Analytical reading for students-philologists in the English class

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National Aviation University

National Technical University of Ukraine University “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute

Analytical reading for students-philologists in the English class

Olga Verhovtsova, Olga Ishchenko, Dilmah Kalay, Yana Tikan, Kutahya Dumlupinar

Turkey, Ukraine

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the higher education students' and teachers' perception of using literary text in the foreign l anguage course; to evaluate learners' progress in the foreign language communicative competence throughout the experiment period; to outline the policies and strategies of using analytical reading in the English class, which lead to increasing motivation to learn foreign languages with a focus on literature. The study involves 85 Bachelor's degree students and 35 teachers from linguistics and translation departments of three universities: Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, National Aviation University, Kutahya Dumlupinar University during the spring term in the school year 2021/2022. The students from these universities were using analytical reading in foreign language learning during this term. The quantitative research method allowed us to assess the students' progress in the development of their foreign language analytical reading skills, that included the understanding of the culture of foreign language, literary and aesthetic skills, vocabulary and foreign language skills, critical thinking and problem solving, inferential and interpretational skills. The qualitative research method was used to interpret the data of the experiment. Three questionnaires were employed as an instrument to assess teachers' and learners' perceptions of using literary texts in foreign language teaching/learning; to monitor the development of student's skills in analytical reading. The students-philologists involved in the research increased their motivation to learn English as a foreign language through literary texts and showed progress in the development of analytical reading skills up to 16%. The results obtained can be implemented into the practice of foreign language teaching as literary texts enriched the language input in the classroom and stimulated language acquisition, and analytical reading involved students-philologists emotionally challenging their imagination and creativity.

Keywords: analytical reading; foreign language teaching; literary texts; foreign language communicative competence; students- philologists.

Introduction

The eternal problem of selecting the better methods of teaching foreign languages has always been guided by perfecting the student's communication skills. One of such methods is introducing the learners to the literature of the foreign language. The use of authentic literary texts, including fiction, in teaching English as a foreign language is becoming more widespread. It can be explained by the growing popularity of communicative teaching methods and the gradual rejection of the teacher-centred system in teaching a foreign language. When the teachers decide to use authentic texts in English lessons, they face problems in selecting proper texts and effective methods in order to work with them within language classes. At the same time, they try to consider the interests and preferences of their students and curriculum requirements while focusing on teaching the English language. literary text communicative competence

The novelty of the research lies in a new approach to the study of the problem and the analysis of the results obtained. Previous studies on the effectiveness of using literary texts in teaching a foreign language were based on studying the experience of methodologists only. This paper presents assessments from all participants in the educational process - both teachers and students.

What problem does an educational institution consider when it adapts a policy of teaching a foreign language to students offering specializations in a field that should always retain its “foreign” character for them? For example, teaching foreign language literature presents a potential dilemma for Dutch English teachers regarding which language they use. On the one hand, they see the target language as a sign of quality. On the other hand, national language policies have constrained teachers from testing literature in the target language. Moreover, teachers in various contexts have indicated that they prefer to teach complex content in L1 (Wolthuis et al., 2020). How can the teachers act to successfully accomplish the established goals by promoting personal and socio-cultural benefits? Since the students belong to a socio-cultural background that is often very different from the English culture they are supposed to study, the teacher should find some ways to modify the established literary education strategies to suit the specific needs of the Published by Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the licence CC BY 4.0 given situation. The task in the current study is to analyze the problems encountered by the learners in the language courses and propose suitable solutions to solve these problems.

The literary study contributes to the development of learners' linguistic competence; therefore, in the early stages of learning a foreign language, one must use relatively standard English and leave slang and more literary English for advanced levels. Pronunciation activities, reading aloud while taking into account learners' proficiency level, respect the text and allow the teacher to enhance it and the learner to read it in a more authentic way.

Analytical reading is a cognitive skill that stimulates brain work. It refers to an ability to approach a text critically by giving priority to the objectives that the author might have. While thinking carefully and deeply when reading, the university students may use their experiences and previously gained knowledge to make sense of the author's writing. Intending to use it in language training, it is desirable to introduce literature from the first levels: pre-intermediate and intermediate. For this, it will be necessary to use a global approach to the text by favouring literary reading activities, to the detriment of literary analysis activities: the learner must “learn to understand, he must therefore be able to draw the main ideas, summarize while integrating new knowledge” (Armand, 1996, p. 71).

