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Abstract Task- based has been applied to teach speaking for students who are in intermediate or upper levels, yet there are few researches in using TBLT in teaching grammar to improve st

Student No: 1781401110007

Email address: thuhien.nguyen2811@gmail.com

Name of coursework subject: Thesis

Title of this item of work: The effects of task- based grammatical

instructions on primary students’ productive skills and learning attitudes

Name of instructor: Assoc Prof Pham Vu Phi Ho, PhD

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work; it is based on my own research All sources used by me have been documented

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work has not previously been submitted for assessment in this or any other subject or

course at this University or elsewhere Student’s

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Ho Chi Minh City Open University

Title of This Item of Work: The effects of task- based grammatical instructions on primary students’ productive skills and learning attitudes

Name of instructor: Assoc Prof Pham Vu Phi Ho, PhD

Certificate of Originality This is to certify that this thesis entitled “The effects of task-based grammatical instructions on primary students’ productive skills and learning attitudes” is my work and does not contain any material previously published or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award at any universities

I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style is acknowledged

Ho Chi Minh City, November, 2019

Student’s signature

Nguyen Thi Thu Hien

Acknowledgement First, most of all, I would like to thank Assoc Prof Pham Vu Phi Ho, PhD, for his expertise, assistance, guidance, and patience throughout the process of completing this thesis Without his help, this thesis would not have been possible

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my managers Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diep and Nguyen Thi Ngoc Lan in the Asian International primary school in Cong Hoa Campus for many generous and helpful suggestions

I would like to give special thanks to all of my colleagues for supporting me, sharing valuable information and encouraging me to finish this thesis

Last of all, I would like to thank my family for keeping me company on long walks

Abstract Task- based has been applied to teach speaking for students who are in intermediate or upper levels, yet there are few researches in using TBLT in teaching grammar to improve students’ writing and speaking Moreover, the effects of task- based in low- level students are also limited This research aims to analyze the effects

of task-based grammatical instructions on primary students’ productive skills and their learning attitudes in Asian International primary school context The quasi-experimental research design and mixed- methods approach were used to find out the answers to the research questions There are 40 students taking part in this research divided into two groups- experimental and control groups The experimental group was taught with task- based grammatical instruction, while the control group was taught with Grammar translation method in 8 weeks Both groups also had a same pre-test and post-test to measure their improvement after treating with two methods The score of the tests was marked by two raters to ensure the reliability The attitudes of students towards task- based grammatical instructions and GTM (grammar-translation method) were found out based on semi-structured interview The findings revealed that students learning with task- based grammatical instructions have a better speaking performance than those learning with GTM However, there is no difference between the scores of writing outcome in two groups The students’ attitudes towards task- based grammatical instructions are more positive than those towards GTM The results also pointed out implications for teachers in the future, especially in their way of choosing suitable tasks for their students

Key words: task- based grammatical instructions, grammar translation method, speaking performance, writing outcome

