How to design communicative tasks for non english major freshmen at ho chi minh city institute of applied science and technology m a

After analyzing the components of communicative tasks, the models of organizing lessons, the basis principles of communicative tasks design, as well as the students’ needs and materials,

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE



HOW TO DESIGN COMMUNICATIVE TASKS FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR FRESHMEN

AT HO CHI MINH CITY INSTITUTE OF APPLIED

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Submitted to the Department of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

NGUYEN THUY MINH TRANG

Supervised by DOAN HUE DUNG, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, OCTOBER 2012

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF MASTERS’ THESIS

I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled

How to Design Communicative Tasks for non-English Major Freshmen

at Ho Chi Minh City Institute of Applied Science and Technology

In terms of the Statement of requirements for Theses in Masters’ programs issued

by the Higher Degree Committee of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University of Ho Chi Minh City

HCMC, October, 2012

NGUYEN THUY MINH TRANG

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that, I, NGUYEN THUY MINH TRANG, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree to the original of my thesis being deposited in the Library to be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal condition established by the Librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of theses

HCMC, October, 2012

Signature

NGUYEN THUY MINH TRANG

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper could not have been completed without the help, encouragement and support from a number of people who all deserve my sincerest gratitude and appreciation

First of all, I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude to PhD Doan Hue Dung,

my supervisor I’m indebted to her inspiration, scholarly supervision and intellectual support throughout the course of writing this thesis paper Her continual careful reading, critical comments and patient guidance during the study periods and the experimental time made my work more enjoyable and easier Special words of thank also go to all my informants for their willing participation

in the study I greatly appreciate their generosity with their time and efforts in filling in the questionnaire Without them this paper could not have been possible

My deepest gratitude and appreciation go to my family, my friends and my honey Their love, support and constant encouragement gave me a great deal of strength and determination that help me during the stressful time of writing this paper Finally, I offer my regards and blessings to all of those who supported me in any respect during the completion of the paper

CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF MASTERS’ THESIS ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ix

ABSTRACT x

CHAPTER 1:INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background 1

1.1.1 An Overview of the Course at HIAST 3

1.1.2 An Overview of the English Course book 4

1.2 The Aim of the Research 7

1.3 Research Questions 7

1.4 Scope of the Study: 7

1.5 Significance of the Study: 8

1.6 Organization of the Study 9

CHAPTER 2:LITERATURE REVIEW 10

2.1 An overview of tasks and communicative tasks 10

2.1.1 Task 10

2.1.2 Communicative tasks 12

2.1.3 The characteristics of accuracy and fluency activities 22

2.2 Communicative competence 23

2.3 Models of Organizing Lessons 24

2.4 Principles of Communicative Tasks Design 27

2.4.1 The Principle of Meaningful Tasks 27

2.4.2 The Principle of Some Focus on Language Form 28

2.4.3 The Authenticity Principle 28

2.4.4 The Principle of Reasonable Task Difficulty 29

2.5 Related research on designing and implementing communicative tasks in

class 30

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 35

3.1 Type of research 35

3.2 Research Instruments 36

3.2.1 Questionnaires 36

3.2.2 Structured interview 38

3.2.3 Researcher’s observation diaries 39

3.2.4 Oral test 39

3.3 Participants 41

3.3.1 Students 41

3.3.2 Teachers 43

3.4 The experimental teaching 44

3.5 Data analysis method and procedure: 47

CHAPTER 4:DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS 48

4.1 Research Analysis 48

4.1.1 Students’ responses to the questionnaires 48

4.1.2 Teacher’s responses to the questionnaires 53

4.2 Approaches to design effective communicative tasks 58

4.2.1 Designing Goal-oriented Communicative Tasks 58

4.2.2 Designing Post-task Cycle Language Focus on Phrases 59

4.3 Students’ evaluation on the effectiveness of the communicative tasks 61

4.4 Students’ scores on oral test 63

4.5 Students’ responses to the interview 64

4.6 Classroom diary 67

CHAPTER 5:SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION 73

5.1 Summary of findings 73

5.2 Recommendations 74

5.3 Conclusion 76

5.4 Limitations 77

5.5 Suggestions for further studies 77

REFERENCES 79

APPENDIX 1: Questionnaires for Teachers 86

APPENDIX 2: Questionnaires for Students 88

APPENDIX 3: Interview Questions for Students 92

APPENDIX 4: Oral Test 94

APPENDIX 5: Procedures of Communicative Tasks 101

APPENDIX 6: Observation Dairies 105

APPENDIX 7:Samples of Communicative Tasks 108

APPENDIX 8: Five Standards of Evaluating Effective Communicative Tasks 134

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

HIAST Ho Chi Minh City Institute of Applied Science and Technology

IE International Express_ Elementary

CLT Communicative language teaching

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: Personal information of the students 43

Table 3.2: Personal information of the teachers 44

Table 4.1: Students’ years of studying English 48

Table 4.2: Students’ speaking skill level 49

Table 4.3: Students’ scores on oral test 64

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1: Students’ view on the importance of communicative competence in English 49

Figure 4.2: Causes/Reasons make student reluctant to participate in communicative tasks 51

Figure 4.3: Types of communicative tasks students are interested in 52

Figure 4.4: Students’ participation in communicative tasks 53

Figure 4.5: Teachers’ opinion about students’ weaknesses in speaking English 54

Figure 4.6 Kind of activities students often practice in class 55

Figure 4.7: Students’ evaluation on the effectiveness of the communicative tasks 63

Figure 4.8 Comparison between Group A and Group B in three main aspects 71

ABSTRACT

The study was carried out at Ho Chi Minh City Institute of Applied Science and Technology (HIAST) The study will be planned for 13 weeks to answer the research questions (1) How have communicative tasks been used in the teaching of International Express_Elementary; (2) What are the roles of communicative tasks

in enhancing the speaking competence among non-English majored freshmen at HIAST?

