Effectiveness of Incorporating Film Adaptations in EFL Literature Courses: A Case Study in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

line with the recent and ongoing technological changes in Saudi Arabia, which place greater emphasis on cinema and film adaptations, this study aimed to investigate the effect of incorporating films and visual media into literature courses on students’ understanding of and motivation towards literary texts. The participants were 41 fourth-level female students in the Department of English at Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia. The treatment group (n=21) read Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House (1879) and watched the adapted film, whereas the control group (n=20) was asked to only read the play and discuss it in class. The findings revealed that the treatment group performed better in terms of answering questions about play after watching the film adaptation. It is suggested that incorporating film adaptations into literature courses has a positive impact on English as a foreign language students’ understanding of assigned literary texts. This research adds a new case study to the expanding literature. Limitations and future research directions are discussed. KEYWORDS English language, literary texts, motivational tools, students’ comprehension, teaching methods, visual media