A Systematic Review of Utilising Literary Texts in English Classroom: Challenges and Teaching Approaches

Abstract

The implementation of utilising literary texts in ESL/EFL classrooms has been widely enforced in all levels of schools for its roles and benefits for language learning. Due to challenges faced by teachers, the teaching and learning by using literary texts in the classroom seem to be ineffective. Hence, a systematic review of the 15 published articles is presented in this paper to expound the challenges in incorporating selected literary texts and the suitability of teaching approaches and strategies applied in using the texts in teaching and learning of English from year 2013 to 2022. The findings depict on the common problems encountered by English teachers are related to students’ low proficiency levels, the difficulties of literary text interpretation and teachers’ lack of practices as well as low confidence levels in teaching literary texts in the class. The teaching approaches in literature lesson preferably applied was information-based approach and moral philosophical approach. Moreover, integration of educational technology strategy and student-centred activities are highly recommended to be applied in the literature lessons. It is hoped that this review will provide contribution for researchers to conduct literature related studies and enlighten policy makers into revamping literature curriculum in the future.