Literature in language education: Exploring EFL learners' literary competence profiles

Abstract

Literary competence is a critical component of foreign language education and has far-reaching implications for language learners’ linguistic and cultural development. This article reports on a study that examined how the receptiveness to literature, immersion, reading strategies, need for structure, and information processing of 72 English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in upper-secondary schools predicted their literary competence. The study adopted a mixed-methods approach, including a scored assessment of learners’ EFL literary competence via a cooperative argumentative dialogue (CAD) involving four short stories, post-CAD group interviews, reading logs, and an online questionnaire. The results revealed that participants had significantly higher levels of interpretative and empathic competence than aesthetic-stylistic and cultural-discursive competence. They also tended to favour problem-solving and global reading strategies, which negatively correlated with their literary competence. Meanwhile, their ability to process information analytically and systematically positively moderated the relationship between their receptiveness to literature and their literary competence.