Learners’ views of literature in EFL education from curricular and assessment perspectives

Abstract

Literature has been gaining growing attention in second language (L2)/foreign language (FL) education globally. In a number of places such as Hong Kong, literature has recently been given greater emphasis in the L2/FL curricula. This article reports part of a large-scale study examining learners’ views of two English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) modules on literary genres recently incorporated in the EFL curriculum, namely short stories (ShS) and poems and songs (P&S), from a curricular and assessment perspective. A total of 1190 secondary school students in Hong Kong completed a questionnaire, yielding quantitative and qualitative data; the 2347 comments collected explained their perceptions from multiple angles. Overall, the participants held positive views of the ShS module being incorporated in the curriculum, but only neutral views of the P&S module. When considering assessment, the respondents demonstrated ambivalence towards the modules; they were mostly against these genres being examined and if unexamined, they were generally not interested in studying them.