Elsya : Journal of English Language Studies Vol. 3, No. 1, February 2021 , pp. 1-7 Available online at: http://ojs.journal.unilak.ac.id/index.php/elsya 1 Shift of English Literature Learning from Classroom to Online: Preferences and Attitude of Bangladeshi Undergraduate Students Md. Zohorul Islam Green University of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh zohorul@eng.green.edu.bd ARTICLE HISTORY Received : 8 January 2021 Revised : 19 January 2021 Accepted : 30 January 2021 KEYWORDS Online Class Literature Covid-19 Students’ Preferences Attitude ABSTRACT This paper explores the English Literature classes that are taught online in Bangladeshi universities and the attitude of the students towards these classes. The new-normal after the Covid-19 outbreak forced the students to attend classes online and their experience about the English Literature classes are investigated in this research. The total number of participants for this study was ninety-seven. The research was conducted on the students of the Department of English in four private universities in Bangladesh. A survey questionnaire was prepared consisting of twenty questions to collect the data online. The data was analysed with quantitative method of research. Digital statistical software Microsoft Excel used for the data analysis. The research finding shows that the students find poetry and short story classes effective and engaging in online classes but showed unfavorable attitude towards novel and drama classes. The results also show that the students want more opportunity to share their opinion in the class and preferred visual aids in online classes. This study implies that while the instructors and the students are going through an unprecedented challenge of learning English Literature in online classrooms, the obstacles can be mitigated through increasing interactive classroom discussion and precise use of multimedia tools while teaching different genres of English Literature. 1. Introduction Education at all levels faced the greatest challenge because of Covid-19 pandemic and institutions ceased face- to-face classes and relied on online classes using technology (Daniel, 2020; Aristovnik et al., 2020). The challenge of adapting the new methods of e-learning is relatively new to the larger portion of the teachers and students in Bangladesh (Sultana & Khan, 2020). Institutions have given priority to the health issue but have tried to continue the learning through online teaching to keep the students engaged and motivated when social distancing became an irreplaceable norm (Ferdeus & Shifat, 2020; Marinoni et al., 2020). The connection between the students and the teachers in a literature class is significant because, for the students, literary text “represents authentic feelings of their authors and this produces a strong motivation in the learners,” (Babaee & Yahya, 2014, p. 82). The previous researches reflect that the success of the recent phenomenon of online class depends on the attitude and satisfaction of the students. A study by Sultana & Khan (2020) shows that positive attitude of the students about the online class can create an effective teaching learning atmosphere where decisive factors of the students‟ satisfaction can be the e-learning platforms and instructor‟s teaching method. It is important to mention that the instructors are also facing difficulties adapting to the online teaching methods. A case study about online teaching learning in Bangladesh by Rony & Awal (2019) shows that, although, the teachers are changing their perception of their negative views about online classes, their teaching is being troubled by many external factors too. Nonetheless, there are still several aspects of online classes that need to be addressed and students‟ feedback can be a crucial factor. English Literature or literature in general is a diverse field and different forms of literary texts have their own peculiarities where the learners need to approach the text differently (Savvidou, 2004). A student from the Department of English gets to explore several genres of the English Literature (e.g., poetry, short story, novel, drama, literary criticism, etc.), which means the student‟s involvement in the lecture is a crucial factor in the teaching learning process (Van, 2009). In an online class, teaching this diverse field can get difficult for the instructor as certain genres require special setting and active involvement from the students in the lesson. For example, reading William Shakespeare‟s (1564- 1616) Hamlet, Charles Dickens‟s (1812-1870) Great Expectation, reading the poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (1874-1963) or the essay Of Study by Francis Bacon (1561-1626) require different approaches from the teacher as well as the learner. Although previous researches have been conducted on the complex nature of the teaching-learning process in the online classroom in general, the field of teaching English Literature online has not been explored. The unique discipline of English Literature needs to find out the best