The Role of Literary Texts in Pakistani EFL Classrooms: Issues and Challenges

This study presents the role of literary texts in a sample of Pakistani EFL classrooms. The study primarily aimed to explore the perceptions of undergraduate students about the role of literary texts in their learning of English language. It also investigated some socio - contextual and textual factors related to English language literary texts taught in the context of this study. The study applied a mixed method approach. A structured questionnaire was designed and administered to over 268 undergraduates in five government colleges of Kohat District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. In addition, 32 semi - structured interviews (28 students and 4 language teachers) were also conducted. The descriptive analysis was run for the quantitative data to get the mean score of all items included in the scale. The inferential analysis was carried out to analyse the significance difference on gender basis among the samples of this study. For qualitative data analysis, all interviews were transcribed and coded, which led to the development of categories and themes. The results of quantitative and the qualitative were interpreted and discussed in detail. The study provided a detailed view of various aspects of literary texts which seemed to influence Pakistani learners of English participated in this study. Literary texts seemed to motivate these young learners for learning English as they intend to know more about English language and its speakers after reading literary texts. They enjoy reading some literary texts and analyse the socio - cultural details mentioned in these texts, which my possibly contribute to their personality development. However, the study revealed that participants’ lack of prior linguistic competence and intercultural awareness may challenge their ability to understand and comprehend some references of foreign cultures and vocabulary items used in the classical literary texts taught in the context of this study. The study also revealed that the role of teachers may be important in utilising literary texts according to the interests and learning needs of their students. The study highlighted the difference between the perceptions of the teachers and the students.