Teaching Literature In The Context Of Algeria: Efl Students’ Attitudes And Perceptions Towards Literature

Résumé: For some EFL students, literature has been considered as a dull, irrelevant and unimportant subject; for others, it is held as a source of creativity. Recently, there has been strong demand to endorse and encourage literature teaching in the EFL classroom for its many benefits. The purpose of this paper is to shine the spotlight on the students‟ attitudes towards literature. It starts with the idea that many EFL learners—in this case, the Algerian students, at the University of Oran—hold mixed thoughts and feelings towards literature, and that most of these are negative. By making teachers aware of this fact they will strive to reverse those attitudes and turn them into positive ones, therefore restoring/recovering the place of literature in the language teaching classroom. Knowing the students‟ attitudes, which are part and parcel of their profiles, will help determine their Achilles‟ heel—their weakest spots that have made them change their attitudes. The paper starts by listing some of the well known benefits literature is to offer. It then provides the analysis and discussion of the data collected at the University of Oran 2: Mohamed Ben Ahmed, Algeria, where the case study involves second year license students.

Publié dans la revue: دفاتر في اللسانيات والتعليمية