The teaching material used is International Express, Elementary, written by Liz Taylor, published by First New Observation diaries, interviews and questionnaire for the HIAST students and teachers are also used There are 191 students and teachers involved in the survey, of whom 12 teachers presented their viewpoints in interviews Furthermore, data collected from the observation of actual class activities also contribute to the analysis in this thesis After analyzing the components of communicative tasks, the models of organizing lessons, the basis principles of communicative tasks design, as well as the students’ needs and materials, the author designs a variety of communicative tasks which will motivate student in learning English and improve their speaking skill as well as to create a more interesting, enjoyable atmosphere in the classroom The survey revealed that communicative tasks not only help the students improve their speaking competence, engage them in class activities but also create fun, motivation and an

interesting learning environment inside the language classroom The result of the

research is successful, but there are still some limitations that need further research

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background

Nowadays, English is an important means of international communication Students’ fluency in English speaking allows them to look for a job and cooperate with their colleagues at work successfully And those with more effective communicative competence are tend to be more successful in school and in other areas of their lives The need to use English and communicative directly in English has increased more than ever among most Vietnamese learners of English Therefore, developing the communicative competence in English has gradually become the most important goal to be achieved by Vietnamese students It is also a major goal of English teaching in Ho Chi Minh City Institute of Applied Science and Technology (HIAST), that is, to enhance students’ ability to use English effectively in social interaction and at work, especially in listening and speaking

In fact, most students at HIAST have low rates of verbal participation and fail to express themselves with basic fluency and accuracy Therefore, the challenge is to motivate students to use English to communicate effectively The concern is how

to make the speaking activities that are enjoyable and that are based on a communicative approach and how the process of learning should be a process of using English for communication

For the past decade, communicative language teaching has been viewed as a default approach in almost every English language classroom worldwide to help students increase communicative competent According to Nunan (1991), CLT places an emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language Communicative tasks are viewed as techniques that can be used in CLT,

in which the role of the students is emphasized, as a result stimulate their maximum participation in the lesson In addition, tasks provide input to students and opportunities for meaningful language use and play roles of motivations and

stimulations in language classroom Students are put in real life situations with the capacity, the background knowledge to cope with

There have been a lot of researches and theories on the use of tasks in language teaching, particularly tasks which involve interaction between learners (e.g., Breen, 1987; Prabhu, 1987; Nunan, 1989) Jacobs, George M and Elena Navas (2004) concluded such task-based language teaching is believed to promote language acquisition by providing learners with opportunities to make the language input they receive more comprehensible; furnishing contexts in which learners need to produce output which others can understand, and making the classroom closer to real-life language situations

According to Ur (1996:120), “of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), speaking seems intuitively the most important” People who know a language are referred to as “speakers” of that language and most foreign language learners are primarily interested in learning to speak Also, as Ur said, speaking activities in the classroom that develop learners’ ability to express themselves through speech would therefore be looked as an important component

of a language course However, it is not easy to design and administer such speaking activities There are some problems caused by learners as they participate

in speaking activities, so the teachers should analyzes their students’ problems of speaking In line with that, teachers should design an effective speaking activity to meet the needs of solving learners’ problems

Hence, the students are sure that they are doing the best to achieve a target Students at all levels can benefit from the use of different activities which can expand students’ spoken English rather than exercise practice Mostly, the teachers have a course book, a teacher’s book and grammar books which do not guide clearly how to design and use communicative tasks effectively Besides, nearly all

of the students find it difficult to use English in speaking practice All these factors encourage the researcher to conduct this study on how to design communicative tasks effectively and to what benefit it brings to improve students speaking skills

In fact, there are many books suggesting variety of communicative tasks, but how the teachers choose the one which is appropriate while they have little time to make the most use of it Since teaching materials are written by foreigners, there are many tasks do not suit the students’ needs and interest due to culture problems As a result, these tasks fail to attract the active participation from students Therefore, effective communicative tasks should be carefully designed for the teaching units and implemented in class scientifically for the best teaching effect At the main point of the study, the role of communicative tasks in the communicative approach are studied and analyzed Hopefully this study will serve

as a useful source of reference for teachers and students at HIAST and others who may concern

In order to design effective communicative tasks for students at HIAST, it

is necessary to analyzing the components of communicative tasks and do some research on the students and materials before design

1.1.1 An Overview of the Course at HIAST

Students at HIAST studied English for 3 years including 2 stages In the first stage, they study English for General English In the first semester, the material is used is International Express_Elementary by Liz Taylor, which help them to develop 4 skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing In the next

3 semesters, they study the TOEIC series books to prepare them well for the test in the future to get at least scores 300 in TOEIC In the second stage, they study English for special purposes

Here are the summary of the first stage:

Stage 1: ENGLISH FOR GENERAL PURPOSE

Stage Year Main course book

1

1

1 International Express_Elementary by Liz Taylor

2 Starter TOEIC® - Building TOEIC® Test-taking Skills

2

3 Developing Skills for the TOEIC® Test

4 TOEIC® Analyst - Mastering TOEIC® Test-taking

Skills

1.1.2 An Overview of the English Course book

The course book is International Express_ Elementary level, New Edition written by Liz Taylor and published by Oxford University International Express combines general English with business situations, giving students the social and

functional English they need to work, travel, and socialize International Express is

the ideal course for professional students who need to communicate in English when working, traveling, or socializing The balance of general and business English is suitable for those who need to interact in a variety of situations both in and out of the workplace The balance of general and business English is more directly relevant to adult professionals Each unit includes 3 main sections: Language focus, Word power and Focus on communication These sections are the same for all units The 'Focus on Communication' section in every unit teaches students how to communicate in different work-related situations, such as welcoming a visitor, making and changing arrangement, starting a call Each unit

is taught in 2 lessons of 6 periods a week Regular review units and self-study options are in the Workbook and handy Pocket Book

