It 1s the vogue today when contemplating the question of English literature for overseas students, to talk more of approaches, methods and techniques than of policies, objectives and aims. Drawing on my experience of teaching English literature to Arab university students, my argument is that a functional, vision - directed teaching of English, or any other foreign ,literature, in the-Arab World, needs both a national value theory to be erected upon and guided by and a pedagogy that can in large measure fulfill the goals and objectives peculiar to such a theory.