Dive-In: Interactive Learning Tool ‘Arthurian Legends: The Knights’ Quest’ Efficacy in Learning Literature Components among Form 1 Students

The literature component is one of the elements in the Malaysian English language syllabus or Form One to Form Five students in secondary schools. Literary work such as poems, drama, short stories and novels are the main opuses of the curriculum. Therefore, there is a significance in teaching literature to the students regardless of its status in examination at school and national levels. Teaching and learning literature has been one of the arduous components for both teachers and students due to a few hindrances especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Teachers are lacking exposure to student-centered literature teaching while the students perceive literature as dull. The ability to comprehend the text also influences students’ learning. Moreover, less proficient students are prone to cease making an effort during literature learning due to its foreign content. Hence, the aim of this paper is to improve pupils’ mastery in a literature novel ‘King Arthur’ using the learning tool ‘Arthurian Legends: The Knight’s Quest’ and acquire their perceptions towards the tool. This interactive multimedia learning tool, Arthurian Leg ends: The Knight’s Quest incorporates digitalisation of the novel, ‘King Arthur’ with an inclusive set of exercises. It is designed as an interactive version of the novel with entrancing narration. Furthermore, it also focuses on other language skills such as reading and vocabulary learning. Lastly, this tool may increase students’ interests by providing a fun learning environment for the students. This paper provides further explanation whether the tool created the opportunity for the pupils to master the novel ‘King Arthur’ and elevated their interest in learning the piece successfully.


Introduction
The inclination of cases of novel coronavirus which led to the pandemic worldwide has disrupted the growth of many countries.Hence, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has developed preventive measures to adhere during pandemic including the avoidance of gatherings (Elengoe, 2020).The education system also has to overcome the adversity in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.A number of governments all over the globe have adjured educational institutions to cease face-to-face instruction, shifting to virtual education almost overnight (Daniel, 2020).Movement Control Order (MCO) was officially implemented on 18th March 2020 in Malaysia to control the spread of novel coronavirus nationwide.Six restrictions were imposed which included the closure of all educational institutions during this lockdown as reported by (New Straits Times, 2020).A change in the national education system has to be done immediately to accommodate the learners' needs.PdPR was introduced to circumvent learners from deprivation of education.However, according to Sabates et al (2021), the schools were shut down temporarily pertinent to the pandemic hastened the learning difficulties experienced by learners worldwide.
Prior to the pandemic, learners struggled with their learning in many ways due to the limited interaction that they have with the teachers.The one-at-the-time mode in online or virtual education for live classes is difficult due to the involvement of active discussion between teachers and learners in literary courses (Mathew and Pandya, 2020).This somehow had an effect on the learning literature component in the English subject.Literature has always been shoved under the rug since it will not be tested in the examination.Hence, learners often neglect the literature lessons as they regard it as trivial.Although literature is not a part of assessment in the English Language, it is vital in language learning.As known, literature is deeply involved with reciting, delving and understanding the texts which enhance the students' ability to learn the language more naturally.As stated by Krasniqi (2019), the spontaneous sentences eases the students and improves their memory retention.Reading through literature is the best drill practice for the nerves that prompt verbal and visual parts of the brain to increase functionality of spoken language.Meanwhile, with the presence of imperative technology in teaching that has been incorporated in teaching and learning may enhance the learning outcome of the students.However, it is known that the use of complex software in building the requisite learning materials is scarce as teachers experience paucity in preparation time for the unprecedented demands of online teaching and learning (OECD, 2019).
Thus, the aim of this paper is to improve pupils' mastery in a literature novel 'King Arthur' and acquire their perceptions towards the tool by utilising 'Arthurian Legends: The Knights' Quest which was developed using Articulate Storyline 360.