The book aims to cover all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing Its syllabus is topic-based with 12 teaching units and six review sections titled “Review Test” Each unit covers a topic and is divided into three sections: language focus, word power and focus on communication with each

Lifestyle; Unit 3: A great place to work; Unit 4: The road to success; Unit 5: The world’s largest industry; Unit 6: Global comparison; Unit 7: Life in the fast lane; Unit 8: Future world’s language; Unit 9: Destination with a difference; Unit 10: Connecting people; Unit 11: Reach for the sky Unit 12: Keeping and winning customers

Overview of speaking section in International Express_ Elementary

The speaking section consists of different activities such as expressing opinions, agreement or disagreement, starting a call, leaving a message, asking for and giving direction, offers and requests, making and changing arrangements, social exchange, etc Speaking skill’s objectives for first year- students to achieve are: ask and answer about the topics and perform some basic language functions such as asking and giving information, offer and suggest, agree or disagree, giving opinions, The book appeal students with colorful and attractive in order and make teachers and students feel more comfortable using it

Tasks and activities

As can be seen, activities in the speaking section in this book are not quite interesting and communicative Students are asked to talk about easy and familiar topics related to personal daily life and business The speaking section focuses on pair work and group work which are popular communicative activities in classroom speaking period Students can interact with other students, which means that they take turns to involve a good deal of listening and understanding of how the others are feeling Students are much more motivated to take part in speaking section However, tasks and activities are not various in forms and styles There are various activities such as “work in pair/group and answer or discuss the questions”, role-play with business situations which students do not have much interest in

Additionally, there are some speaking tasks in the book with no

neighbor about…,“Practice starting a call Use phrases from 7 Then change roles and practice again.”; “Describe your ideal place of work Make a list of your ideas and present them to the class.” (Unit 4, page 25) Also, we can see in Unit 2, page

10, Introductions, practice 4 with no reason for the communicative activity “Work

in groups Practice the conversations.”

Conversation 1

A Dieter, Can I introduce you to Jose Cora? Jose, this is Dieter Han

B Pleased to meet you

C Pleased to meet you, too

A Dieter Han is the manager at our office in Barcelona

In this task, student only reread or replace their name without a meaningful purpose, as a result they easily get bored and not interested in practicing The same can be found in Unit 4, page 26, asking and giving directions, there is no communicative practice, as a result after studying, student don’t know how to give directions In unit 4, page 35, students are asked to "work in pair Write three telephone numbers Dictate them to your partner Check your partner’s answer” It seems that students have no interest in this task because there’s no purpose for them to speak Instead, a telephone bingo should be more fun or the gap activities are also very useful for this Besides, some tasks and activities in speaking section are inauthentic We can see in Unit 4: The road to success _ Focus on communication_ Practice 1, task 2 These requirements do not raise students’ interest and are irrelevant to students’ practical purpose since they can not help students improve their speaking skill if they only match or arrange given sentences into dialogues or talks without brainstorming to produce their own products and practice them Some topics are given for students to discuss with an aim to improve their speaking skill, but students are lack of ideas and vocabulary so they easily get down on the topic Besides, some speaking activities in the course book

which are designed for grammar of function practice with no outcome do little to

encourage speaking

Hence, there are many other activities should be added to this section in the International Express_ Elementary to make it more plentiful These activities include information gap, comparing, puzzling or information gathering activity in which students involve conducting surveys, interviews, role play, etc It’s necessary that some adaptations should be done carefully so that the communicative tasks based on the course book become effective and reliable

1.2 The Aim of the Research

The major aim of the thesis is to design communicative tasks to make the English teaching more successful and more effective and stimulate the students using English appropriately and fluently This thesis will first discuss the main aspects of designing communicative tasks and then apply the designed tasks based

on its course books in teaching students at HIAST to see whether those tasks are effective for students at HIAST and what are the benefits that the experimental students get from these activities, it is also planned to find about the attitudes of students and teachers in this school towards using communicative tasks, and the difficulties of using communicative tasks for the first year students

1.4 Scope of the Study:

Within the scope of a master thesis and due to the limitation of time, the study can not cover all classes at HIAST The researcher just concentrates on the situation of the first year students Moreover, although the communicative tasks

research project, it can only allow 13 weeks restriction on time allocation; it may not sufficient time for students to see significant progress on communicative competence

1.5 Significance of the Study:

The students come from different provinces all over the country with different background of English Most of them studied English for seven years at high school with a certain amount of vocabulary and grammar However, they are particularly good at grammatical structures, but are poor in producing an appropriate and meaningful language through speaking and writing English is a compulsory subject for students of all departments at HIAST In the first semester, students have no choice but learn English in 75 periods as a compulsory subject; as

a result, many students do not show much interest in the subject The teachers are required to use the course book mandated by the institution The course book of

the first semester is International Express, Elementary by Liz Taylor, 2006

Generally speaking, the course book although consists four skills, i.e listening, speaking, reading and writing in each unit and there is a systematic coverage of grammar items together with practice exercises, they are not the completely task-based course book Although there are quite a lot communicative activities in teacher’s resource books, it does not appropriate to student’s needs and may not attractive to students at HIAST due to the different cultures for most

of the books are written by foreigners Therefore, the investigation on how to design effective communicative tasks based on the course book to develop the students’ communicative competence is a key issue Moreover, in the recent survey conducted by the student’s affairs department of HIAST, many students express their ideas to have many communicative activities in English class They are tired of studying only the lessons in the course book That gives the researcher

a desire to carry out this research with the hope that it will be helpful for students

as well as teachers at HIAST Students will benefit from effective communicative

activities and improve their speaking skill and the class is expected to be more enjoyable and motivating