Literature is a living phenomenon that concerns peoples' daily lives. Its teaching is more important as it is a fruitful way of facilitating the learning of a foreign language. The goal of the language class is to learn the language and its culture. The coinage of language and culture into one word is to emphasize both the discourse level meanings and those that go beyond lexico-grammatical meanings, hence the culture embedded in the language (Liu, 2019). The literary text makes it possible to approach these two areas, and in this context, learners see in English literature one of the greatest possibilities for a relationship between cultures, which proves that the literary texts can address, among other aspects, intercultural exchanges.

Literature is a source of pleasure and self-assertion, says Etienne-Tomasini Delphine (2018). A student awakened by reading becomes much more complete. For sure, the initial difficulties in deciphering the spelling are replaced by other challenges related to linguistic understanding, but in the end, it improves language proficiency.

At the start of learning, reading and writing complement each other in order to promote the ac quisition of grapho-phonetic code as well as the discovery of the functions of written language, later reading literary texts can help to appropriate the characteristics of different kinds of texts to discover new ways of expressing oneself in writing. Furthermore, if motivation is one of the key factors for language learning and acquisition, language teachers certainly have an obligation to offer students more challenging and interesting texts and activities that will get them involved on a deeper level and create the feeling that they are using the language for professional purposes.

Literature review

If the main purpose of language teaching is not to develop a narrow perception of language function and style in students, different kinds of texts for developing language awareness have to expose them to a wide range of representational materials, which would invite learners to respond and react, to question and evaluate, to interact with the text, to get involved emotionally and creatively, and to relate it to their own experience. This is where literature finds its way in the language classroom. Wilson (2016) states that a sophisticated framework is needed to support the development of students' critical tendencies, for which critical reading pedagogy can be presented in different ways. Mustofa and Hill (2018) consider several stages of literature interpretation with the final stage for the readers to respond to the text; considering how to connect their own life experience to that of the literary text.

Tsang, Paran, and Lau (2020) looked at the differences between views of short stories, poems and songs for a more nuanced understanding of whether different literary genres are perceived similarly or differently. Short stories seem to be more positively viewed than poems and songs, yet there are areas perceived to be beneficial in both genres. From the learners' perspective, it seems that short stories are regarded as contributing to both language-related and non-language-related development (p. 22).

Akhrib and Nedjai's (2021) findings lead to reconsidering the selection criteria of gender -oriented passages in English as a foreign language contexts, although Brantmeier (2003) selected the texts based on male or female characters, and specified what may be different for each gender. Duff and Maley (2007) formulated three types of justification for using literary texts: linguistic, methodological, and motivational. Linguistically, the use of literary texts is justified on the ground that they offer genuine samples of a very wide range of styles, registers, and texts of many levels of difficulty (p. 6).

The literary text affects the world of human feelings and has an emotional impact on the reader through not only the figurative depiction of reality but also the author's reflection of his vision of the world with which the reader relates his value system. “Literary texts are in a very real sense the vehicle for culture” (Duff & Maley, 2007). Spirovska Tevdovska (2016) states that one of the most valuable advantages of using literary texts in foreign language learning and teaching is the involvement and enrichment that it cultivates in readers and learners. Readers pursue the development of the story and are willing to share their responses, engaging in literary texts enabling them to focus beyond the grammar and syntax of the foreign language.

Fanlo (2011) is persuaded that it is necessary to think about literature at the university because it reveals an essential aspect of humanity, it is really a matter of understanding and knowing when you study it, and it is about understanding and knowing not only how a literary text works and what it means, but also what it teaches us about a man. Literature is no longer related to the periphery of foreign language teaching, gaining more accessible, meaningful and useful for learners for developing their literary competence and appreciation together with international trends on the integrated curriculum for English and literature in English as a foreign language context with the focus on a skill-based approach to literature opposed to knowledge about literature (Nguyen, 2016). Collins points out that when teaching literature it is hard to imagine a teacher or school leader who is not aware of the importance of teaching higher-order thinking skills to prepare young men and women to live in the 21st Century (2014). In his research on teaching language through literature, Llach (2007) states that literature transmits messages. It is a way of communication between the author and the reader, which motivates the learner to interact.

