Integrating task based instruction as an alternative approach in teaching reading comprehension at an upper secondary school in hanoi an action research

That is a reason why it isvery important to improve English teaching and learning for students effectively.Throughout many years, traditional focus of many teaching approaches has beenma

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ THỦY

INTEGRATING TASK-BASED INSTRUCTION AS AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH IN TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN HANOI: AN ACTION RESEARCH (Tích hợp phương pháp dạy học giao nhiệm vụ như là một đường hướng thay thế

trong giảng dạy kỹ năng đọc hiểu tại một trường trung học phổ thông ở Hà Nội

Một nghiên cứu cải tiến sư phạm.)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ THỦY

INTEGRATING TASK-BASED INSTRUCTION AS AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH IN TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN HANOI: AN ACTION RESEARCH (Tích hợp phương pháp dạy học giao nhiệm vụ như là một đường hướng thay thế

trong giảng dạy kỹ năng đọc hiểu tại một trường trung học phổ thông ở Hà Nội

Một nghiên cứu cải tiến sư phạm.)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Supervisor: Prof Hoàng Văn Vân

I certify that I myself write this thesis entitled “Integrating Task-based Instruction

as an Alternative Approach in Teaching Reading Comprehension at an Upper Secondary School in Hanoi: An Action Research.” It is not a plagiarism or made

by others Anything related to others‟ works is written in quotation, the sources ofwhich are listed on the list of references If then the pronouncement proves wrong, I

am ready to accept any academic punishment, including the withdrawal orcancellation of my academic degree

Signature

Firstly, I would like to express my deepest thanks of gratitude to my respectablesupervisor, Prof Dr Hoang Van Van for his friendly and sympathetic assistanceand dedicated involvement throughout the process of this thesis

I would also like to be grateful to all my dear colleagues of FPT high school, and

my classmates of the Department of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languagesand International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their helpful aswell as practical suggestions

My sincere thanks go to classes of FPT high school for their crucial participation incompleting the survey questionnaires and their willingness to provide their ideas onthis study as well

Last but not least, I also own a great debt of gratitude to my family and friends fortheir immeasurable support bot all my degree and in this arduous process of thisstudy

Developing reading comprehension ability is an important aspect in acquisition of alanguage The present study focused on improving reading comprehension abilitythrough Task-based Instruction (TBI) TBI is a methodology that develops from afocus on classroom tasks The participants of the study were 100 students at fromfour classes of 11th grade at FPT high school through a quasi-experimental design.The participants were divided into two groups, one control group (CG) and oneexperimental group (EG) An action research with a cycle of treatment wasemployed in this research The participants received a pre-test, the instruction, and apost-test The participants in EG were taught through TBI, whereas the others in CGwere exposed to a traditional method The comparison between CG and EGs weremade through paired sample t-tests The results revealed that the students in EGsoutperformed CGs The results are also supported by the gathered data from thequestionnaires, interviews, and class observations This study may have pedagogicalimplications for practitioners in the field and for syllabus designers to includeappropriate tasks in English textbooks and English teachers/instructions to deliverthe appropriate teaching methods to their students

Key words: reading, reading comprehension, task based instruction

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Rationale for the study 2

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study 4

1.4 Research questions 5

1.5 Significance of the study 5

1.6 A Summary of methodology 6

1.6.1 Participants 6

1.6.2 Research instruments 6

1.6.3 Research procedures 7

1.7 Structure of the study 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 9

2.1 Reading 9

2.1.1 Definition 9

2.1.2 Purposes of reading 10

2.1.3 Reading process 10

2.2 Reading comprehension 11

2.3 Task based instructions 13

2.3.1 Definition of task 13

2.3.2 Task based instructions 14

2.4 Theoretical frameworks: Framework by Willis (1996) 16

2.5 Previous studies 17

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 20

3.1 Research settings 20

3.1.1 FPT Upper Secondary School 20

3.1.2 Teachers and students 20

3.1.3 Reading materials 21

3.2 Research method 22

3.2.1 Classroom action research (CAR) 22

3.2.2 Treatment 28

3.3 Data collection instruments 29

3.3.1 Reading tests 29

3.3.2 Questionnaires 30

3.3.3 Class observation 31

3.3.4 Interview 32

3.3.5 Data collection procedure 33

3.4 Data analysis 33

3.5 Summary 34

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 35

4.1 Results from tests 35

4.1.1 The distribution of the test results 35

4.1.2 Descriptive statistics 37

4.2 Results from the questionnaires and interviews 38

4.2.1 Students‟ and teachers attitude toward the textbook 39

4.2.2 Students‟ assessments on teachers‟ teaching activities in reading lessons40 4.2.3 Accomplishment of students‟ performance in reading period 40

4.2.4 Learning reading skills of the 11th students 41

4.2.5 Students‟ attitudes towards the roles of teachers 43

4.2.6 Teachers‟ activities at reading stages 43

4.2.6.1 Teachers‟ activities at pre-reading stage 43

4.2.6.2 Teachers‟ activities at while-reading stage 44

4.2.6.3 Teachers‟ activities at post-reading stage 44

4.3 Results from observations 45

4.4 Discussions 45

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 47

5.1 Recapitulation 47

5.2 Concluding remarks 48

5.3 Implications 50

5.4 Recommendations 51

5.4.1 Recommendations for teachers 51

5.4.2 Recommendations for students 52

5.5 Limitations 52

5.6 Suggestions for the further study 53

REFERENCES 54 APPENDIX I

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students I Appendix 2: Interview questions for teachers IV Appendix 3: Interview transcript summary V Appendix 4: Sample of classroom observation (two samples in four) VII Appendix 5: Reading tests XV Reading pre-test XV Reading post-test XX Appendix 6: Test results XXV Appendix 7: A sample of lesson plan with task based approach XXX

: English as Second Language

: English as Second Language

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 2.1: A Heuristic approach for reading comprehension 12