1.6 Organization of the Study

This thesis is composed of six chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 provides the background to the study, in which consists of the

description of the English course at HIAST and non-English major freshman students, the aim of the thesis and its organization It points out the key issue in designing communicative tasks for students at HIAST teaching

Chapter 2 aims at having an overview of the relevant literature and sets out some

of the basic issues in relation to tasks and communicative tasks, components of communicative tasks, communicate competence, the models of organizing communicative activities in classroom and Principles of Communicative Tasks Design

Chapter 3 presents the methodology performed in the study It consists of

research design, research instrument, participants, data collection procedures, data analysis method and procedure

Chapter 4 describes research analysis and data analysis and discussion whether

the designed communicative tasks are effective

Chapter 5 consists of implications, recommendations and conclusions about the

research and also points out the limitations and suggestions for further study

the communicative task [is] a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form

Another well-known definition is provided by Long (1985:89), He considers a task as a task is “a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some reward” Examples of tasks include things people do in everyday life, at work, at play such as painting a fence, filling out a form, buying clothes, making a hotel reservation, borrowing a library book, taking a driving test, answering a phone, giving and taking message, asking and giving ways

Despite the various interpretations, the two definitions emphasize the importance of focus on meaning Long (1985) definitions emphasize the use of real-world tasks or activities that are comparable to authentic task behavior Meanwhile, Nunan’s (1989) definition makes specific reference to the classroom environment and points out that task performance may entail employing a single skill or a combination of several skills According to Richard, Platt and Weber (1985: 289), a task is regarded as “an activity or action which is carried out as the

result of processing or understanding language” For example: drawing a map while listening to a tape, listening to an instruction and performing a command Whereas, Breen (1987: 23) gives the definition of task as “any structured language learning endeavor which has a particular objective, appropriate content, a specified working procedure, and a range of outcomes for those who undertake the task.”

Bygate M., at al (2000b) pointed out definitions of tasks are generally

‘context-free’ ( as cited in Mojibur, M., 2010) However, the term ‘task’ has somewhat different meanings in different contexts of use A task is typically involves some input and instructions relating to what outcome the learners are

supposed to achieve

More recently, Skehan (1998) defines a task activity including four criteria: (1) meaning is primary; (2) there is a goal which needs to be worked towards; (3) the activity is outcome-evaluated; (4) there is a real-world relationship (p 268) He further suggests that task performance often involves achieving a goal or an objective, or arriving at an outcome or an end product

However, Widdowson (1998a) is critical of such a definition of ‘task’, arguing that the ‘criteria do not in themselves distinguish the linguistic exercise and the communicative task’ (p.328) Widdowson argues that ‘exercise’ and ‘task’

differ with regard to the kind of meaning, goal, and outcome they are directed

towards An exercise is premised on the need to develop linguistic skills as a prerequisite for the learning of communicative abilities, while a task is based on the assumption that linguistic abilities are developed through communicative activity

2.1.1.2 Task rationale

According to Nunan (1989: 40-45), tasks are generally rationalized in either “real world” or “pedagogic terms” Tasks with a real-world rationale require students to perform sorts of behaviors in the real world while tasks with a pedagogic rationale require students to do things which are unlikely done outside

in class Features of task components that motivate learning defined by Dornyei (2002) including some components of challenge, interesting content, the novelty element, the intriguing element, the fantasy element, the personal element, competition, tangible outcome, humor, etc

2.1.2 Communicative tasks

2.1.2.1 Definition

A communicative task resembles activity which students or other people carry out in daily life Besides the exercise practice class, students must know how

to book a room in a hotel, how to talk on the telephone, buy a ticket, order a meal

in a restaurant, etc Prabhu (1987:24) defines a communicative task as an activity that requires students to achieve an outcome from given information through some process of thought controlled and regulated by the teachers

Similarly, a communicative task is defined by Jane Willis (1996: 34) as:

“a goal-oriented activity with clear purpose to achieve an outcome, to create a final product that can be appreciated by others Examples include compiling a list of reasons, features, or things that need doing under particular circumstances; comparing two pictures and/ or text to find the differences; and solving a problem or designing a brochure.”

Seen from this viewpoint, we can see that communicative tasks involve communicative language focusing on meaning rather than linguistic structure Communicative tasks have a specific goal that must be achieved While students are doing communicative tasks, they are using language in a meaningful way, which can help to develop their ability to communicate in English

2.1.2.2 Components of a communicative task

David Nunan (1989) offers a framework for analyzing communicative tasks: Goal /Input/ Activities/ Learner Role / Teacher Role/Settings

1) Goals: Goals are the necessary elements of communicative tasks Those

are the general intentions behind any given communicative tasks and learning tasks Communicative tasks are always goal- oriented as to establish and maintain interpersonal relations by exchanging information, ideas, opinions and getting things done In each specified task, the goal may differ to encourage students to negotiate information between each other As a result, students can develop their interaction skills or improve their confidence in speaking In some cases, with a complex task involving a range of activities, students might simultaneously reach several goals

Communicative activities with no goals can not encourage learners’ interest Therefore, goals play a very important role in the whole process of communicative activities The goal’s purpose is to exchange information For example, a teacher may give the objectives (Unit 6 in International Express_ Elementary): By the end of the unit, students will be able to:

1) tell the dates and time in English;

2) know how to welcome a visitor by using common topics, phrases and expressions; 3) compare the advantage and disadvantage of different sports by using the comparative and superlative;

4) read material of a similar topic

The above goals of this unit are general goals, some of them can be called communicative goals (e.g the second goals), others are the goals of learning tasks Communicative goals also can be divided into several kinds of goal areas Clark (1987) divided communicative goal into three goal areas:

1) Establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships, and through this to exchange information, ideas, opinions, attitudes and feelings, and to get things done; 2) Acquiring information from books, magazines, newspapers, brochures, documents, signs, notices, films, television, radio, lectures or reports, etc.) and

