Young adult literature in EFL context: Attitudes of ELT students towards reading literary texts

The effects and importance of literary texts as valuable authentic material in foreign language teaching has always kept its popularity alive through years. Literature is essential for cultural enrichment, linguistic competence and personal involvement of students in English Language Teaching (ELT) Departments. The aim of this study is to find out the preferences of ELT students about reading literary texts. This study focuses on the attitudes of the students about choosing the type of literary texts to read as class assignments. Particular emphasis has also been put on the attitudes of the students regarding selection of themes and subjects within literary texts. The data for our study comes from questionnaires which were administered to students of the ELT Department of Çukurova University, interviews and field notes taken by students during literature courses, regarding their ideas about literary texts chosen as course materials. The overall data were analysed carrying out a chi-square, non-parametric test of SPSS v.16. (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). The results of this study have potential implications regarding assisting instructors of ELT departments in choosing texts for literature classes and encouraging students to enjoy reading becoming life-long readers.