Carter and Long (1991) identify three main approaches to studying the literary text, combining them into three models: cultural model when a literary text is viewed as a product, a source of information about the culture under study. The main emphasis is placed on the social, political, historical context, the belonging of the text to literary trends and genres.

A language model requires much attention to lexical and grammatical structures or stylistic analysis, which allows interpreting the text consciously. This model is more student-centred; it improves general proficiency in a foreign language and makes the approach to literature more competent.

A personal growth model is focused on students and the process of studying a text. With this approach, students are proposed to express their opinions, describe their own experience, express their attitudes toward what they have read. This model contributes to the interaction between the reader and the text, making the study of the language more memorable and personalized.

Many practising teachers observe students' positive attitudes toward reading fiction in English at foreign language lessons. They report increased motivation, improved reading skills and increased general interest in the activity. Kramsch and Kramsch (2015) emphasize the importance of the “principle of obligation”, i.e., acquaintance with the golden fund of literature, which will be effective in combination wi th the principle of scientific and methodological activities. They explained, “the study of language in those days meant the study of literature” (p. 554).

Richards and Rodgers (2010) offer selection criteria, focusing on the purpose of using works of art in the learning process - the development of reading competence. The authors propose to select artistic texts that would show the country's modern life and raise social and moral issues.

Umirova (2020) points out that these materials create an experience of a real context of the target language for the learners. They will be introduced to the idea of how a conversation in a natural situation of native speakers begins, goes on, and finishes.

The challenges the teachers face today are the syllabus that is not at par with the educational realities, and bookish or theoretical understanding of a subject doesn't suffice in preparing students for the real world and the lack of e-learning experience - both as a method of learning that students can take up independently and as a tool for teachers to supplement their standard academic syllabus.

Despite such unanimous approval of the use of a literary text for teaching and its use in the educational process as a whole, in the foreign methodology of teaching a foreign language, there are still disputes over the appropriateness of this type of activity. This question remains yet controversial. For example, Maley (2001), author of the chapter “Literature in Language Classes” in “The Cambridge Handbook on Teaching English to Foreigners”, explains the situation as follows. Historically, literature has long been the main source of linguistic information in teaching a foreign language. However, with the development of technical means, methods of teaching a foreign language, and the availability of language material, the role of a work of art in teaching a foreign language began to weaken. The growing popularity of the English language required the mass training of “functionally competent users”. In this process, the use of l iterature and artistic words became irrelevant and even partly harmful. The debate between the supporters of the “old” and “new” approaches continues to this day, but “recently there has been a gradual rehabilitation of literature and its value in the learning process”. Since the 1980s, the literary text has gradually returned to the practice of teaching English as a foreign language.

Bilonozhko and Syzenko (2020, p. 125) state that generation Z is exposed to new formats and non- traditional content such as memes, Instagram feeds, Twitter, and web-content aggregators, reduces their time to read traditional content. This may have quite a few challenges for introducing the more traditional formats of authentic content to encourage learners to deal with authentic texts in real-life contexts. Students are more willing to read fairy tales and adventure novels than descriptive country studies articles. In addition, the literary work must be read from beginning to end. This supports students' interest, as they want to know what will happen to the characters next. A literary work should have an interesting plot, have a pronounced emotional colour, and contain a large number of dialogues. It should contribute to the formation of high moral qualities of students: kindness, compassion, society, active life position. The text focused on learning objectives serves as a stimulus for educational communication; it contains factual and linguistic material for the development of sociocultural competence.

Thus, foreign methodologists and practising teachers who use literature in the process of developing foreign language communicative competence are faced with the objections that literary reading does not meet the criteria of academic excellence and, accordingly, does not fit into the framework of the educational process. Nuraihan Mat Daud et al. (2018) claim that the language used in literary texts can be daunting for learners who are still mastering the language. Therefore, the focus may be shifted to making them understand the text, not interpreting it. A literary text has a complex grammatical structure and is incomprehensible from a cultural point of view, and it may contain unnecessary lexical units that complicate understanding. However, for some practising teachers, the grammatical and cultural complexity of the text is a motivation for in-depth study of the text.