3) Listening to, reading, enjoying and responding to creative and imaginative uses

of the target language (e.g stories, poems, songs, rhymes, drama) and, for certain learners, creating them themselves

In this thesis, the researcher just discusses general goals not specialized goals for English for special purpose By the way, how to make our task goal is an important issue It is based on the school’s requirements; the task difficulties as well as the learners and materials Typical goal statements include:

1) to develop the skills necessary to take part in academic study;

2) to communicate socially in the target language;

3) to develop the survival skills necessary to obtain goods and services;

Before participating in communicative activities, learners need to have enough materials as input It is necessary to analyze input as an important element

of a communicative task

2) Input: That is the things that learners can observe Hover (1986)

suggests input for communicative tasks from a wide range of sources: letters newspaper extracts, pictures stories, telecom account, driver’s license, missing person’s declaration form, social security form, business card, memo note, photographs, family tree, drawings, shopping lists, invoices, postcards, hotel brochures, passport photos, street map, menu, magazine quiz, calorie counter, recipe, extract form a play, weather forecast, diary, bus timetable, notice board item, star signs, hotel entertainment programs, etc

3) Activities: Activities specify the things the learners and teacher will be

doing during the lesson That is what students will actually do with the input In the Bangalore project (Prabhu, 1987), there are three principal activities: Information gap activity; Reasoning gap activity; Opinion gap activity Pattison (1987) (cited by Nunan, 1989:68) also proposed seven activity types: (1) Question and answers; (2) Dialogue and role –plays; (3) Matching activities; (4)

Communication strategies; (5) Pictures and picture stories; (6) Puzzle and problems; (7) Discussions and decisions

Long (1989) discussed two commonly aspects of communication task, that

is the task-essential information and the goal orientation of learners Regarding information distribution, Long discusses “in which one when the learner holds all task-essential information and must communicate it to the others, it is “one-way” task Whereas and “two-way” tasks in which task-essential information is distributed between learners They need to share and integrate it Regarding goal orientation, there is no “correct” solution to the “open” task and there is only one

or a small range of solution in “closed” tasks

Wright (1987) suggests that tasks contain just two elements: input data which may be provided by materials, teachers or learners, and an initiating question which instructs learners on what to do with the data In line with the above statements, Candlin (1987) suggests that tasks should contain input, roles, settings, actions, monitoring, outcomes and feedback Input refers to the data presented for learners to work on Roles specify the relationship between participants in a task The classroom and out-of-class arrangements entailed in the task are referred as setting The procedures and sub-tasks to be performed by the learners are actions Monitoring refers to the supervision of the task in progress and outcomes are the goals of the task and feedback refers to the evaluation of the task

4) Learner’s roles: In the traditional approach, students study passively a

variety of structure and grammar rules and have little control over their learning However, when doing communicative tasks, students are required to use language meaningfully, to negotiate meaning rather than simply repeating the language As the negotiators of the learning process, students can negotiate with the teacher what to speak about and how to do it Moreover, they are forced to learn how to work well in groups, negotiate with partners to reach a final product Their abilities, needs and interests are important So we can say that learners have an

active role in communicative approach, they perform the tasks and activities for their learning process

5) Teacher’s roles: The teachers select the topic, give explicit instruction

and relevant linguistic expression before the tasks begin and give feedback (in language and ideas) after the task is completed The teachers should observe and evaluate the tasks continuously In contrast to the traditional role of the teachers who always provide the knowledge and decide all class activities; teachers using communicative tasks play the following roles First, the teacher is a facilitator to help the communication go smoothly and give clear instruction, help students better express their expectation and direct students’ active participation Second, the teacher is also an active participant in the learning process, contributing ideas, opinions or relating personal experiences Third, the teacher can function as an observer to assume and notify their students’ difficulties and maintain continuous activity The key to successful implementation of tasks- based learning is whether

or not teachers know how and what to observe, mediate and provide feedback (Lee, 2004)

6) Settings: Setting prefers to the classroom managements specified or

implied in the task Nunan (1985) distinguishes between two aspects of the learning situation as “mode” and “environment” Learning mode refers to whether the students are operating individually or in group Environment refers to where the learning actually takes place It might be a conventional classroom in a language center, a community class, an industrial or an occupational setting, a self-access learning center and so on

2.1.2.3 Features of communicative tasks

Communicative tasks should connect to authentic target language Students are required to use real language in the most natural way to foster their linguistic ability Besides, while doing communicative task, students use language for a purpose that is to focus on the message rather than specific aspect of the code

With one and the same topic, a teacher can design various types of tasks Here are some subtypes of communicative tasks that can be used in the classroom

 Listing: Listing seems unimaginative, but in practice, listing tasks tend to generate a lot of talk as students explain their ideas The processes involved are: brainstorming, in which students draw on their own knowledge and experience either as a class or in pairs/groups

 Ordering and sorting: These tasks involve four main processes: sequencing items, actions or events in a logical or chronological order; ranking items according to personal values or specified criteria; categorizing items in given groups or grouping them under given headings; classifying items in different ways

 Comparing: these tasks involve comparing information of a similar nature but from different sources or versions in order to identify common points and/or differences Students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different pictures

 Information gap: Most good fluency activities have some degree of information gap – just as in real life Students do this task in pairs One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information Each partner plays an important role because the task cannot

be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need

 Problem solving: This makes upon people’s intellectual and reasoning powers through challenging The processes and time scale will vary depending on the type and complexity of the problem

 Sharing personal experiences: these tasks encourage students to talk more freely about themselves and share their experiences with others The resulting interaction is closer to casual social conversation However, these open tasks

 Creative tasks: these are called projects and involve pairs or groups of students

in some kind of freer creative work They also can involve combination of other types: listing, ordering and sorting, comparing and problem solving Out

of class research is sometime needed Organizational skills and teamwork are important in getting the task done