Literature Review 1) Literature Component
It is common knowledge that the English language is an inheritance from the British empire from the colonial period.As mentioned by Sulaiman and Yunus (2014), the literary materials served two different purposes; as a support or a resource for teaching English during the early period of independence.In 1990, there was a change of policy from the government as the standard of the English language in the country is declining and may impinged the nation from becoming a developed nation by 2020 (Kayad, 2015).Hence, literature was again brought into language classrooms in the year 2000 which is an integrated element of the English language component today (Sanub and Yunus, 2017).
However, there are profound challenges in traditional literature learning among the learners.Isa and Mahmud (2012) found that some texts in the literary components are culturally and contextually foreign that the learners lost interest and failed to engage deeply with the texts.The study also asserted that the foreign texts included jargon and cultural context which were unfamiliar to the learners.In a study done by Singh et al ( 2020), the teachers stated that the learners were unable to comprehend the text and most of the learners translated from their mother tongue.The learners encountered difficulty due to their proficiency levels.This statement was confirmed by Hussein and Al-Emami (2016) as they mentioned the problem when studying literature attributed to the low level.Moreover, the learners found the poems and novels prescribed were lengthy (Gopal and Mokhtar, 2020).The basis of literary courses is active discussion between two parties, namely teachers and the learner.As claimed by Mathew and Pandya (2021), being in a virtual platform, the possibility for active group participation inclines immensely which leaves no space for the real essence of literary courses to be shared among the group.

2) Interactive Multimedia Learning Materials
The rapid growth of technological developments is needed in education.Due to the addiction to technology, learners have greater preference for their gadgets compared to the textbooks (Djamas and Tinedi, 2018).Hence, the traditional method is no longer a favour in learning and teaching literature.Interactive media is defined as an integration of myriads of media.Prastowo (2011) asserted that interactive multimedia learning materials fuse manifold media such as media, text, sound, animation and simulation that authorise learners' control.In addition, Effendi (2013) explained that learning using instructional model based interactive media was more effective than the other media.Similarly to a study by Rini (2011), the learning achievement was better compared to other media.These studies clearly exhibited that the traditional pencil-and-paper method was becoming slightly irrelevant over the years.

3) Articulate Storyline 360
Articulate Storyline 360 is an authoring tool to create interactive virtual learning materials.According to Benson et al (2019), it has been used to create various materials for diverse fields including academic integrity.The materials created using Storyline are popular in flipped classroom models (Elledge et al., 2018).This tool is used to create and edit files which only can be accessed with Articulate Global products.According to Donellan (2021), the creators, or in this context, the teachers, may add design and interactive features to the slides.Once the material is complete, the story file needs to be exported as a new format to be used by the learners.All the learners need to access the file is a web browser to complete the task created.

Methodology
An empirical study was conducted which involved 35 Form 1 students from a national secondary school in Selangor.Purposive sampling was used for the selection of participants.
The pre-test and post test consisted of 20 questions based on the novel of King Arthur.The same questions were used in both of the tests.To obtain the data of the learners' perception on the material, a survey was carried out.The questionnaire consisted of two parts, namely demographic background and the perceptions.Part A, which was the demographic background, consisted of gender and the first language spoken at home meanwhile Part B consisted of their perceptions toward interactive multimedia learning material.The questionnaire employed a 4-point Likert scale, with the range of 1 to 4, with strongly disagree, disagree, agree and strongly agree respectively.
The game was designed and developed as interactive multimedia learning material.In order to achieve the aim, this study employed Design and Development Research Design by Richey and Klein (2013).The construction of the material was in accordance with the ADDIE model, namely analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation.It was designed and developed using Articulate Storyline with embedded audio and pictures such as pictures, soundtracks and animation.The game was created based on the mediaeval theme which suited King Arthur's setting in the 5th to 6th century.It was designed and created using quizzes with added interactive features.The quizzes were sequenced in chapters.At the beginning of the material, a synopsis of King Arhthur was presented as a quick refresh of the novel for the learners.The characters in the game were based on King Arthur's novel.

