ABSTRACT

Students majoring in English literature at the tertiary level of education in Bangladesh seem to struggle to comprehend lessons because of their lack of competence in English. They find it rather challengingto understand the content of English literature, and in most cases, turn out to be less successful in meeting the objective and goal of the program. Toequip these students with adequate skills in English, adapting Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)appears to be more effective than just conducting lecture-based content teaching. CLILputs equal emphasis on subject teaching and language teaching for enhancing both the skill of communicating and transferring the content knowledge.Hence, the research exploreswhether adapting task-oriented use of literary materials integrating content and language teaching ismore effective in developing students’ comprehension level of literary contents as well as enhancing their English language skills simultaneously. A group of 1st-yearstudents of the department of English literature in a private university participated in the research. A mixed-method approach to research was adopted,which included a range of research instruments, such as classroom observations, questionnaire surveys, and interviews. The qualitative data were thematically analyzed. The quantitative data were analyzedusing an Excel spreadsheet and IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software for advanced statistical analysis. Based on the analysis and findings, the research identified the strengths and weaknesses of CLIL and came up with some suggestions and recommendations along with a framework for its effective use at the tertiary level of education in Bangladesh. Based on the findings,it is deduced that the implementation of CLILlessons in undergraduateEnglishliterature classes helped to develop most of the learners’English language competence as well as content knowledge of English literature inundergraduate classes ina private university contextinBangladesh but a portion of the learners who had better language skills did not like the integration of language lessons with contents lessons rather, they enjoyed lecture-based literature classes. Hence, CLIL is effective in learning literary contentfor those who are weak in English skills.Therefore,it can be construed that a need-based use of content and language integrated learning in undergraduate literature classes can make the implementation of CLIL vieffectivein heterogeneous undergraduate courses of English literature. Also, students take time to get acclimatized to the CLIL lessons in literature classesas they are traditionally habituated to lecture-based literature classes. Therefore, the long-term implementation of CLIL lessons in literature classes iseffective in improvinglearners’ language skills and developing content knowledge. Generally, a short-term CLIL lesson in a literature class is not effectivein undergraduate English literature classes in Bangladesh. In the end, suggestions are given for further research in the context of Bangladesh in future.

Keywords: CLIL, English Literature, English Language Skills, Tertiary Level Education, Banglades