Despite the significant number of studies regarding the use of literary texts in teaching a foreign language, the issue of perception of literature as an input of a good foreign language class may need further research. Within this context, this research aims to evaluate students' progress in foreign language communicative competence and see how they developed their perception of analytical reading in the English class through the completion of the experiment. The main research questions for the study were: What is the teachers' and students-philologists' perception of using literary texts in foreign language teaching/learning? What is the impact of using literary texts in foreign language learning?

The hypothesis in the present study is that students-philologists will enhance their motivation to learn foreign languages, develop specific skills, such as understanding of the culture of foreign language, literary and aesthetic skills, vocabulary and foreign language skills, critical thinking and problem solving, inferential and interpretational skills provided the following conditions are taken into account: 1) integration of literary texts of different genres in foreign language classes during the experiment period; 2) using various analytical reading activities specified in the questionnaires; 3) regular stimulation of students-philologists' independent work.

Methods

Research Design

The study has a mixed-method design with both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative research method was used to assess the level of analytical reading skills of students-philologists' learning а foreign language using the Likert scale. The qualitative research method was implemented to monitor and interpret data of the experimental learning. In particular, it allowed us to collect data about teachers' and students' perception of using literary texts in English class, to monitor students' confidence in using analytical reading skills for developing their foreign language communicative competence. For this purpose different semi-structured questionnaires were prepared for teachers and students-philologists.

Participants

The number of participants in this experiment was 120 from three universities: Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (30 students, 15 teachers), National Aviation University (33 students, 11 teachers), Kutahya Dumlupinar University (22 students, 9 teachers) offering Bachelors degree in linguistics and translation. Altogether among the participants were 35 teachers and 85 students learning to get Bachelor's degree, who completed the questionnaires before and after the experiment period, that took place from September 2021 to December 2021 and involved an estimated 15 hours of class and individual work for students (1.5 ECTS). The participants agreed that the results of this experiment could be treated anonymously.

Instruments and Procedure

For conducting our research three blocks of questionnaires were used, including mainly closed items using Likert scale and 5 open questions in each questionnaire to elicit additional information from the respondents. Google forms contained 3 questionnaires, the first one for teachers, the second one for the students, containing 15 questions each to monitor their perception of using analytical reading in English class, the basic activities, motivation for using literary texts for developing foreign language communicative competence. The third questionnaire was created to assess students' development of analytical reading skills, based on a 5 points Likert Scale and showing students' confidence in using these skills in English class before and after the experiment. For preparing questionnaires some of the questions were used from the survey introduced by Duncan and Paran (2017) to assess teache rs' and learners' perceptions on using literary texts in foreign language teaching/learning.

Table 1. Blocks of questionnaires used in the survey

Students were expected to read literary texts within the English language course during one semester. Google Forms were used to monitor the results of the survey.

The completion of the experimental research entailed three stages:

Stage 1. At this stage, the teachers and the students-philologists were offered to complete the questionnaires in Google forms to monitor their perception of analytical reading in the English class. A survey was conducted using Questionnaire 1 for teachers and Questionnaire 2 for students. It contained questions for collecting information about participants' motivation to use literary texts, monitoring the main class activities for using literary text. They also contained open que stions (5 in each questionnaire) to find out how using literary texts in the English classroom affects the ability to correctly and deeply understand a foreign language, to what extent it increases interest in cultural values; to monitor students' motivati on to expand the range of cultural and foreign language communicative competence. Questionnaire 3 was used before and after the experiment period, contained questions for the students-philologists to measure the progress in developing students' analytical reading skills using 5 points Likert scale.

