Use of Literature, Resources and Innovative Methodologies in the English Classroom

Abstract

This research is aimed at analysing English teachers’ perception, use and level of professional development regarding literature, resources and innovative methodologies in the classroom. The type of quantitative investigation method used had a descriptive-com-parative nature, where 70 secondary teachers, that taught English as a foreign language, answered a questionnaire created ad hoc. The results show that teachers consider literature as a great resource for the development of basic competences; nevertheless, most of them do not use it to a great extent and, when they do, it is through reading tasks of textbooks and graded books. We conclude that literature texts are perceived as too difficult, probably because teachers may not know how to select the best-suited works in terms of cognition and interest. As educational implications, we propose for EFL teachers to acquire, during their initial education, the pertinent knowledge about literary works, tasks, ICTs and audiovisual materials for the teaching of English, and how to assess these contents. It is interesting, to point out the limitations of the study, related to the compilation of the best literature works for the English teaching, in order to plan future lines of investigation.