Figure 3.1: The scheme of Classroom Action Research (CAR) 23

Figure 4.1 Comparison between pre-test and post-test score 36

Figure 4.2: Students‟ difficulties in doing reading tasks 42

Table 3.1: Procedures for test development 30

Table 3.2: Score interval for tests 30

Table 4.1: Paired sample t-test between means of CG and EG on pre-test 37

Table 4.2: Paired sample t-test between means of CG and EG on post-test 38

Table 4.3: The descriptive statistics of the two tests scores 38

Table 4.4: Students‟ attitude toward the textbook 39

Table 4.5: Students‟ assessments on the teachers‟ teaching activities in reading periods 40

Table 4.6: Accomplishment of students‟ performance in reading lessons 40

Table 4.7: Kinds of tasks 41

Table 4.8: Students‟ strategies of doing reading tasks 42

CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study

These days, it is thought that language itself plays a significant role in our daily lifeand it is believed to be the most effective means of communication Around theworld, the greater the demand of communication among people is, the morenecessary everyone needs to learn at least one foreign language Therefore, English

is increasingly taught and learnt as a second/foreign language in all fields of lifesuch as technology, education, tourism, etc in Vietnam It is special to suggest thatEnglish has become a compulsory subject in high schools That is a reason why it isvery important to improve English teaching and learning for students effectively.Throughout many years, traditional focus of many teaching approaches has beenmainly on grammar, so it is accepted as the key of various classroom activities.However, nowadays it is mostly undeniable to trust that reading comprehension isconsidered as an important language skill in learning new information because itcan help foster the process of language acquisition and assist students to readvarious materials for a great number of purposes (Poorahmadi, 2012) According tothat, learners can gain information and knowledge to meet their needs of learning,doing research, entertaining, etc by mastering reading comprehension via differentmaterials for plentiful purposes

Besides, it is one of the most integral skills which are essential for students,especially the high-school ones In detail, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education andTraining (MOET, 2012) emphasizes that flourishing communicative competence forstudents is one of the most essential targets in building and implementing foreignlanguage teaching Students are required to achieve certain linguistic knowledge andenhance communication strategies and skills after finish English curriculum in highschools Hence, teaching reading comprehension aims to help students developessential reading skills (e.g., skimming and scanning) and strategies (e.g., meta-cognitive strategies, affective strategies) and achieve linguistic knowledge (e.g.,lexical knowledge, grammatical knowledge) (MOET, 2012) Nevertheless, to alarge extent, both teachers and learners cannot obtain the aims for teaching and

learning reading comprehension in this study‟s context Probably, most studentslack motivation in learning reading and their performance in reading comprehension

is still far from satisfactory It could be argued that the use of Grammar Translation(GMT), which mainly focused on eliciting vocabularies and translating writtentexts, might have resulted in students‟ poor motivation and achievement in readingcomprehension As a result, the researcher found it necessary to find out analternative that could work in terms of motivating students to learn reading andimproving their reading comprehension In fact, different approaches such asNatural approach, Communicative Language Teaching, Content-based or Task-Based approach launched and emerged in second language learning When teachingreading, some issues may arise, for example, how to apply students‟ reading ability,how to improve their reading comprehension, how to assess their reading ability,and so on There is some increasing evidence to suggest that task-based approach isone of the approaches that put students into meaningful contexts and make themproduce as much English as possible

1.2 Rationale for the study

Many students have difficulty comprehending what they read All schools need tohave some sort of remedial reading program provided to help struggling students.Low reading skills affect both reading fluency and comprehension for elementaryschool students Reading skills are foundational building blocks at this age and theearlier students with low reading skills receive interventions, the greater theinterventions will impact the students‟ reading ability (Hausheer, Hansen, &Doumas, 2011) Knowing how to read words has ultimately little value if thestudent is unable to construct meaning from the text (Klinger, Vaughn, &Boardman, 2007) If schools are able to provide what the students need, there will

be more success for everyone involved

Reading is one of the important skills in English and it gives many benefits for us.Reading is the window of the world By reading, people can get more knowledgeand information from books, magazines, newspapers, and others Reading is themost important component in learning process and social interaction for the

following reasons: (i) firstly, reading is an indispensable communication tool in acivilized society; (ii) secondly, the reading materials produced in any period of time

in history are most influenced by social background; and (iii) thirdly, developments,that over the period of the recorded history of reading has led to two very differentpoles (Klinger, Vaughn, & Boardman, 2007)

Reading is bringing meaning to and getting meaning from printed or writtenmaterial (Finochiaro and Bonomo, 1973) Through the reading activity, the studentscan enlarge their knowledge and it can also make them wise and respectful.Students‟ reading ability must be developed Teachers have duties to develop theirskill and ability Everything teachers do in reading class should be designed to buildstudents‟ ability to understand increasingly complex content of the texts Themethods, techniques, and teaching media that are chosen and used by the teacherwill influence the success of teaching learning process and students‟ achievement

By developing good method, technique and media students are expected to be able

to have an active learning Active learning can make the students interested in thereading lesson that given to them, not only silent or passive in the teaching andlearning process

There are four skills in learning process; listening, reading, speaking, and writing Inthis research, the researcher will focus on reading skill, because through theteaching experiences and observations it is realized that many students at FPT highschool have problems in understand aspect of English and they always confused tomaster the reading text Reading is the important section to be taught in the school

In reading learning process the student must understand what the content of text toget the information from it Reading is process to transfer the science from book tobrain from writer to reader, and this information will be not received with thereaders if they did not understand what the content of the text Other problem inreading is lack of vocabularies and also pronunciation From that many problems,they will have an opinion that English learning is a difficult in particular the readingskill The students know from their test result that they always failed in the readingtext This matter will out from the goal of teaching learning The solution of thus

problems is that the teacher should know more about approach, method, andstrategy in learning English, as the method will support the teacher way to make histeaching learning more effective Teaching through task, or task based instructionwhich is considered as an activity which involves the use of language but in whichthe focus is on the outcome of the activity rather than on the language used toachieve that outcome can create favorable learning conditions for the students tomaster their reading skills (Kavaliauskiené, 2005) Based on the background andstated problems of the study the researcher conducts a classroom action research on

