Students' perceptions of using a novel as main material in the EFL reading course

Abstract

The study looked into the possibility of using a novel as main material in a college EFL reading course. It focused on evaluating the effectiveness of novel-teaching based on students' subjective perceptions. For this purpose, two classes of non-English majors read and received instruction on an unabridged novel for one semester. A pair of questionnaires were used to measure students' perceptions and attitudes prior to and after the novel class. Analysis of the pretest and post-test shows that after a semester-long novel-reading process, students demonstrated improvement in attitudes, confidence, interest, and their own perceived reading ability. The results are of pedagogical significance to EFL teaching in that they present how well a novel was received in an EFL class, the benefits it offered as well as the difficulties it entailed to the reading process.