The Impacts Of Task-Based Activities On Efl High-Quality Students’ Involvement In British – American Literature

Abstract

Task-based activities are determined as an effective approach to learning British – American Literature. To implement more useful task-based activities, it is essential to understand the impacts of task-based activities on learning. The study focused on seven (7) task-based activities, including (1) making film, (2) making portfolio, (3) group presentation, (4) library search, (5) paper display, (6) making a gift, and (7) literary gala that were applied in two British – American Literature courses such as Introduction to Literature and Introduction to Literary Criticism. A thirty-three-item questionnaire was administered to investigate the effects of those task-based activities on students’ involvement and interviews for students and teachers were employed to examine students’ perceptions of their involvement in those task-based activities and discover teachers’ observations of students’ involvement in their class. The study sample consists of 120 EFL high-quality students who have taken the two courses Introduction to Literature and Introduction to Literary Criticism in their curriculum. The findings revealed that students involved in task-based activities with a significant extent and students had positive perceptions toward their task-based performances. There found a medium correlation between the extent of task-based activities' impacts on students' involvement and students’ perceptions of their involvement. The crosstabulation signified that the Introduction of Literature course required students to do more task based activities than the Introduction to Literary Criticism course. The findings may contribute to the discipline of literature since they not only help students understand the significance of task-based activities in learning literature but also help literature teachers understand students’ perceptions, from which teachers can generate more effective and appropriate task-based activities in classes for enhancing students’ productivity in learning British – American Literature.