“Integrating task-based instruction as an alternative approach in teaching reading comprehension at an upper secondary school in Hanoi: An action research” to improve the English teaching and learning process and enhance the

reading competence of English learners

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study

In English as a Foreign Language (EFL) setting, it is mostly believed that readingcomprehension is the central means for learning new information and it is the mostimportant skill needed for the student's success The importance and position ofreading comprehension skill in Vietnamese academic setting like other EFL settingsare undeniable; in a way, it is often introduced as the main goal of English languagelearning Therefore, it has attracted the attention of many English LanguageTeaching (ELT) researchers and applied linguists

The overarching aim of this research is to explore how the English teachers inVietnam use the task-based teaching/approach to solve those exposed problems ofreading comprehension of their students, contributing to the enhancement ofstudents‟ reading comprehension ability

For the achievement of the overall aims, this research seeks out for the followingspecific objectives:

(1) Exploring the theoretical fundamentals of reading skills, reading comprehension, and task-based approach;

(2) Examining the problems with traditional approaches in English reading teaching and learning English at FPT upper secondary school in Hoa Lac, Hanoi;

(3) Determining the meaningful effects of the task based approach on the

students‟ improvement in reading comprehension ability; and

(4) Suggesting the recommendations for English curriculum designers andinstructors/teachers to include useful tasks to students so as to improve their readingcomprehension ability

1.4 Research questions

The following research questions are formulated in response to the aims and

objectives of the study:

Question 1: How are reading skills taught at FPT Upper Secondary School?

Question 2: How does task-based instruction have an effect on reading

comprehension ability of grade 11th students at FPT Upper Secondary School?Question 3: What can the teachers and students do to improve reading

comprehension teaching and learning with reference to the use of task-based

instruction?

1.5 Significance of the study

The available findings in this area reveal that emphasizing on reading based ontraditional approaches and strategies has been the source of new problems In thiscase, Hokmi (2005) states that traditionally EFL students are required to read texts,translate them into the first languages, and answer the comprehension questions.According to Shokouhi (2006), inadequate approaches including GrammarTranslation Method have been dominant in the current EFL textbooks andclassrooms; significant approaches which have shown to be effective in enhancingthe learner's understanding have somewhat been neglected in this trend

In fact, the problem with traditional approaches is that they do not usually consider

as being purpose-driven and comprehension questions generally address allinformation in the text in an undifferentiated manner as if all ideas or aspects of thetext are equally important In this regard, Farhady (2006) clearly asserts that theactivities and exercises in the English textbooks do not give learners a sense ofachievement in terms of the reading skill Tasks are not designed to involve students

in the process of learning, so a remodelling of the texts and activities is highly

recommended Among the recent effective approaches, Task-based LanguageTeaching, also referred to as Task-based Instruction has become an importantapproach; in a way, that it is currently known as the dominant teaching approach tolanguage instruction Therefore, it is expected that the findings of the research willcontribute to only the fulfilment of the literature gap concerning the employment oftask based approach for the improvement of students‟ reading comprehension skillsbut the practical implications for the design of reading comprehension curriculumand lessons with the inclusion of proper and useful tasks.

1.6 A Summary of methodology

1.6.1 Participants

Participants were 100 students from the four intact 11th grade classes at FPT highschool in Hanoi with the age range of 16-18 years old All participants weresupposed to be at the similar level of English proficiency since they have learnedEnglish as a second language for one year and a half at FPT high school The totalnumber of students was selected to do carry out two reading comprehension tests, apre-test and a post-test, to measure the reading comprehension ability of thestudents under the effects of task based approaches in the English reading classes.Furthermore, then, a survey questionnaire was conducted to obtain more in-depthattitudes and perceptions towards the use of task based approach for readingcomprehension teaching by their teachers Four English teachers of the school werealso invited to administrate the reading tests and check the validity of the tests andthe questionnaire

1.6.2 Research instruments

A quasi-experimental research was employed in this study to measure participants‟reading comprehension achievement as well as the influence of focused tasks ontheir reading ability

To collect effective and relevant data for this study, four research techniques werecarried out:

(i) Using a pre-test and a post-test to assess the teaching and learning successthrough the intervention of task based approach in reading

in reading comprehension ability.

1.6.3 Research procedures

The researcher conducted the study with the following steps:

(1) Administering the pre-test and the questionnaire to check the current readingability of the participants;

(2) Carrying out the task based instructions to the two experimental groups as the treatment of action research;

(3) Issuing a questionnaire to check students‟ attitudes, understanding of the experiment period;

(4) Conducting class observations to obtain the way the teachers employs thetask based approach in their teaching of reading comprehension and the attitudes of thestudents towards this approach in the natural context;

(5) Administering a post-test to measure the success of treatment; and

(6) Analyzing the gathered data and discussing the findings for the conclusion and implications

1.7 Structure of the study

The study consists of three main parts: the Introduction, the Development and the Conclusion with reference to five chapters

Chapter 1: Introduction presents the background, rationale, aims and objectives,

scope, methods, significance and design of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review is intended to give some theoretical background

related to reading and reading comprehension in English language, task based

instructions, theoretical frameworks of task based approach and the previousresearches concerning task based approach.

Chapter 3: Methodology deals with research governing orientation, research

methods and presents the situation analysis, participants, data collectioninstruments, data collection procedures and data analysis The detailed results of thesurvey and a comprehensive analysis on the data collected are focused

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions shows major findings and discussions and

offers some recommendations for teachers to use the task based approach toimprove the students‟ reading comprehension skills

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications summarizes the issues addressed,

recapitulates the research procedure, and further makes recommendations for theimplementation of task-based language teaching in the following research

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter deals with three major aspects regarding the studied issues, includingreading and reading comprehension in English; task based instructions; andtheoretical framework by Willis (1996) concerning the use of task-based approach

in foreign language teaching and learning Furthermore, a critical analysis ofprevious studies is carried out in this chapter to explore how the task basedinstructions in English teaching are addressed by the scholars and educationpractitioners

2.1 Reading

2.1.1 Definition

Reading is one of the most important skills in learning language besides listening,speaking and writing It has the fundamental goal to know enough the concept andthe language It operational means an activity that the students perform to gaininformation or massage from the written material the read Therefore, in readingactivity students have intention to obtain knowledge from their listening

