The Contributions of Literature Courses to English Language Teaching Programmes

This study aims to investigate the contributions of literary texts to English Language Teaching Programmes. The study focuses on the changing status of literature courses in the Higher Education in Turkey; discusses the pedagogical benefits of literature courses in language teaching education and intends to examine to what extent literature causes a positive change on student teachers’ personal growth and their linguistic, literary, cultural competence, as well as their command of English in reading, writing, listening, speaking, critical thinking skills, and their vocabulary repertoire. The data was conducted with 29 participants who completed their 3rd grade at Gazi University English Language Department. To find out the participants’ subjective opinions, experiences and beliefs, a semi-structured interview was used for the survey as a qualitative research method. The findings demonstrate that literature courses have led to a meaningful improvement in the participants both personally and academically. Yet, the results indicated that this positive change expected in the participants had been limited for certain items. Some suggestions were given for further studies.