DESIGNING A TASK-BASED LITERATURE COURSE FOR SECOND YEAR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to design a task-based literature course to Second Year L.M.D. students. To do so, the study begins by evaluating the current Second Year literature course (the classical one) with its two components: the English literature course and the American literature course so as to determine the strengths and weaknesses of this course and notably in what concerns raising students' aesthetic reading or response to literature and extending their language ability. For this purpose, two questionnaires were designed to gather data from the sample which is composed of 5 literature teachers and a group of 30 Second Year students. In addition, the study made use of non-participant ethnographic observation whereby some notes about the procedures of the literature lessons were recorded from two literature classes. The analysis of the data obtained from these research tools shows the following: - The students and the teachers have different priorities concerning the objectives to achieve from the literature course: While the teachers are more concerned with literary skills, the students are concerned with developing their language ability - The difficulty and inaccessibility of some of the literary works in the programme. - The use of teacher-centred teaching techniques which do not encourage students' interaction and therefore reaction or response to the literary text - The teachers take students' language ability for granted and focus on literary analysis at the expense of the language of the texts. - The use of assessment procedures more appropriate to native speakers than non- native speakers. Based on these findings and on the teachers' and the students' suggestions, the study comes up with a task-based literature course for Second Year L.M.D. students. The course involves students in performing tasks before, while and after reading. We presume that this will ensure the engagement of the students with the literary text while paying attention to its language and encourage them to generate discourse. As such the purposes of raising students' aesthetic reading and developing their language ability are both served.