Hornby (1994) defines reading as an action of a person who reads Carillo (1976)concludes that educators and psychologists differ as to what should be included inthe definition of reading in three categories, including:

(1) Reading is purely a mechanical process in reading skill by the following:

- A reader‟s accuracy in recognizing words and attacking words that are known;

- The amount of print recognized at each fixation of the eyes;

- The rate of recognizing of words and phrases; and

- Rhythmic progress along the line of print an easy return sweep to the next line

(2) Reading is mechanical process plus the acquisition of meaning advocates of thisbroader view hold that in addition to acquisition efficiency in the mechanical aspectgiven above; the reader must fuse the meaning represented by the printed words into achain of related ideas

(3) Reading is combination of mechanics, understanding, retention, and use In this

broadest of the three views, the reader should be able not to perform themechanics and comprehend and the meanings meaning of the words, but tocritically evaluate the ideas expressed and apply then to his or her situation.Nuttal (1982) states that reading is to recall, to understand, to interpret, and analyzethe printed page while Smith and Robinson (1980) state that reading an activeattempt, on the part of the reader, to understand a writer message The readerinteracts with and try to reconstruct what the writer wishes to communicates Harisand Sipay (1980) state reading is the meaningful interpretation of printed or writtenverbal symbols Nuttal (1982) remarks that reading is process of getting a massagefrom a text or understanding a written text mean extracting the information from thetext as efficiency as possible According to Clark and Silberstein in Anita (2006)define that reading is an active cognitive process of interacting with print andmonitoring comprehension to establish meaning From this point of view, it can beconcluded that reading is an active thinking process where the reader try to gaininformation given by the author and understanding what actually the purpose of theauthor.

2.1.2 Purposes of reading

The purposes of reading refer to readers‟ aims and objectives Therefore, differentreaders may have different purposes in their mind with the reading text in theirhand According to Ruiqi (2007), basically there are two main reading purposesincluding reading for getting information and reading for pure fun or enjoyment.Grabe and Stoller (2002), however, divided reading purposes into seven subtypeswhich are more specific: reading for search for simple information, reading to skimquickly, reading to learn from the text, reading to integrate information, reading towrite, reading to critique the text and reading for general comprehension

2.1.3 Reading process

Reading process is claimed by Gascoigne (2005) to be a selective process which ischaracterized as an active process of comprehending So far, there have been threewidely accepted reading models developed to depict the act of reading or the wayand procedure that readers use to construct meaning from the reading texts The

three reading models are bottom-up, top-down and interactive (Barnett, 1989).

In bottom-up model, reading is compelled by the text, proceeds from part to whole,constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases, sentences Readers process the text

in linear direction (Nunan, 1991) Therefore, in this model, readers are believed toplay a rather passive role The basis of bottom-up reading model lies in thelinguistic knowledge of the reader (Samuel & Kamil, 1988)

In top-down model, the understanding of the text is constructed from whole to part.The readers predict what come next, test their prediction and adjust or confirm Inthis model, readers actively use their background knowledge Goodman (1967)described reading using top-down model like a “psycholinguistic guessing game” inwhich the “reader reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has beenencoded by a writer as a graphic display” (p.135)

Interactive model is a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches Thismodel was discussed as the process of combining textual information with theinformation the reader brings to a text (Widdownson, 1979); therefore, the meaning

of the text is, in fact, “synthesized based on information provided simultaneouslyfrom several knowledge sources” (Stanovich, 1980, p.35)

2.2 Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension is a crucial component of second language acquisition As

a core part of language learning it is, obviously, not an effortless process Learnersoften complain of not understanding a text, therefore they fail in answering to thecomprehensive questions In addition to this, Gough and Tunmer (1986) supportedthat reading comprehension is actually a process of decoding Besides, it is believed

by Smith (1978) that “reading comprehension involves bringing a prior knowledgeinteracted with what she is reading, so that she can achieve comprehension”.Moreover, Block et al (2002, p.5) claimed that “reading comprehension is aninteractive process involving the reader, the text and the context.”

Sedita (2001) claimed that reading comprehension is the ability to determinemeaning from text It is a complicated, interactive process where readers constructmeaning based on information they get from the text combine with their own

knowledge Gough and Tunmer (1986) supported that reading comprehension isactually a process of decoding According to the RAND Reading Study Group(2012), reading comprehension is the process of simultaneously extracting andconstructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written languagewhich entails 3 elements: the reader who doing the comprehending (bring his owncapacities, abilities, knowledge and experiences), the text to be comprehended andthe activity (the purposes, the processes, the consequences) The dynamicinteraction between these elements of reading comprehension can be depicted in thefollowing figure.

Figure 2.1: A Heuristic approach for reading comprehension

Source: RAND Reading Study Group, 2002

In English learning process as input or as English materials is measured thestudents‟ reading comprehension The wrong strategy in teaching can make thestudents lazy and raise impression that subject is not important so they consider thatlearning is the fact of being forced Hence, this research looks into the task basedapproach as an effective method in teaching and learning of reading Englishcomprehension

2.3 Task based instructions

2.3.1 Definition of task

Second language and foreign language teachers both seek to find the means,activities, and tasks to help language learners achieve their goals in learninglanguages Thus, task holds a central role in language pedagogy and SL/FLlanguage research because it is used to assess what learners can do in the L2

The definition of the concept of task can predetermine language use As Nunan(2004) claims, the concept of task has made its way in syllabus design, classroomteaching, and learner assessment It has also influenced pedagogical policies in ESL/EFL classrooms Task has been defined differently by different experts in the field(Lee, 2000; Long, 1985; Prabhu, 1987; Skehan, 1996)

Ellis (2003) claims that the definitions of task have addressed different dimensionssuch as (a) the scope of a task, (b) the perspective from which a task is viewed, (c)its authenticity, (d) linguistic skills required to perform a task, (e) psychological andcognitive processes involved in performance of a task, and (f) the outcome of a task.Willis (1996, p 23) defines task as “an activity where the TL is used by the learnerfor a communicative purpose in order to achieve an outcome.” For Richards andRodgers (2014), a task is an activity carried out as the outcome of processing orunderstanding language Tasks may end in production of language Using differenttasks can make language teaching more communicative

There are different types of tasks which could be employed in ESL/EFL settings,such as, jigsaw tasks, information-gap tasks, problem-solving tasks, decision-making tasks, opinion exchange task, etc They are generally divided intopedagogical tasks and real-world tasks Nunan (1989) believes that task is anactivity which necessarily includes language It involves learners in comprehending,manipulating, producing, or interacting in TL while they focus on meaning ratherthan form For Ellis (2003, p.16) a pedagogical task is “a work plan that requireslearners to process language pragmatically in order to achieve an outcome that can

be evaluated in terms of whether the correct or appropriate propositional content hasbeen conveyed.”

