Teaching with Literature: the Needs of Indonesian Islamic Universities

Reading literary works helps learners grow linguistically, personally, culturally, and spiritually. However, researchers in the fieldof ESL and EFL have not conducted adequate analysis on the use of literature as a resource particularly in a multi-layered educational contexts like Indonesian Islamic universities where values embedded in literature might be in conflictwith each other. This research therefore aims to provide a thick description on the target needs and the learning needs of teaching with literature in such context. A case study with qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection was conducted. A questioner was distributed to 30 students and a semi-structured interview was conducted to five lecturersfrom three Islamic universities. Major findingsshow that short stories with the topics of noble character, self-empowerment, freedom, code of conduct, and greed are preferable to novel, drama, and poem. The stories in the forms of their simplifiedand original versions should be used to teach language skills and to inculcate global, national, and Islamic values within the CTL framework. Values similarities are to be the basis of teaching universal values while their differences are to strengthen cross-culture understanding.