Perceptions of pre-service teachers on using literature as an authentic text in English language teaching classes

The main purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions of prospective English language teachers about using literature as an authentic material in language teaching courses, and their perspectives towards literature courses in English Language Teaching and English Language Teaching departments at universities. In this study using mixed research method, the questionnaire developed by Stephanie Chantall Harrison (2018) was adapted and used to collect quantitative data and analyzed via SPSS 22, interview questions were prepared for qualitative data and analyzed in accordance with Creswell's (2014) systematic content analysis. In this study, 91 pre-service English teachers completed the questionnaire and interviews were conducted with 10 pre-service English teachers. When the collected data were analyzed and examined, it was seen that the pre-service English teachers believe that literature has an important place in language teaching, and they want to use literature in their future careers. Pre-service English teachers stated that they consider the literature courses they take at their universities useful for their own development, but they want more content that they could use in the field of teaching. At the end of this study, suggestions for future work are presented. Key Words: Literature, English language teaching, pre-service teachers, authentic material