The focus is on meaning even if the design of the task affects learners‟ choice of aparticular form A task can refer to receptive skills (listening and reading) orproductive skills (speaking and writing) Knowing the definition and the dimensionscan differentiate TBI from traditional teaching methods.

2.3.2 Task based instructions

Task-based instruction has gained popularity in the field of language teaching sincethe last decade of 20th century (Sanchez, 2004) In this approach, learnersconcentrate on meaning rather than form; that is, students carry out a group ofcommunicative tasks instead of doing form-based discrete exercises Students areexpected to express their own ideas, either orally or in a written mode, about thetopic of the lesson (Willis, 1996) Nunan (1991) outlines five characteristics of atask-based approach to language learning:

(1) An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target

language

(2) The introduction of authentic texts (teaching materials) into the learning situation.(3) The provision of opportunities for learners to focus not only on language, but also

on the learning process itself

(4) An enhancement of the learner‟s own personal experience as important

contributing elements to classroom learning

(5) An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom

Willis (1996) explains that “within the TBL framework, tasks and texts combine togive students a rich exposure to language and also opportunities to use itthemselves” (p 101) Ellis (2006) cites several authors that propose various designs

of framework; however, they all coincide in three principal stages or phases.According to him, the first phase in the framework shown in the above figure is the

“pretask” that includes the various activities that teachers and students canundertake before beginning the task Some of these activities may be asking andanswering questions or reading a passage related to the topic The second phase, i.e

task cycle or “during-task”, takes place when the task is selected and learnersengage in fulfilling the goals of the task According to Haseli (2004), in this stagethe learners usually perform the task (typically a reading exercise) in pairs or smallgroups The final phase is “post-task” and involves procedures for following up onthe task performance Only the “during-task” phase is obligatory in task-basedteaching Options selected from the “pre-task” or post-task” phases are non-obligatory, but can serve a crucial role in ensuring that the task performance ismaximally effective for language development.

TBI emphasizes on conveying meaning with a proposed product where learners canlearn and practice the forms of TL while paying attention to meaning Tasks areactivities engaging the participants to be language users because tasks improvelearners‟ ability to communicate in real-world As Schmitt (2008) stated, animportant part of mastering a SL is learning understanding reading passages L2learners need a lot of words to successfully read and understand

Vocabulary is a powerful carrier of comprehension However, there is no agreementover the best resources of vocabulary learning/teaching In line with newdevelopments in language teaching methodology, some researchers (De La Fuente,2006; Keating, 2008) have argued that integrating tasks in reading classes canincrease engagement and facilitate learning and teaching As Nation (2001) claimed,L2 learners usually know that their limitations in their vocabulary knowledge affecttheir communication skills, especially reading comprehension because lexical itemsbear the basic information for comprehension

To increase reading comprehension ability, different teachers employ differentmethods, ranging from traditional ones to alternative, communicative one TBI as asubstitute method to traditional language teaching method in teaching English issuggested because it supports a method in which functional communicativelanguage use is expected Ellis (2009) believes that TBI can be both input-providingand output prompting It is a refinement of CLT and takes a fairly strong view ofCLT (Skehan, 1996) It can be regarded as an opportunity to return to theconceptual foundations of CLT (Samuda & Bygate, 2008) In TBI learning

environment, learners are open to choose and use the TL to accomplishcommunicative goals As Carless (2002, p 389) claims, TBI has become “anorthodoxy in contemporary EFL teaching and in recent years has been exported tomany countries around the globe.”

2.4 Theoretical frameworks: Framework by Willis (1996)

Willis (1996) has listed some types of TBL tasks which can be implemented in thestudy context They are:

(1) Listing: in this case, the instructor takes advantage of learner‟s prior knowledge

on the topic to be developed The outcome of this activity may be a list of concepts thatthe instructor collects from the students

(2) Ranking items: students rank their most important work duties where the targetlanguage is needed The outcome of this activity may be the information stored according

to specific criteria

(3) Comparing or contrasting items: in the case of atmosphere, for instance, learnersmay make comparisons between different layers of the atmosphere A whole-classdiscussion about it may be carried out as the outcome of this activity The outcome ofthis activity may be the identification of similarities and differences

(4) Problem-solving activities: in this task, students may give advice on how to solvecommon problems at the workplace The outcome of this activity may be the finding ofsolutions to problems

(5) Sharing personal experiences: those open tasks consist of an exchange of opinionsamong students The outcome of this activity may be the exchange of opinions andattitudes

(6) Creative tasks: these challenging activities require a higher level of preparationand integration of skills The outcome of this activity may be the end-productappropriated by the audience

Conceiving the probable efficiency and advantage of TBI as an innovativeapproach, the researcher tried to study the effect of using this approach on readingcomprehension of 11th grade students through action research which was conducted

at FPT high school, Hanoi.