Stage 2. At this stage, the experiment took place during one term, involved an estimated 15 hours of class and individual work for students (1.5 ECTS), when the literary texts were implemented in the foreign language teaching/ and learning process. The goal at this stage was set to foster interest in the target book, to form an active reading activity, the ability to correctly and deeply understand what was read, to develop analytical reading skills, with special attention given to skills of understanding the culture of foreign language, literary and aesthetic skills, vocabulary and foreign language skills, critical thinking and problem solving, inferential and interpretational skills.

The special focus in introducing literary texts in English class was given to the development of student's abilities to analyze received information critically and make decisions or conclusions based on it, to develop students' literary analysis skills, to learn new vocabulary from th e literary texts, to deduce meaning from the context in literary text, inferential and interpretational skills. During this period the students-philologists were offered excerpts from the authentic texts by Mark Twain, Jack London, Richard Gordon, Thomas Hardy, Stephan Leacock, Evelyn Waugh, and Jerome K. Jerome. These materials were expected to be motivating because they connected the readers with the outside world and let students know that learning was not just about the classroom.

During this stage, such class activities for analytical reading were implemented for students - philologists: discussions, group work, monologue, dialogue, role play, pair work, group work and improvisations. To develop speaking skills, the students were offered the following tasks: to make up a dialogue, describe the characters, determine the moral of the story, retell the plot, predict the ending. At the same time, the teacher monitored the correctness of the composition of sentences, the use of tenses, the formation of plural nouns, etc. Working with texts involved the development of higher-order thinking such as comparison and opposition, contextual clues, description, conclusions, assessment of facts and opinions, memorization, ordering of sequences, patterns.

Stage 3. Data collection procedures were based on monitoring the results by receiving feedback through Questionnaire 3. At this stage of the research the data was gained from the survey specifically designed for students, that focused on the development of skills needed for using literary text in the foreign language class, such as the skills of understanding the culture of foreign language, literary and aesthetic skills, vocabulary and foreign language skills, critical thinking and problem solving, inferential and interpretational skills, as Duncan and Paran (2017) proposed, and their confidence to use them before and after the experiment. The monitoring of the students' progress was made by collecting the d ata using questionnaires based on a Likert Scale.

Results

All of the respondents teachers (100%) stated that they strongly agree that literary texts should be used as part of foreign language teaching that proved their high level of motivation to use lite rary texts in the classroom. About 62.5% of teachers strongly agreed, and about 37.5% agreed that using literary texts makes foreign language learning more interesting for their students. More than 90% of the teachers think that using literary texts helps to raise controversial issues in the English classroom. Using shorter texts for analytical reading in the English classroom was more preferable for 81.3% of teachers (68.8% agreed, 12.5% strongly agreed). Figure 1 shows the results obtained from the teachers.

Figure 1. Teachers ' perception of using literary texts in Foreign language teaching (FLT)

The results obtained from students-respondents were presented individually in Figure 2. To start with, the results show that 96.5% of students from all the institutions believe that using literary texts makes learning foreign languages process more interesting and enhances their ability to analyze the context critically. On the other hand, the results show that the difference between the students who agree that using literary texts motivates them more than non-literary texts and the students who disagree with this statement was 10.65%, being the students who agree or strongly agree higher. In addition, more than 80% of students claim that using literary texts challenges them from the language point of view, while 20% disagree with the statement.

Figure 2. Students-philologists' perception of using literary texts in FL learning

Concerning the influence of using literary texts for developing students' abilities teachers stated among the most important: ability to learn new vocabulary (strongly agreed 68.8%), to analyze received information critically and make decisions or conclusions based on it (agreed total 100%), to transfer literary analysis skills from language A to language B (93.8% agreed).

Figure 3. Monitoring the development of students-philologists' skills of analytical reading

Learners need more neutral, more functional English, relevant to the demand of particular uses in business, law, travel or tourism, advertising, and so on. The efficient ways of making literature a more significant part of language teaching help to further the learner's mastery in the four basic areas of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Many of these activities can be successfully adapted across different levels of language proficiency.

The results in Figure 4 show that teachers and students support various types of class activities with literary texts, with all the respondents preferring discussions (33.3% teachers, 27% students) as the main activities. Then the opinions differ among the group work (18.7%), monologue and role play and pair work in similar proportion (12.5% for each) for teachers; and dialogues (17.6%) group work (13%) and improvisations (10.7%) for students.