 Interviews: Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask, but students should prepare their own interview questions Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class

 Story Completion: for example, telling story in the past using simple past tense,

or telling about a plan in future, etc… to practice tense in English This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stops narrating Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous one stopped Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on

 Picture Narrating Order pictures that show a sequence and describe the chain

of events This activity is based on several sequential pictures Students are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention

to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating

 Debate and Discussions Look for interesting topics to attract students However this is always a very subjective thing to do as it is hard to know what

is interesting to all students Besides, students may never get to say anything as they don’t have any opinion A questionnaire can be set up about the class and the student’s learning experiences

 Role-play is used to refer to all sorts of activities where learners imagine themselves

in a situation outside the classroom, sometimes playing the role of someone other than themselves, and using language appropriate to this new context

2.1.2.4 Characteristics of a good communicative task

There are some criteria to identify a good communicative task based on its theoretical features After designing a task, teachers can reconsider the task and make it meet all the demands According to David Nunan (1989:65), a good task can be realized if it comes up with the following requirements:

 The goals of the task are obvious to both teachers and students

 The task’s difficulty is appropriate

 The task encourages students to apply what they have learnt to the real world

 The task is interesting and motivating

 The input of the task is authentic

 The activities are suitable and closely related to the goal of the task

 There is an information gap which might prompt a negotiation of meaning

 The activities are designed in a way which allows students to communicate meaningfully

 There is a range of macro skill integrated into the sequence of tasks

 The goal of the task is successfully obtained

In other word, a good task is based on authentic materials and have clear objectives which can encourage users to use language in a comfortable manner, give learners collaborative learning

George, V, (2011) in his research on “How to use communication tasks to

improve learners' speaking performance” suggested that a genuine communication

must have unpredictable language use and a reason for talking; it focuses on what

is said, not how it is said and a tangible outcome

2.1.2.5 The role of communicative tasks

While there has been much debate about the effectiveness of form focused instruction, many researchers agree that communicative tasks are beneficial Krashen (1985, as cited by Wang, C.) states that while two-way interaction is not necessary for acquisition to take place, it may lead to more comprehensible input than one-way interactions (i.e lectures, or speeches) Asking for clarification or repetition, in other words negotiating meaning, leads to more comprehensible input (focused instruction), many researchers agree that communicative tasks are beneficial

Long (1985) also see the need for communicative activities They argue for group work, claiming that group work leads to more talking time for each student They state that in a class with 30 students, if no group work is done, each student might talk for only 30 seconds per class

However, there are dangers of communicative tasks As Skehan (1996) points out, focusing on meaning may come at the expense of accuracy These strategies provide an incentive for learners to make the best use of the language they already have But they do not encourage a focus on form (p22) Besides, the students are highly motivated to learn English when the teacher uses interesting, enjoyable especially competitive tasks Through tasks, learning English becomes easier and easier and students become more active in learning They fully and actively participate in all the activities the teacher gives

According to David Crabbe (2007), a good task is done by the learner and raises his/her motivation, when he/she achieves the tasks’ goals They require the learner to use authentic language, include physical activity and involve partnership Success in tasks is usually estimated by the degree of participation and satisfaction among learners However, it should be measured by the degree of awareness about learning that learners demonstrate and strategic behavior they engage in to build vocabulary recognition, increase fluency, acquire grammatical

patterns and so on That means some students like to do tasks because of the fun these tasks brought to them They actively took part in these tasks, laughing a lot and feeling completely relaxed And then they couldn’t learn anything or nothing would retain in their mind They considered it like a game without recognize that they can learn many other things from the tasks For this the teacher has to know the individual needs of the students (Mojibur, M 2010)

2.1.2.6 Differences between communicative tasks and controlled practice

In controlled practice, the language used is controlled by the task For

example: replace the word, transformation activities, gap fills, reading aloud,

pronunciation tasks etc Whereas, doing communicative tasks, students have the

opportunity to use language freely in reasonably authentic situations The task provides a context and desired outcome but does not control how they use the language It is true that well designed tasks are always better than poor ones In the

task as ‘talk about this picture with your partner’, students may describe the

picture, predict what will happen or what has happened or give opinions on the picture It’s impossible to achieve a specific target, to complete the task because there is no clear outcome There is no specific role for the listener, so the other person easily gets bored Example of this type of tasks are: Talk about the picture with your partner; Tell the class about your working day or a day of study (Unit 1, page 6); Tell the class what you usually do in the evenings or at weekends; describe your family to your partner; tell the class what your partner likes doing on holiday.(Unit 2, page.15)

With communicative tasks, it’s very useful for practice speaking, for example:

1 Decide with your partner what you would take to a desert island, birthday party, picnic, etc…

2 Look at the picture and decide which is the most ideal place to work

3 Compare your weekend with your partner and find 3 things you did the same

These tasks work much better in the classroom and are more likely to get students talking because they know what they can achieve The students will probably use similar language to complete the task, making it easier for the teacher

to assess knowledge Both students have a clear role and something to do with motivation and fun The task comes nearer to what happens in real life communications On feedback, the teacher doesn’t have to deal with much information, rather just collates the outcome from the group

Widdowson H.(1998a) argues that ‘exercise’ and ‘task’ differ with regard to the kind of meaning, goal, and outcome they are directed towards An exercise is used to develop linguistic skills as a must for the learning of communicative abilities, while a task is based on the assumption that linguistic abilities are developed through communicative activity

In summary, communicative tasks encourage and require students to speak with and listen to the others Communicative activities have a real purpose, that is

to find information, break down barriers, sharing personal information or experience, and learn about the culture, etc Even when a lesson is focused on developing reading or writing skills, communicative tasks could be integrated into the lesson

