Turkish EFL Pre-Service Teachers’ Views on Integrating Various Literary Genres in Teaching English

The aim of this qualitative study was to have a deeper understanding of Turkish pre-service EFL teachers’ views on integrating short stories, poems, plays and novels in English language teaching. In this light, the researcher tried to find answers to the research question through students’ reflections written after their practice teaching presentations in one of their 3rd year courses. The results were analyzed through content analysis and emerging codes were categorized under themes and sub-themes. This coding process was done by two experienced researchers in the field of English Language Teaching in order to enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of the results. The findings revealed four main categories: teacher feelings, problems in using literature, advantages of using literature and suggestions for using literature in ELT. Among all four genres, the pre-service teachers stated more negative feelings, problems and suggestions, and fewer advantages for using novel in teaching English. Furthermore, students in all genre groups indicated they enjoyed using literary texts in their presentations, and suggested choosing appropriate texts for language learners, giving background information about those texts and combining teaching language structures with literature in classroom activities