ENGLISH-MAJORED SENIORS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE INFLUENCES OF LITERATURE LEARNING ON READING AND CULTURAL AWARENESS – A CASE STUDY AT A UNIVERSITY IN THE MEKONG DELTA, VIETNAM

Abstract

Using literature as a subject to gain students’ language comprehension and cultural knowledge has been focused on in those days. Therefore, this study aimed to determine English-majored seniors’ attitudes towards the influences of literature learning on English majors’ reading and cultural awareness since these are two factors that are directly affected by literary texts. First, eighty-eight seniors who were English majors at a university in the Mekong Delta completed the questionnaire. After that, twenty seniors from the eighty-eight participants were asked to deeply express their thoughts about the topic through the interview. The mean and standard deviation of each closed-ended item in the questionnaire were calculated, and the number of interviewees mentioning each cluster
was classified. Regarding the findings about the influences on reading, literature learning was believed to help students enrich their vocabulary, enhance their reading motivation, and improve their reading strategies. For the influences on cultural awareness, the results showed that students could have knowledge about aspects of other cultures and identify multicultural differences after learning literature. Finally, some recommendations were produced based on the findings.