English Major Students’ Experiences in Digitizing Contemporary Written Stories into Film through a Project-Based Learning Approach in a State University in the Philippines

With authentic, purpose-driven learning experiences. The study aims to explore English majors’ experiences in adapting contemporary literature into film. The aim was to highlight how the approach influenced their creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. This qualitative study used a narrative analysis approach to gather and analyze data. There were 15 participants chosen using purposive sampling; these were English major students enrolled in a literature course who took part in a Project-Based Learning task where they digitalized contemporary written narratives from the real-life stories of the subjects they had chosen. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the data. The findings reveal that students struggled to use digital tools because they lacked resources, considering they needed to convert text-based stories into a digital format. However, they reflected that it helped to develop their creativity, critical thinking, and imagination skills as they developed their written stories on screen. The Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach enabled students to cultivate essential twenty-first-century skills – digital literacy, collaboration, and adaptability. It is recommended that teachers adopt authentic and formative assessments beyond quizzes and essays. Teachers must be critical in preparing rubrics that evaluate creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and other twenty-first century skills that are needed by students to develop. Giving students the skills to meet sustainable development encourages them to use innovative ideas like PBL, which is important in achieving quality education, which is one of the developmental goals of the United Nations (SDG-4).