Life of Pi as an Advanced Level Text: Teachers' Perceptions on Overcoming Challenges of Teaching Magic Realism

Magic Realism has been spreading globally over the last three decades, attracting many authors and a wide audience. Despite a mixed response from certain students and readers, a large number of such texts are used as course material, including the current G.C.E. Advanced Level (A/L) English syllabus in Sri Lanka. However, the Sri Lankan English Literature curriculum has received little attention from a pedagogical perspective in contrast to the English Language curriculum. This issue is related to the larger problem of literature pedagogy being underdeveloped worldwide. Therefore, this study explored the innovative teaching methods used by teachers against the challenges faced when teaching Magic Realism (in this case, Life of Pi) to A/L students. A narrative inquiry was conducted following a qualitative research approach, utilizing a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews as research tools. The data were thematically analyzed using the six-phase framework proposed by Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke (2012). Accordingly, five distinct themes were identified: ‘The selection of Life of Pi as a conscious effort’, ‘Teaching Life of Pi as an Advanced Level text’, ‘Challenges faced while teaching Life of Pi’, ‘Overcoming challenges’, and ‘Opinions on the inclusion of Magic Realism and Life of Pi in the A/L syllabi’. Results indicated a lack of clear guidelines on teaching and agreed-upon interpretations. To overcome the challenges, various innovative strategies such as concept maps, thematic approaches, role play, debates, discussions on WhatsApp groups, and extracting examples from mythology, fables and Biblical stories had been utilized by teachers. Findings imply that teachers require adequate guidance and training when teaching a new genre. A broader study representing teachers from different districts would provide further insights.