Figure 4. Monitoring class activities for analytical reading (students ' and teachers' responses)

At the final stage of the present research, the students were monitored and some feedback was received using questionnaires for students and teachers. Figure 5 introduces the results obtained on the students' progress in different skills. To start with, the results show that students from all institutions enhanced their foreign language skills with the help of implementing analytical reading into the educational process. On this diagram, it is clearly shown that the initial and final level of students' confidence in the field of using literar y texts for developing such skills as the understanding of the culture of a Foreign language (it raised from 4.5 to 5 points on the Likert scale, that constituted the 10% increase), literary and aesthetic skills (from 3.8 to 4.5 that constituted 14% increase), vocabulary and foreign language skills (4.2 to 5 meaning 16% increase), critical thinking and problem solving (4.4 to 4.6 meaning 4% increase), inferential and interpretational skills (3.5 to 4.2 that constituted 16% increase), within the Likert scale from 1 to 5.

Table 2. Monitoring the development of students-philologists' skills of analytical reading

All in all, the results have shown that the students enhanced their foreign language analytical reading skills and motivation to learn English through literary texts up to 16%, with the highest progress in the development of inferential and interpretational skills (16%) and vocabulary and foreign language skills (16%), with the lowest increase in the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills (4%). The low increase of critical thinking and problem-solving skills can be explained here with an already high level of these skills at the beginning of the experiment. Presumably, the progress would have been higher, yet, it seems that the experiment was beneficial for students-philologists from all the universities.

The students involved in the research manifested the necessary qualities of the reader, the activity and accuracy of the emotional reaction, the depth of comprehension of the literary text, the concretization of literary images in the reader's imagination, the ability to aesthetically evaluate the form of the work, to see behind the artistic world of its author. Most of the students showed the ability to evaluate works of literature on the basis of conscious criteria and the presence of the literary and aesthetic ideals of the individual. At the final stage of the current research, students showed higher motivation for analytical reading while writing reviews, doing creative and research works, writing essays.

Discussion

The research shows that both teachers and students-philologists are almost unanimous in assessing the importance of studying literary texts in a foreign language class at a university level. Although literature was perceived by some participants of the experiment to be a challenge, it was nevertheless felt that the benefits of literary texts in the foreign language classrooms overweighed the challenges. Based on the survey results, analytical reading helped the participants to analyze received information critically and make decisions or conclusions based on it. The results obtained by us are in agreement with the study of Duncan and Paran (2017) towards an understanding of the use of literary texts in foreign language teaching, and developing analytical reading students' skills with the help of using literary texts in English class, but we also concluded that analytical work on the text is not an aim in itself; it is one of the means of teaching students to read, understand and, if necessary, translate foreign texts. Therefore, when applying different types of analytical work to the text, the purpose of this work and the possible practical consequences must be clearly imagined.

Taking into account the results of the experiment and with a view to broadening the perspective of the research, we offer strategies for providing successful practice in analytical reading with regard to 1) stages of analytical work; 2) language enrichment; 3) communicative activities; 4) choice of literary work.

Stages. Among the recommendations we consider it important that all the stages of analytical work should be interrelated to each other before reading, students-philologists should be provided with information about the author, the style of the text, the time when it was written. Then they read the text to understand it and make an idea about it. The following stages are deep analyses of the vocabulary, learning speech patterns, asking and answering questions, role-plays and retelling. For weaker students, the tasks can be narrowed so that they could concentrate on particular skills. In this case, a solution is reading an extract, not the full text. By reading passages, weaker learners will avoid a bulk of unknown words and monotonous work with difficult reading. The teacher has to persuade his students that they can afford the task that it is not impossible for them even if they encounter difficulties in understanding. Students who complete the tasks successfully will feel more confident, and more likely, they will want to extend their literary interests.