2.5 Previous studies

There are several previous studies which have been conducted by some researchersconcerning the effects of task based instructions on reading comprehension skills ofthe students Firstly, Ariyani (2011) investigates that there is improvement of thestudents‟ reading comprehension by using task-based learning at the second year ofSMPN 11 Surakarta The result of the research shows that:

(1) Task based learning gives many improvements of students‟ reading

comprehension which includes:

- The students get easy in comprehending English text;

- The students could identify main idea, detail information, reference,vocabularies, and the generic structure of the reading text easily The

improvement of students‟ reading comprehension could be seen from themean score of pre-test, post-test 1 and post-test 2 The mean score of pretestconducts before research was 5.6 The mean score of post-test 1 of the firstcycle was 6.35 and the mean score of post-test 2 of second cycle was 7.58.(2) Task-based learning gives advantages in the teaching learning process which includes:

- The atmosphere of the classroom is alive and interesting

- The students‟ participation in class was high; they have a willing to

participate in class activities

(3) The students are more active

Secondly, Iranmehr et al (2011) find that Task-based learning could havesignificant effect on improving the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) readingcomprehension of Iranian university students which involve 75 and 65 studentsmajoring chemistry at Damghan University and Sharood University of Technology.According to this research, it shows that t (139) = -0.92, there are no statisticallysignificant difference between experimental and control groups in pretest, but t(138) = -7.85 indicates that mean score of experimental group is more than themean score of the control group in post-test which is statistically significant

Therefore, it could be concluded that there is no difference between two groupsbefore treatment but after instructing via task based learning and teaching inexperiment group and conventional method in control group, mean score of theexperimental group promotes significantly more than control group.

Based on this research, the following pedagogical implications might be presented:

(1) Task-based language teaching, which focuses on the ability to perform a task oractivity and not on the explicit teaching of grammatical rules or on vocabularymemorization and has attract the attention of many researchers, language instructors, andsyllabus designers, can be an innovative alternative for university ESP classroom inIranian context; (2) The instructors‟ observation reveals that procedures use in theexperimental group trigger off students to participate more actively in discussions anddevotes more attention and interested in the topic; and

(3) There is no doubt that the current status of ESP in Iran as well as many other EFLcontexts seriously suffers from the available textbooks; and (4) The researcher can useaction research as a practical and user-friendly research which its main purpose isimproving teaching and learning

Thirdly, Suprayoga et al (2013) investigated there are an improvement of the

students‟ reading comprehension by using Task-based language teaching at thethird year of SMAN 1 Srengat, Blitar The improvement of the students‟ readingcomprehension is shown by the increasing number of students who achieves 10point in cycle 2 In cycle 1, 14 out of 30 students (46.67%) achieve 10 point InCycle 2, 27 out of 30 students (90.00%) achieve 10 point Meanwhile the criterion

of success stated that the research is categorized to be successful if at least 60%students achieved 10 point This meant the criterion of success is fulfilled Theresearch is successfully conducted Finally, on the basis of the findings, somesuggestions for the English teachers and the future researchers are made Firstly,English teachers are suggested to use task based language teaching in teachingreading Secondly, in using task-based language teaching, the teachers have to focus

on the followings aspects: how to arrange the lesson plans, how to choose theappropriate reading tasks, how to present the tasks, how to give feedback, and

how to assess Thirdly, teachers have to consider reading as a process to reach theexpect outcome Teachers could provide hints to help them or guide them to find thecorrect answer Based on previous research, the researchers have successfulinvestigated on teaching learning process through task based learning Therefore, byapplying task based instructions, it is hoped that teaching and learning process ofreading will be more active so it can improve the students‟ reading comprehension.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter is to present the research methodology that the researcher chooses toachieve the aims and objectives of the study It reveals the explanation of reasonsfor choosing the research instruments and offers specific ways to gain informationthrough these instruments

3.1 Research settings

3.1.1 FPT Upper Secondary School

FPT Upper Secondary School, one of the best private schools in Hanoi, is famousfor the good quality of teaching and learning, especially English Unlike the otherschools, FPT Upper Secondary School holds an English diagnostic test to categorizethe levels of students Every year, the rate of students who pass entranceexaminations to universities is on average in the area and the number of studentswho can study abroad dominate the others Owing to the high quality Englishteaching, the English proficiency of students at FPT Upper Secondary School ismuch higher than that of the students of other high schools

However, during a reading lesson, the teacher asks students to read a text and thenexplains new words or structures to help them understand the text Sometimes, thereading lesson turns out to be an English-Vietnamese translation one Consequently,the teacher should ask students to do a variety of tasks in order to encourage them toanticipate the contents of reading texts, understand the texts, and develop readingcomprehension skills

3.1.2 Teachers and students

The process of data collection involved the participation of both English teachers(4) and grade 11 students (100) who are teaching and learning at FPT high school in Hanoi

Students

Participants who were drawn from FPT high school in Hanoi, aged 16, both male andfemale have learnt English for 9 years, 4 years at primary school, 4 years at secondaryschool and one year at high school They all have similar background and levels ofEnglish proficiency Most of them come from comparatively rich families,

so their learning condition is quite high Their parents can afford to pay for theirchildren‟s schooling, even some extra classes at home or at the English centers, somematerials for learning such as a dictionary, a cassette player, English books, evenlaptops or computers for learning In addition, their awareness on the importance ofEnglish is considered as motivation for them to learn English Nevertheless, they onlyfocused on spoken English before, so their speaking and listening skills are much betterthan reading skills Moreover, half of them want to study abroad, as a result, it isnecessary for them to learn IELTS including all of four skills (reading, writing,listening and speaking), obviously, their knowledge of English is better, so easily canthey say understand a complete sentence in the target language.

Teachers

There are 4 teachers of English, including the researcher, aged from 27 to 33, 3 ofthem have graduated from the English department, University of Languages andInternational Studies National university, Hanoi; one has graduated from onefamous university of the USA All of them are enthusiastic with their career and had

at least 5 years experienced in teaching English However, 3 of them were trainedunder the strong influence of the Grammar translation methods since graduatingfrom their respective universities Only one of them has taken courses to improveher English and her teaching methods from the native country

3.1.3 Reading materials

The piloted English 11 is commonly required to teach in most of high schools in

most cities and some rural areas, it was developed based on the new nationalcurriculum This textbook is compiled following the program of the primary schooland junior one The methodologies that this book obeys are “learner-centeredapproach and the communicative approach with theme-based curriculum”

Besides, the piloted English book was written by Hoang Van Van (G.Ed.), HoangThi Xuan Hoa (Ed.), Phan Ha, Hoang Thi Hong Hai, Kieu Thi Thu Huong, Vu ThiLan, Dao Ngoc Loc, and Chung The Quang, published by Nha xuat ban giao duc in

collaboration with Pearson Education, is a continuance of the piloted English 10.

