The potential and challenges of using literary works for EFL vocabulary development: A cross-national qualitative investigation of instructors' attitudes in Arab university contexts
Abstract
Despite the longstanding recognition of literary works as culturally and linguistically rich resources in English language teaching, their potential as systematic vocabulary-development tools in EFL contexts remains insufficiently theorized and empirically underexplored, particularly within Arab university settings. In this study, we investigate the attitudes of university EFL instructors toward using literary works, such as short poems, short stories, and one-act plays, as instruments for increasing the size of vocabulary and expanding the lexical richness of undergraduate university students, drawing on the teacher cognition framework and the tripartite cognitive-affective-behavioral model of attitude as its dual theoretical framework. Employing an interpretivist qualitative design, we explored these issues through conducting individual semi-structured interviews with 12 purposively selected EFL instructors, six from the University of Tabuk and six from Capital University, all holding doctoral qualifications in applied linguistics and having a minimum of five years of instructional experience. Interview data were subjected to reflexive thematic analysis, with analytical trustworthiness established through expert face-validity review and member checking, with procedural transparency further supported through an independent investigator-triangulation review (95% agreement). The results generally reveal positive cognitive and affective orientations toward literary works as lexical-development resources; however, the behavioral dimension is consistently and systematically constrained by curricular marginalization, institutional barriers, and inadequate professional preparation. Cross-national variation in attitudinal patterning is identified and theorized with reference to contextual institutional and sociocultural factors. The study serves as the first qualitative cross-national exploration of this phenomenon in Arab university EFL contexts and promotes a theoretically grounded approach for literary vocabulary pedagogy regionally.