Language enrichment. In terms of different ways in which a text can be explored, we believe that literature provides a rich context in which individual lexical or syntactical items are made more memorable. Based on the experience of our research we recommend encouraging the students to use a dictionary to look up the words that have multiple meanings, and therefore the choice of the desired equivalent in the dictionary article requires a preliminary orientation on the grammatical form and function of the new word. Doing exercises on finding synonyms and antonyms to the words from the learnt extract; finding the odd word out of a synonymic row; learning speech patterns and translating them in sentences also proved to be very productive activities implemented for class work. In this regard, it should be noted that extensive reading increases a learner's vocabulary and facilitates transfer to a more active form of knowledge. The results of the experiment convinced us that reading literary works exposes students to many functions of the written language and consequently to linguistic advantages. When reading students gain familiarity with many features of written language - the formation and function of sentences, the different ways of connecting ideas - which broadens and enriches their own writing skills. It also develops the students' ability to deduce meaning from the context.

Communicative activities. To diversify successfully teaching literature in the English classes the teachers use such activities as monologues, dialogues, role plays, improvisations, discussions, questionnaires, pair and group work, and others.The results of our experiment revealed that both teachers and students- philologists give preference to discussions, although the opinions differ among the other types of activities. The students more readily get involved in dialogues and improvisations, while teachers stated they would focus more on group work, role play and pair work. A possible solution to this problem would be to explain to the students what results can be achieved by doing each type of work. This would probably give rise to a better perception of other types of activities.

The choice of literary work. The desire for quick, specific information, an insufficient level of knowledge leads to a decrease in interest in the book, the modern generation reads little. We believe that the use of literary texts in English or translation classes can be one of the ways to introduce students to the golden fund of world literature, to acquaint them with the works of classic and modern writers. Learners are exposed to language that is genuine and undistorted, as can be managed in the classroom context. Moreover, for many English learners, the ideal way to deepen their understanding of life in the country where this language is spoken is a visit or extended stay, which is not possible. Such learners should adopt that they get an understanding of the life of the country by watching films, videos, reading newspapers and, of course, literary works. Thus, we consider it important that the teacher should present a piece of literature in order to develop a broader range of activities and involve students in them. It also proved to be popular with the students when a teacher matches a literary piece with the main topic, for example, travelling, city plans, student's life, job, earnings, family, relations and so on. By immersing into the world of a novel, play, or short story with a bright context with characters from many social strata, students can reveal their thoughts, beliefs, feelings, customs, discover what they enjoy or fear, how they speak and behave behind the closed door. Contemporary British and American literature offers readers a great variety of original works from established classics Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Orwell, J.D. Salinger, Harper Lee, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison, etc. to inventive and emotionally-compelling works of contemporary writers Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan to the evocative historical novels of Hilary Mantel and Pat Barker, and others. By offering students such literature, the teacher will stimulate their language and esthetic development and help them broaden their outlook and see the beauty of the target language at its best.

Conclusion

According to the study, it is evident that reading is the basis for forming a picture of the world of students-philologists, for broadening their horizons. The authors also consider the project important as it provided a favourable environment for both teachers and students to try and test the obtained skills by implementing literary texts into foreign language learning and to realize their potential through project work. The objective of the study was to understand how the perception of analytical reading could influence students' progress in linguistic and intercultural competence. The positive result is obvious, as students - philologists from all the universities progressed with the level of confidence in using literary texts.

To start with, most of the students participants revealed the necessary qualities of the reader and changed their perception of the value of analytical reading. Moreover, they demonstrated a growing ability to understand the culture of a foreign language, enhanced their inferential and interpretational skills, developed critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are necessary for forming a competent specialist in any field. It was obvious, that literary texts enriched the language input in the classroom and stimulated language acquisition, analytical reading involved students emotionally, awakened their imagination and creativity. To sum up, the students-philologists showed higher motivation for analytical reading while doing creative and research work.

Thus, working with the text requires considerable effort to fulfil various tasks thoroughly and accurately, which can be immensely rewarding, and the results are highly satisfying. The students will become more creative and adventurous as they begin to appreciate the richness and variety of the language they are trying to master and use some of that potential themselves, which opens up prospects for future research.

There are some limitations in the study that could be addressed in future research. The study focused on the students-philologists from Ukrainian and Turkish Universities and the scope of participants can be extended to the students from other countries that would give more evidence in this field of studies and generalize the recommendations to a larger academic audience.

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