In detail, this book consists of 10 teaching units and four review units which is

covered by a topic and sub-divided into five sections including reading, speaking,listening, writing and language focus in eight 45-minute lessons in each unit Theaim of these theme-based units is to offer students unforgettable lessons andpleasurable learning experience In each review lesson, students are provided withrevision and further practice of the preceding units, and taught in two 45-minutelessons Moreover, phonetic transcription of the new words in the units and theirVietnamese equivalents are shown in the glossary part at the end of the book.

In short, the pilot textbook meets a need of Vietnam‟s MOETs which is appropriate

to the students‟ educational psychologies together with the students‟ culturalbackground and the cultural features of Vietnam and all over the world, especiallythe speaking countries around the world

3.2 Research method

3.2.1 Classroom action research (CAR)

In this research, the research design that was used by the researcher is ClassroomAction Research (CAR) According to Arikunto (2012), classroom action research

is a study of learning activities in the form of an action, which deliberately rose, andoccurs in a class together Therefore, it means that classroom action research is aresearch conducted in the classroom

Meanwhile, according to Cresswell (2012), action research designs are systematicprocedures done by teachers (or other individuals in educational setting) to gatherinformation about, and subsequently improve, the ways their particular educationalsetting operates, their teaching, and their students learning

The definition of CAR was explained by (Shofiya et al, 2014) Classroom ActionResearch or CAR is a kind of research design conducted in cycles and it is carriedout to increase the quality of teaching and learning activities in the classroom.Furthermore, in the context of teaching English (Latief, 2011) CAR is aimed atdeveloping an innovative instructional strategy that can help to enhance the success

in students‟ learning English

In this study, CAR is conducted to help the students improve their readingcomprehension The strategy offered is by using task based instructions

The researcher did collaborative CAR, because the researcher directly works

together with the English teacher of the 11th grade students at FPT Upper SecondarySchool in Hanoi As a collaborator, the teacher was involved in the whole process ofthe activities The researcher played as the real teacher meanwhile the Englishteacher is assigned to be an observer.

According to Latief (2011) Classroom Action Research activities involve repeatedcycles, each consisting of planning, acting/implementing, observing and reflecting.The result of one cycle is used to determine the need for the following cycle, untilthe problems get solved by the strategy In this study, the researcher used theprocedure as suggested by Arikunto (2012) The model consists of four steps;Planning, Implementing/Acting, Observing, and Reflecting

Source: Arikunto, 2012

Figure 3.1: The Procedure of Classroom Action Research

3

Step 1: Preliminary Study (Reconnaissance)

Preliminary study is very important to be done to know the real condition of thestudents and also find out the students‟ problem in reading comprehension Theprocess was conducted in November 2018 In the preliminary study, the researcherobserved reading classes and met the English teachers to obtain the informationabout the ability of reading comprehension of students The initial findings revealedthat they are not competent at reading comprehension due to the insufficientknowledge of vocabulary, lack of skills and lack of instructions from the teachers.Besides, from the reading test, the researcher found that the students‟ score waslow This is in line with the meeting with the English teacher, the most students of

11th class at FPT Upper Secondary got difficulties in reading comprehension Thestudents were lack of vocabularies; the students got difficulties to understand thewhole reading The students got difficulties to determine the correct answers Theresult of the difficulties was the students got poor achievement or they got the scorewhich is under the teachers‟ expectation

Step 2: Planning

Planning is the first step in which the researcher planned the teaching technique thatwould be applied in the research Planning is a significant procedure to doClassroom Action Research (CAR) The researcher prepared everything needed inconducting the research This step covers socializing the research program,providing suitable strategy, designing lesson plan, preparing criteria of success andtraining the collaborator teacher

Socializing the research program

The researcher socialized the research program to the Board of FPT UpperSecondary School about what would be done in this research The researcher alsomet the English teachers of 11th grade students The researcher and the teachersdiscussed the technique that would be used in the research and the time allocationneeded in this research The researcher also explained the role and the duty of the

English teacher was as the collaborator teacher who played as the observer duringteaching and learning done by the researcher.

Providing procedures of teaching reading comprehension using task based instructions

Based on the students‟ problem in reading comprehension, the researcher wouldgive the solution by applying task based instruction strategy to overcome thestudents‟ problem in reading comprehension that focus in the problems that found

in the preliminary study The researcher in this research was as a teacher whoimplemented the strategy of task based instructions

Designing a lesson plan

After providing the strategy, the English teacher asked the researcher to arrange thelesson plan about the teaching reading comprehension material A lesson plan was ateacher's detailed description of the course of instruction for an individual lesson Alesson plan was created and developed by a teacher to guide the class instruction.Normally, a lesson plan was designed by the teacher in the beginning of thesemester or before the teaching process was conducted

The researcher made a lesson plan to make easy in teaching learning process, theresearcher explains how to use task based instruction strategy in readingcomprehension The lesson plan was developed by considering course identify theschool, standard competence, basic competence, indicators, learning objectives,teaching material, teaching procedures, learning source and assessment

In designed the lesson plan, teacher must pay attention to the curriculum and thenmake the plan based on the appropriate competence standard and basic competencementioned in it The lesson plan must be practical and operational so it can beeffectively implemented in the classrooms It consists of:

1) School identification, it consists of name of the school, subject, level; time allocation, and state curriculum standards

2) Indicators, it describes the standards of each student that should be mastered in the last

of the learning

3) Instructional objectives, it means the learning outcomes for the lesson

4) Instructional methods, it describes the materials that will be given for the students suitable with curriculum standards

5) Instructional technique, it describes the technique that will be used in teaching and learning process

6) Instructional procedure, in this part of lesson plan, there are kind of items to consider

in the procedure action of the plan It consists of instruction, technique, activities, andshare

