An Assessment of the Role of Literary Texts in Developing Students’Intercultural Communicative CompetenceThe Case of Second Year License Students

Abstract

The current study was an attempt to investigate the role of literary texts in developing second-year students’ of English intercultural communicative competence . In an attempt to achieve this aim, an assessment of two aspects of intercultural communicative competence, namely cultural factual knowledge and attitudes towards culture, and whether they were developed from exposure to the content of the Literary Texts module. Therefore, a hypothesis was formulated stating that literary texts instruction played a role in developing students’ awareness of certain cultural facts as well as certain attitudes. In order to fulfill the aim of this study and to put to test the hypothesis, a qualitative method was used. A test was administered to forty second-year License students of English at the University of Jijel. The results of the test confirmed the above stated hypothesis and the analysis showed that despite the fact that attention is being given to the module of literary texts by students, literary texts actually proved to be very effective materials in developing and enhancing learners’ intercultural communicative competence