To Be or Not to Be: the Use of Literature

Abstract

The use of literature in English teaching has been in the spotlight within the field of education, but almost always from a theoretical and methodological point of view. Even though it is a topic that has been discussed on several occasions since the 1980s, only a few studies focus on other points of view, such as that of teachers or even the students themselves. The main objective of this Master's Final Dissertation is to analyze the different benefits of using this resource and the implication of culture in the English classroom. The methodology used in this study was the systematic review in which 10 articles published between 2017 and 2021 were obtained through various databases and the application of inclusion and exclusion criteria. The results obtained show that the use of literature for teaching English is beneficial not only in relation to skills but also in relation to other aspects of the language such as grammar, vocabulary and even acknowledgement of the culture. Another critical point that was also analyzed in this research was the methodology that could be applied when incorporating literature into English language teaching, especially the process of selection of texts and literary genres to work on.