Results
The aim of this paper is to improve literacy teaching and learning for learners by utilising Articulate Storyline 360.Table 1 showed the effectiveness of interactive learning in improving learning literature components.Table 2 showed the results of learner's perceptions towards Learning Literature via Arthurian Legends: The Knights' Quest.8. Recommended to use 0.0 0.0 22.9 77.1 Table 2 shows the results acquired from the survey on learners' perceptions towards learning literature through 'Arthurian Legends: The Knights' Quest'.The table established the facts that learners have a positive response towards the intervention in learning literature components.According to the results, 100% of the learners enjoy their literature lesson when the tool 'Arthurian Legends: The Knights' Quest was adopted in the literature teaching resulting in being 94.3% learners are able to concentrate better in class.83.2% of the learners respond positively towards learning literature interactively since interactive multimedia is not an aggravating tool to use (71.8%).Apart from that, learners perceive this as an interesting learning tool (91.4%) and user-friendly (57.1%) that causes them to understand literature effortlessly (85.7%).Thus, as a result, 100% learners perceive that this tool is recommended for everyone to use in order to learn literature effectively.

Discussion
Based on the results of the posttest and survey, the learners' literature learning improved as a result of using interactive multimedia learning material.Arthurian Legends: The Knights' Quest helped the learners tremendously in learning the novel King Arthur.This is supported by previous studies that interactive learning tools ensure the success of lessons (Siagnian and Wau, 2014;Djamas and Tinedi, 2021).Learning interactively allows learners to experience hands-on experience in which the learners engage actively in the lessons, enabling them to acquire and promote retention of the understanding more vigorously.They will have a better memory of the lesson compared to traditional lessons conducted in the classroom.As a result, facile access to the acquired knowledge is possible when the muscle memory is established (Bransford et. al., 2000).Yunus and Suliman (2014) found that the pupils harboured positive attitudes towards learning literature components using ICT tools.However, the complexity and difficulty level of literature components in the language classroom deterred their literature learning process.Thus, the production of 'Arthurian Legends: The Knights' Quest' using Articulate Storyline 360 is one of the tools in order to aid pupils to master the novel, 'King Arthur' as well as to elevate their literature learning.This can be seen through the increase of numbers of pupils that scored excellently in the posttest after using the interactive learning tool.The learning styles of learners has progressed throughout the century with the advancement of technology.Previously, teaching English in the classroom only pivoted around 'chalk and talk', nonetheless, the traditional teaching and learning approach is no longer practical for the current generation as they were exposed to the technology since childhood.The result from the survey also showed that the pupils agreed that they enjoyed the literature lesson and were able to concentrate better in the classroom.As mentioned by Miller (2009) (as cited in Ciampa, 2012), by making the classroom texts more engaging and connected to the outside world, the pupils are able to improve their reading ability, at the same time, their motivation as well.Hence, pupils learn literature components better and produce positive outcomes.

Conclusion and Recommendation
This paper intended to evaluate the effectiveness of interactive multimedia learning material in learning literature.The results exhibited that the interactive learning tool is indeed beneficial as it improved the learners' literature learning.A few reasons associated with the improvement lie in the fun and interesting material and it allowed the learners to explore their own learning.In designing and developing the material, it is crucial to refer to the ADDIE model to ensure a positive outcome.The implication of this paper is to encourage teachers to modify their teaching materials to accommodate the learners' needs to create a fun learning environment.In the future, studies can explore different genres to suit different levels of proficiency.Thus, interactive multimedia learning material may be the key to solve issues related to learning literature in the ESL classroom.

Table 1
The Scores of Pretest and Post TestBased on Table1, it is notable that there was a significant improvement in learners' knowledge in pertinent literature components when the post-test scores enhanced remarkably.The results were classified based on the Malaysian Education Grading System.Initially, there was only one of the learners who attained grade A in pre-test.However, the number increased to 17 in the post-test.Meanwhile, 54% of the learners (19) who obtained the grade F failed in the pre-test.Nonetheless, the number was neutralised in the post-test in which none of the learners failed.This indicates that the intervention has a pivoting role in the improvement in learning literature components.

Table 2
Perceptions towards Learning Literature via Arthurian Legends: The Knights' Quest