Abstract

This article provides an overview of the Slovenian syllabuses for English as a school subject over the past 80 years, focusing on literary texts as content. The findings are correlated with trends in ELT of the relevant periods, which are typically mirrored in the contents and structure of formally approved and widely used coursebooks in Slovenia. The results are compared with recent trends in ELT in Slovenia using two methods: a) an analysis of the extent of literary content featured in a selected corpus of formally approved contemporary English coursebooks used in Slovenian primary schools, and b) an analysis of Slovene primary school students’ success in standardized testing. Finally, a synthesis of these analyses is provided to shed light on the effectiveness of including literary content in ELT, as reflected in the primary school students’ standardized test scores.

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