2.1.3 The characteristics of accuracy and fluency activities

In accuracy activities, target languages are used for explanation and communication are judged by linguistic competence Correction is often a feature

of accuracy focused work Whereas, fluency activities use real life language for communication and are judged by performance Attention is given to meaning and correction is generally a minor clarification of fluency in use Fluency tasks help to build students’ confidence and give a chance for students to use the language to talk about what they wish to It’s essential that students spend more time to practice, not only in class, but any possible time outside the classroom because fluency is a process, not a product

Teachers should make a distinction between accuracy and fluency and then decide what the students’ aims are It is probably very difficult to have true fluency speaking activities in the classroom with monolingual students We must consider the level, the needs of students, the length of the course and the effect of examination have on this

Bilingual classes often cause students to depend a lot on their dictionaries when they are involved in a fluency activity The problems are the books and activities that are very much language orientated or fluency based Therefore, the teacher should consider the focus of the course book to see if it addresses the needs

of the students Is it fluency or accuracy focused? Are there any reasons for using speech to communicate in these activities or are the activities simply speaking to practice a definite linguistic point?

Fluency activities should have an outcome: i.e., they reach a decision During a fluency activity teachers provide models of native speakers performing the same tasks and go over it with the students to help them in need If possible, teachers

can record the students onto tape so they get to hear what they really sound like 2.2 Communicative competence

Communicative Competence (Canale and Swain, 1980)

knowledge of the relation of language use to its non-linguistic context

Discourse Competence

knowledge of rules governing cohesion and coherence

verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for break- downs in communication due to performance variables

or to insufficient competence

Communicative competence is defined as the ability to interpret and enact

in the production of the target language (Canale and Swain 1980) Such a notion encompasses a wide range of abilities: the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary (linguistic competence); the ability to say the appropriate thing in a certain social situation (sociolinguistic competence); the ability to start, enter, contribute to, and end a conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent manner (discourse competence); the ability to communicate effectively and repair problems caused by communication breakdowns (strategic competence) In other word, communicative competence is understood as a synthesis of an underlying system of knowledge and skill needed for communication According to them, there are three types of knowledge: knowledge of underlying grammatical principles, knowledge of how to use language in a social context in order to fulfill communicative functions and knowledge of how to combine utterances and communicative functions with respect to discourse principles It is the ability to apply grammatical, discourse and cultural knowledge to communicate effectively

in particular contexts for particular purposes ( Nunan, 1999:303)

According to Hyme (1972:269), communicative competence is of “more general sort of grammatically and ability to be grammatical” That means in communication we use sentences to make statements of different kinds, not merely composing sentences A sentence can be grammatically correct but it’s impossible

to be used in real life Teacher should know about this to facilitate the process of language learning in order to develop both linguistic and communicative competence of students

2.3 Models of Organizing Lessons

Jane Willis (1996), in her book A Framework for Task-Based Learning,

outlines the model for organizing lessons in Task-based language teaching typically based on three stages In pre-task stage, teachers introduce the topic, review useful new words and phrases Students will focus on language forms that will be useful in the coming tasks It’s helpful to plan carefully before carrying out the activities The teacher has ensured that the text structure and vocabulary are

just beyond the students’ current knowledge Next, the students perform the task in pairs or small groups and present their findings to the class Let the students speak English sitting in their seats not standing so that they will not feel uneasy this way Finally, in language focus stage, teachers give feedback on the learners’ performance in which specific language features from the task is highlighted

According to B Zhao (1998), teachers should try to choose those topics that have something to do with the students ‘ interest and experience and also choose those subjects that students understand that there is no "right" answer, and the teacher is not judging their ideas’ The teacher should carefully consider the time limits for the task in relation to the length of text, type of response and number of participants, so that learners use language at a comfortable speed Teachers should use demonstration rather than explanation whenever possible

During the task, if students do not know the words they need, they can paraphrase or ask for help (in L1 or in L2) Some students ignore the task the start when they realize that they cannot express what they want to say Therefore, it’s wise to give the instructions before giving materials or dividing the class into groups and have a quick review of appropriate grammar or essential vocabulary before the activity starts (Ur, 2000) Or teachers can encourage students to get the language they need from their peers Listening to their peer is also a good way as they can personalize their language It can have a positive effect on classroom dynamics provided that they have an authentic task which works in real time in life

so that students can begin to get a feel for authentic and natural language

Students are given some instruction or training in discussion skills to make

sure that everyone in the group contributes to the discussion A group leader of each group should be appointed so that he/she will regulate participation and remind participants to speak in the target language This student perhaps report later to the teacher how well the group managed to keep to it The success of group task depends on the selection of an interesting and stimulating task whose

performances are well within the ability of the group But it also depends, more immediately, on effective and careful organization

According to Penny’s view (2000:120), an effective speaking activity includes four aspects including Learners talk a lot; Participation is even; Motivation is high; Language is of an acceptable level That is to say as much as possible of the time for the activity is occupied by learner talk rather than teachers explaining the lessons Each student in class has a chance to speak, not only a minority of talkative participants They are eager to speak because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say or because they want to achieve a task objective

Some students can find them very difficult, even threatening when doing role play Others can be so quiet that no one can hear what they are saying To avoid this, teachers can get the students to choose their own roles and have prompt cards ready to help them remember dialogue if they get stuck Carefully organize the whole activity with what each individual student can do Normally, the groups

or pairs do their role-play between themselves Sometimes, volunteers may perform their role-plays later in front of the class Role-play should be well within the learners’ capacity; their enthusiasm; careful and clear presentation and instructions This will be a good opportunity for learners to practice a range of real-life spoken language in the classroom, and cooperative

The teacher during the activity should go from to group, monitor, and either contribute whichever is likely to be more helpful Their contribution may take the form of:– providing general approval and support;– helping students who are having difficulty;– keeping the students using the target language , tactfully regulating participation in a discussion where some students are over-dominant and others silent (Ur, 2000)

