A case study of Bhutanese teachers' and students' perception on using literary texts as English as a second language teaching and learning materials

Abstract

Literary texts have been used in ESL/EFL (English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language) education for long time. However, because of its complex language structure, there were arguments over its successful implementation. Although there are several studies conducted with University students and teachers, there have been no studies on school teachers' and students' about using literary texts as teaching and learning materials and little is known about the revised literary texts in Bhutanese ESL curriculum since 2006. Therefore, this study was aimed at exploring Bhutanese teachers' and students' perception of using literary texts as ESL teaching and learning materials. Two hundred and eleven students and three teachers of classes nine and ten from one Bhutanese school participated in this study. Quantitative data were collected by administering survey questionnaire adapted from Kim (2010) on 211 students. Later, qualitative data was gathered from two separate focused group interviews with a group of four students and another group of three teachers. After triangulating the data from the three data sources, the findings indicated that both the teachers and the students perceived that the literary texts facilitated not only teaching and learning process but also assessing students' progress and achievement. Nevertheless, literary texts were also perceived inadequate for learning factual current affairs and grammar. Furthermore, the findings suggest that in order to benefit from literary texts, appropriate teaching approaches and selection of literary genres need to be considered.