Page 123 - Getting of the fence

Student motivation in the EFL literature lesson
results and the results of previous research, we can underline that “the deliberate integration of language development and literary study” (Paesani, 2011, p. 162) is the way forward for foreign language curricula. Our study has shown that students value the language component in EFL literature lessons highly but also that the literature component is valued by decidedly engaged students. Furthermore, the results show that the Personal Development factor appears to be a good fit for engaged as well as disaffected students. The results of this study also provide empirical evidence (through the students’ perspective) for the theoretical tripartite framework, which has been in place since the early 1990s.
The findings of this study should however be interpreted with caution in
view of the several minimally reliable scales and the small (though significant)
correlation sizes. According to Plonsky and Oswald (2014) “an increase in effect
sizes might also be found when the psychometric properties of instruments,
the standards for which are generally lower in an emerging research area, are
refined over time” (p. 894). Therefore, future empirical research in literature- 5 language instruction should be encouraged to improve psychometric properties
of instruments and replicate research in different teaching and learning contexts.
Given the nature of quantitative data, we were unable to deduct the why behind the value students ascribed to EFL literature lessons. Uncovering why they generally do not value for example personal reading experiences with literary texts or biographical information will add qualitative depth to this area of research. This links in with Brown’s (2009) plea for more studies that “explore how and where students formulate their ideas about L2 teaching and learning” (p. 56), in our case, the inclusion of literature in EFL teaching and learning.
Other future directions in research in this area should include classroom observations in combination with student motivation, to establish what is actually happening in literature classrooms. Replications of this study in other educational systems would be particularly welcome, to explore whether our findings represent a particular situation in the Netherlands or whether they can be shown to exist in other countries where literature is a compulsory part of the FL curriculum (e.g. Switzerland). In addition, a qualitative analysis of teaching, classroom activities, and interaction in language-literature classrooms where students show high levels of engagement could improve our insights and therefore further research in this area.
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