The teacher should set a time limit to close the activity at a certain point when the students are still enjoying it and interested After students finish their

speaking in class, teachers should encourage them and let the students feel they have made some progress with a sense of their fulfillment In Ur’s view point, “the success of group work depends to some extent on the surrounding social climate, and on how habituated the class is to using it; and also, on the selection of an interesting and stimulating task… But it also depends on effective and careful organization.” (Ur, 2000)

Encouragement is necessary, Roger C., (1999) suggested that teachers should allow the students to be themselves to express ideas freely They should be firm in a gentle way and give them praise whenever they are doing anything close

to a good job and never get frustrated, impatient or embarrass anyone for a laugh Teacher should compliment rather than “only correct students’ talk” as discovered from the study Short phrases like “good”, “ok”, or just a nod can maintain students’ positive attitudes towards speaking After they finish their speech, of course the teacher should point out some apparent mistakes in their speaking, for example, the incorrect words in pronunciation or some serious mistakes in grammar The main objective here is to express appreciation of the effort that has been invested and its results Feedback on language may be integrated into this discussion of the task, or provide the focus of a separate class session later

2.4 Principles of Communicative Tasks Design

2.4.1 The Principle of Meaningful Tasks

This is a major principle behind a task-based approach In a meaningful task students are asked to exchange information in small groups and/or with the teacher This kind of student collaboration has two benefits First, the whole class actively participates in a task at the same time and students can then compare their findings when the task is over; and second, the meaningful task is rehearsed in class for later use in real communication outside the classroom

2.4.2 The Principle of Some Focus on Language Form

Effective language use involves achieving harmony between form and function Different forms can express different meanings in different contexts Learners can do better with typical features of language form (Skehan, 1994a) This can be done through consciousness-raising exercises frequently used language items, to help learners perceive patterns and systematize what they know (Schmidt, 1990) and rising the learners’ need to organize their ideas clearly and choose the correct lexical and grammar

2.4.3 The Authenticity Principle

Language data can be divided into authentic data and non-authentic data Authentic data are samples of spoken and written language that have been specifically written for the purposes of language teaching Authentic data are genuine English statement They come into being as two or more individuals engage in genuine communication Non-authentic data are those spoken and written texts, and other samples of language that have been specially written for the classroom

The authentic data exist in the real world while non-authentic data are found

in the classroom or the course books which provide learners with examples of target grammar and vocabulary in texts Such data are valuable resources for learners, particularly for beginning learners to understand and process the language easily However, learners may encounter difficulties in genuine communication outside the classroom if they only listen and read the dialogs in a non-authentic course book As such, it is also a benefit for learners if they can learn with authentic data in natural contexts In designing a task, we have to deal with the relationship between its authenticity and the contents in the texts to help learners experience the language item in interaction with related grammatical and discourse elements However, if learners only ever encounter contrived dialogues and listening texts, the task of learning the language will be made more difficult

(Nunan, 1999) It’s necessary for the teachers to make clear that some tasks are authentic to some learners but not at all to others So in order to make tasks more authentic, task designers must take learners’ engagement into consideration

Therefore, the tasks should be related to the learners’ daily life or social life and more related to the real world According to Willis (1998) one of the essential aspects of task authenticity is whether real communication takes place So first we should find out a genuine purpose for meaningful communication In this case, with a genuine communicative purpose, students have the chance to interact naturally, which help to increase fluency than controlled exercises The second way to make the authentic tasks is through real world targets, not just classroom-based pedagogic These tasks have a close relationship with real world’s needs such as buying a train ticket, renting an apartment, reporting a chemistry experiment, taking lecture notes and so on (Long and Crookes, 1992) Besides, pedagogic tasks can be authentic through classroom interactions There are many potential authenticity of the learning situation in everyday procedures, the learning tasks, the materials, the actual needs; interests all provide sufficient authentic potentials for communication

2.4.4 The Principle of Reasonable Task Difficulty

Task difficulty has great influences on the effect of tasks So, teachers should know how to make tasks easy and difficult to meet different needs Candlin ( 1987) reviews some factors relating to task difficulty focusing on the nature of the task, as follows : cognitive complexity; communicative difficulty; whether the task follows a general sequence of operations or whether this is unclear; linguistic complexity; continuity between tasks

Skehan (1994:191-192) developed a scheme to assess tasks in terms of

difficulty Different aspects of task difficulty should be considered so that task

implementation can have a positive effect on task value

Code complexity: Linguistic complexity and variety; Vocabulary load and

variety; Redundancy; Density

Communicative stress: Time limits and time pressure; Speed of presentation;

Number of participants; Length of texts used; Type of response; Opportunities to control interaction

Cognitive complexity

a Cognitive processing; Information organization; Amount of

‘computation’; Clarity of information given; Sufficiency of information given; Information type ;

b Cognitive familiarity; Familiarity of topic and its predictability; Familiarity of discourse genre; Ease of relationship to background knowledge; Familiarity of tasks

It is true that for some discussion topics, as teachers can be tempted to just give students open-ended questions, without realizing that they don't have enough the linguistic knowledge to answer, nor they know how to structure their answers Therefore, it is useful to know that discussion-questions are not defined as tasks as such

2.5 Related research on designing and implementing communicative tasks in class

Chang (2004) pointed out some tips for maximizing the effectiveness of activities At first, teachers explain the process shortly but clearly until the majority of the learners get the idea Try to talk as less as possible to let more learners are working independently in pairs, or in small groups When students are comfortable they are likely to learn more, so teachers should be fun and design communicative activities that are lively, interactive, and fun

Moreover, the tasks they do should be simple enough to describe easily In general, the level of language needed for a discussion should be easy so that they can speak fluently with the minimum of hesitation It is a good idea to teach or review essential vocabulary before the activity starts Besides, teachers should