Exploring the Use of Drawing Task to Enhance Students’ Reading Comprehension

Abstract

This study explores the use of drawing task in the implementation of task-based language teaching to teach reading comprehension. The result reported here is a part of an experimental study which sought to look at the contribution of different task types on the students' reading comprehension. One of the tasks was drawing task. This study involved one randomly selected class of the 10th year senior high school students in Padang (West Sumatera). The data were collected through reading test and observation. The result of the data showed that drawing task was the most successful task. It is indicated by the average score the students gained in the test; that is 95. The result of observation also revealed that drawing task was interesting for the students. There are some factors which may explain these findings. In addition to its attractive sense, Drawing Task offers more authenticity and creativity to the students to deal with their reading text and comprehension. This leads to high motivation and engagement in reading and doing the tasks. However, some challenges in Drawing Task implementation need to be taken into account such as preparation, task duration, and text types.

Task-Based Language Teaching; Potential Benefits and Possible Criticisms in Indonesian Contexts

“…In relation to TBLT, experimental studies have found that the use of TBLT increases EFL students' intrinsic motivation (NamazianDost et al, 2017;Pietri, 2015). In a similar vein, in Indonesian context, Sukma et al (2020) and Saputro et al (2021) found that TBLT enhanced the students' motivation and enthusiasm to learn English through meaningful tasks. The Indonesian students enjoyed TBLT classroom learning activities and got engaged with it (Saputro et al, 2021).…”

“…The key distinctive aspect of TBLT lies in the provision of tasks as the main classroom activities (Ellis, 2009;Sukma et al, 2020). Advocates of TBLT have conceptualised tasks in different ways.…”

“…As a result of the students' higher motivation and engagement with their English language learning process that TBLT has generated (Sukma et al, 2020), it was found that the use of TBLT inspired the students to have significantly higher desire to communicate their thoughts through writing products (Yundayani and Ardiasih, 2021). Further, their writing products were of higher quality (Hakim, 2019).…”

“…In terms of the written language, numerous studies also have confirmed the effectiveness of TBLT to improve the EFL students reading and writing skills. It was found that the tenet of TBLT that requires the use of meaningful or real-world tasks facilitates the EFL students to have better performance in reading comprehension (Chalak, 2015;Sukma et al, 2020). Shabani & Ghasemi (2014), for example, conducted experimental research and found that EFL students who were taught using TBLT outperform their peers taught using CBLT (content-based language teaching) in terms of reading comprehension.…”

“…In addition, the use of TBLT in reading activities has also been successful to improve EFL students' motivation and habit to reading (Chen, 2018). In Indonesian context, it was found that the use taskbased activities, which offer more authentic use of the target language, has accelerated the students' creativity and reading comprehension (Sukma et al, 2020). Further, it also increased the students' interest as well as formed their habit in reading (Arifuddin, 2019).…”