This article advocates for the reading club as a comprehensive pedagogical strategy that fosters language learning from a socio-affective perspective. Drawing on a real-life experience, it argues that the reading club—conceived as a collaborative and emotionally safe space—enhances students’ linguistic, reading, and literary competence. Its horizontal nature reduces language anxiety and promotes participation, critical thinking, empathy, and communicative self-esteem.
Furthermore, the article analyzes the role of the teacher as a mediator within a co-teaching environment and offers a selection of contemporary readings that challenge the official literary canon. These texts are capable of sparking meaningful debates while reinforcing the connection between language and culture. The reading club thus emerges as a community of practice that develops students’ pragmatic, intercultural, and socio-emotional skills. In conclusion, this methodology is presented not only as a means to improve language acquisition, but also as a contribution to a more humanized, inclusive, and reflective education, in which language is experienced as an integrative force.
