Teaching and Interpreting Literary Texts: Difficulties of 4th Year ELT Students at a Turkish University

This study aimed at identifying the difficulties of ELT students in analysing literary texts such as short stories and poetry in ‘Selections from Western Literature’ Elective Course at a Turkish university. Qualitative case study methodology was employed for understanding the students’ difficulties and experiences. 42 students, who were in the 4th (final) year of their training programme participated in the study. Data were collected through the presentation check lists kept by the lecturer during student presentations for both giving and getting feedback and the evaluation purposes about the content and the process of the student presentations. The findings demonstrated important issues about difficulties in understanding and interpreting literary texts such as, understanding the relationship between the writer/poet, period of the text, and the theme/s of the literary piece; finding out and interpreting figures of speech; difficulties in suggesting rich variety of classroom implications in relation with using literature in teaching English; and finally the pronunciation and intonation difficulties. Recommendations and implications were suggested to propose solutions to these problems and develop more effective ways about how to integrate literature as a tool of teaching English.