Introduction
The learning process is meant to achieve certain planned outcomes even before the actual teaching begins. While teaching English literature courses is an interesting one, there is always a major challenge when it comes to proficiency levels, especially for learners whose English is not their first language. The common practice in most schools across the globe is combining the native speakers of English and English as a foreign language (EFL) learners and using the same pedagogical approaches to teach them. The ultimate effect of this is that native speakers tend to perform better than EFL learners. A study by Seawright (2014) showed that using the same teaching methods for both native and EFL speakers shows some disparities in performance, with the EFL learners being ranked at the lowest struts of the academic performance echelon. Cognizant of this, this study will seek to identify the cause of this disparity and recommend necessary actions.
Alnwaiem et al. (2021) stated that the proficiency levels of EFL learners are usually lower than that of their native counterparts. Some of the major challenges associated with EFL English literature teaching include lack of confidence, low motivation, inadequate teaching, insufficient in-service training, underqualified teachers and instructors, among others. Besides this challenge, students' proficiency levels have been cited as among the most critical of the challenges which EFL English literature learners experience. When the program does not reflect a student's real level of proficiency, then there is a great likelihood of having a misalliance between the selected text and the learner's language capability. The ultimate result of this is that there would be a negative impact on the implementation of the course.
The English literature program is among the most demanding as far as language proficiency is concerned. Unlike other programs where the teacher can mix different languages to suit the learner, the English literature program can be best handled by using only English as the language of instruction. Therefore, this specificity of the program poses a challenge to a learner whose English is not their first language. Thus, learners need to have sufficient command of English to ensure that they are able to maintain the pace and workload of the English literature program. In addition, English literature is not a frivolous academic discipline but one that requires utmost dedication and determination. As a result, the major point of contention is when a decision is required to determine the proficiency levels of students in order to qualify them for the study of English literature program. EFL students are rather anxious about learning English literature, although they perceive it as a difficult one to comprehend and understand independently without the teacher's assistance. Since the understanding of English literature for EFL learners is quite a difficult task, the study proposes the need for education providers to avoid the prescription of books that are above the average learner's ability so as to encourage the EFL students to study the program with pride and determination. They should not perceive it as a punishment but as a means to make them better students by having the right materials for different proficiency levels such as beginner, intermediate or advanced.
In Kuwait, the teaching of English takes an organized model since most of the learners do not speak English as their first language. A study by Alnwaiem et al. (2021) showed that the English proficiency levels among learners in Kuwait is significantly low as English is taught and trained as a foreign language and is not taught as a second language. Once the learners graduate, they rarely use English. Cognizant of this, there is the need to improve the methods used to teach English in Kuwait since English is a global lingua franca, and there is the need to heighten the expectations of the learners by introducing newer methods of teaching and training English and considering the English language a second as opposed to a foreign language.