7) Material sources, it explains the materials that will be delivered

8) Assessment, it describes kind of tests that will be used in assessing students skill.The lesson plan consists of three meetings for each cycle in conducting thisresearch In the first meeting, the researcher as instructor explains about readingcomprehension gave the example and explained the reading comprehension skills.The second meeting the researcher explained how to use task based instructions asthe strategy to reading The last meeting, the researcher focused to get score byevaluation The researcher directly distributes a paper to the students to check theirreading comprehension ability based on task based instructions

Preparing the criteria of success

A criterion of success was set to determine whether the learning activity in theresearch was successful or not The students can improve their ability in readingcomprehension individually The target of success is 70% It means that 70% of thestudent‟s total of the research get reading score more than 70

Training the collaborator teacher

In this sub heading, firstly the researcher told the collaborator teacher the strategythat would be employed in reading comprehension The researcher showed thecollaborator teacher the sample of the strategy, lesson plan, and the criteria ofsuccess Then the researcher implemented that strategy Moreover, the researcherexplained clearly the steps of implementing task based instructions in teachingreading comprehension to the collaborator teacher.

Step 3: Implementing

In this stage, the researcher played as the teacher and worked collaboratively withthe collaborator (classroom English teacher) The collaborator played as theobserver When the researcher was applying the technique, task based instructionsfor teaching reading comprehension, the collaborator observed the teaching andlearning process using fieldnote which had been prepared The observer observedthe teaching and learning process by focusing on the activities of the teacher inimplementing the technique and the students as the subject In the end of theteaching learning process, the researcher and collaborator teacher discussed andanalyzed the teaching and learning process which had been done

Step 4: Observing

Observation is a step for collecting data The data to be collected are determined bytargeted criteria of success to be achieved In this study, the researcher is going tocollect the data that is representing the achievement of the criteria of success Thedata to be collected are indicators of the result of the implementation of thetechnique used In process of getting the data, the researcher used some instruments

of collecting data, those are: field-note in observation, questionnaire, and test incollecting the score

Step 5: Reflecting

In this stage, the researchers reflected and analyzed whether the teaching learningprocess was done successfully or not to reach the objectives of the lesson plan in the

first cycle Furthermore, (Arikunto, 2010) stated that reflection is an activity ofanalyzing the collected data through doing observation Reflection is also anactivity to put forward what had happened The researcher found out more problemsand weakness of the first cycle, it would be reflected and revised The result of thereflection was taken into consideration as the feedback to enhance toimplementation of the strategy in the next cycle Then, the researcher would use allinformation gathered to re- planning the next cycle After that, the researcherdecided to take some new steps in the next cycle in order to overcome the problem.The next step was data analysis The technique for analyzing data was as follows.Firstly, the data were classified according to the kinds of data source The datataken from observation would be analyzed descriptively For the test, the datawould be analyzed quantitatively.

3.2.2 Treatment

The population of the study were Vietnamese high school students The samplingwas based on availability sampling The participants were 100 students of 11thgrade at FPT Upper Secondary School The mean score of the two groups wereused in order to place them into two groups, experimental group and two controlgroup (EG, and CG) The classes participating into the research include 11A6,11A7, 11A8, and 11A10 While the students of 11A6 and 11A7 are grouped as the

EG, the left students of 11A8, and 11A10 are categorized as the CG The EGstudents received a treatment consisting of different tasks assigned by their teachers

to motivate their engagement and participation into the lessons while the CGreceived only traditional teaching activities with no focus on tasks or TBI There isone cycle of treatment in this action research After the completion of each research,the review and feedbacks will be carried out before the start of the following cycle.Concerning the intervention actions during the treatment, the treatment took place

in ten weeks with the ten lessons in which such different tasks were employed bythe teachers such as pair works, group works, presentation tasks, etc to enhancetheir students‟ motivation and engagement The sample of a lesson with the

intervention of task based instruction in the reading lessons is provided in theAppendix 7.

During the experiment, the both groups (EG and CG) had the same curriculum andthe same schedule of instruction, except that in the control group, the students hadthe conventional learning, that is, the teacher introduced the new words and phrases,and the students began to translate the passages into Vietnamese and answer thetraditional comprehension questions and exercises For the experimental group, thesame passages were redesigned by the researchers to fit Willis's task-basedframework Thus, for them the class time was divided into three phases namely, pre-task, task cycle and post-task

3.3 Data collection instruments

According to Douglas (2015), data collection plays a very crucial role in thestatistical analysis In this research, the researcher used four instruments for datacollection including tests, questionnaires, class observations and interviews forcollecting sufficient data for the analysis of studied issues

3.3.1 Reading tests

The first testing instrument was a standard proficiency test This test aimed atcontrolling the proficiency level of the subjects Both pre-test and post-test wereready comprehension tests which consisted of 25 multiple-choice questions Theywere all the same and were from the same source The time allotted was 100minutes

The pre-and post-tests were carried out to evaluate the improvement in the readingcomprehension competency of the students participating in the research The pre-test is for identifying the existing status of English reading comprehension skill ofthe students which was conducted with 100% of the sample pool (100 students)before the treatment for the experimental class while the post-test has beenconducted for getting the implication of applying the group work in a realclassroom

The reading passages related to the topics taken from the textbook Tieng Anh 10 Thi Diem and Tieng Anh 11 Thi Diem taught in the first semester (2018-2019) Each test

had 25 questions; each question was given 4 points, so the total score was 100points To make sure that these tests can give a reliable answer to the study, theresearcher based on qualities of a good test as validity, reliability, discrimination,practicality, and wash-back The researcher also followed the procedure forconstruction these tests as below:

Phases Procedures

1 Design the two tests based on the study purpose, the course syllabus

and the students‟ reading competence

2 Submit to the supervisor and some other seniors for first-stage pilot

3 Modify if necessary

4 Pilot on another sample of equal English proficiency

5 Revise carefully and complete the final version

Table 3.1: Procedures for test development

The classification of the students‟ score is as follows:

to the selected population and aim to covers 100 % of the population