore read very slowly. However, this is not what we usually do in real life reading, most of the time we are exposed to general understanding.