Table of contents

Certificate of Originality I Acknowledgement II Abstract III

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Statement of the problems 2

1.3 Definition of key terms 4

1.3.1 Grammar 4

1.3.2 Task- based language teaching 4

1.3.3 Young learners 5

1.3.4 Productive skills 5

1.4 Purpose of the study 5

1.5 Research questions 6

1.6 Hypothesis 6

1.7 Significance of the study 6

1.8 Organization of the study 7

1.9 Chapter summary 7

Chapter 2 Literature review 9

2.1 Theorical background 9

2.1.1 Methods in teaching grammar 9

2.1.2 Grammar teaching: Explicit or Implicit? 10

2.1.3 Task- based language teaching 13

2.1.4 Task and exercise 14

2.1.5 Types of tasks 15

2.1.5.1 Closed/ Open tasks 15

2.1.5.2 Information gap tasks 15

2.1.5.3 Opinion gap/ Reasoning gap tasks 16

2.1.5.4 Information processing tasks 16

2.1.5.5 Social interactive tasks 17

2.1.6 Requirements in task- based language teaching 17

2.1.6.1 Review of learner errors 17

2.1.6.2 Consciousness’s raising tasks 17

2.1.6.3 Production practice activities 17

2.1.6.4 Noticing activities 17

2.2 Previous studies 18

2.3 Research gaps 23

2.4 Chapter summary 23

Chapter 3 Methodology 24

3.1 Research design 24

3.2 Research setting and participants 25

3.2.1 Research setting 25

3.2.2 Participants 25

3.3 Research procedure 26

3.4 Teaching procedure 27

3.5 Instruments 30

3.5.1 The tests and rubrics for the tests 30

3.5.2 The pre-test and post-test writing 30

3.5.3 The pre-test and post-test speaking 31

3.5.4 Inter-rater reliability 31

3.5.5 Test reliability 32

3.5.6 Interview 38

3.6 Data Analysis 38

3.7 Chapter summary 39

Chapter 4 Result and Discussion 40

4.1 A comparison between the pre-test speaking and writing of two groups 40

4.1.1 A comparison of students’ speaking scores in the pre-test 41

4.1.2 A comparison of students’ writing scores in the pre-test 43

4.2 Research question 1 45

4.2.1 A comparison of students’ speaking results between pre-test and post-test 45

4.2.1.1 Control group: A comparison of speaking results between pre-test and post-test 45

4.2.1.2 Experimental group: A comparison of speaking results between pre-test and post-test 47

4.2.2 A comparison of students’ posttest speaking results between two groups 50

4.3 Research question 2 52

4.3.1 A comparison of students’ writing results between pre-test and post-test 52

4.3.1.1 Control group: A comparison of writing results between pre-test and post-test 52

4.3.1.2 Experimental group: A comparison of writing results between pre-test and post-test 54

4.3.2 A comparison of students’ posttest writing 56

4.4 Research question 3 57

4.4.1 Interview after the whole course 57

4.4.1.1 The interest of teaching method 57

4.4.1.2 The drawbacks that students have when learning with current method……60

4.4.1.3 Expectations that students want in the process of learning 61

4.5 Discussion of the findings 63

4.6 Chapter summary 65

Chapter 5 Conclusions and recommendations for upcoming studies 66

5.1 Summary of research results 66

5.2 Conclusion 67

5.3 Implications for the study 67

5.4 Restrictions and recommendation for further study 68

References 70

APPENDIX A 77

RUBRICS FOR WRITING ASSESSMENT 77

APPENDIX B 79

RUBRICS FOR SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 79

APPENDIX C: TWO TESTS 81

APPENDIX D 91

INTERVIEW 91

APPENDIX E 92

LESSON PLAN 92

APPENDIX F 102

THE CONTENT OF INTERVIEW 102

List of tables

Table 2.1 Framework of task- based teaching 14

Table 3.1 A comparison of writing pre-test of two pilot groups 32

Table 3.2 A comparison of speaking pre-test of two pilot groups 34

Table 3.3 A comparison of writing pre-test and post-test 35

Table 3.4 A comparison of speaking pre-test and post-test 36

Table 4.1: The comparison the scores of speaking in control and experimental groups before treatment 41

Table 4.2: The comparison the scores of writing in control and experimental groups before treatment 43

Table 4.3 A comparison of pre-test and post- test speaking score (control group) 46

Table 4.4: The table compares the scores of pre-test and post- test speaking of the experimental group 48

Table 4.5 A comparison of the post-test speaking results between control and experimental groups 50 Table 4.6 The table shows the comparison between the scores of pre-test and post-test writing of the control group 53

Table 4.7 The comparison between the scores of pre-test and post-test writing of the experimental group 54

Table 4.8 A comparison of post-test writing in both groups 56

Chapter 1 Introduction1.1 Background of the study

English is currently widely used in many countries around the world Therefore, learning English well is very beneficial for students in the future with many new opportunities and doors open to them thanks to their skills There are four skills in English including listening, reading, speaking and writing, which is divided into two main kinds such as receptive skill and productive skill Listening and reading are considered as receptive skill and the rest are productive skill which contributes a lot in daily communication of human beings (Golkova & Hubackova, 2014) Among four skills, speaking and writing skills are the most important, they appear quite a lot in real life such as presentations, giving a speech or lecture, writing letters, etc It is a tool to express ideas, feelings and emotions To learn these skills well, grammar knowledge is required because it helps students know how to put sentence patterns together (Ur, 1999) It provides learners with knowledge to grasp spoken language in listening and understand information in paragraph, passage and text (Corder, 1988) Good study of grammar also helps students express their ideas appropriately, accurately and meaningfully not only through writing but also communication (Doff, 2000) According to Kohli (1984), a person who knows grammar will be like a driver who understands the motives of an engine, otherwise he is just the driver who can drive ionly and when something goes wrong, he will feel helpless and cannot do anything It means that when people speak and write, it is necessary to rely on grammar to use structures to express meaningful sentences to make others understand Grammar is considered as a difficult subject for both native and second-language speakers, especially applying it into communicative tasks, so that different generations of teachers should use a variety of approaches in teaching it (Widodo, 2006) Learning grammar is not just to know and to understand that language but to use it in life so that choosing a method that helps students use the target language fluently is not easy In

the past, grammar translation method predominates in most grammar lessons (Widodo, 2006), because students just learn the grammar rules, remember them and then apply into other examples (Larsen- Freeman, 2000) but today, when society becomes more developed, teachers are willing to adapt more effective methods to achieve better results in teaching grammar Currently, there are no separate grammar lessons taught in public primary schools to help students consolidate their grammar knowledge Instead,

it is put into sentence patterns which both new vocabulary and new grammar structures given Students in these schools only learn 2 to 3 English classes a week, so they do not have chance to practice On the contrary, in spite of being at the same level as the other public schools, students in Asian International Primary school have their own grammar lessons, have time to learn and practice However, these students still have problems with communicating and are not confident to express their ideas Therefore, it is imperative that there is a teaching method to help students become more confident, speak and write more fluently

1.2 Statement of the problems

In Asian International primary school, many students try to use their first language to communicate in class especially for slower students Some of them spend too much time expressing ideas when they describe pictures in their writing despite spending many years of studying English Take one class for an example, some slower learners seem to be unable to answer any questions and communicate with their teachers or friends, they often only use words to express their ideas or even take a lot

of time to translate the meaning of sentences into English For those who are quite good, there are many mistakes in language they produce in the process of studying Most of them tend to feel bored in class, good students predominate the slower ones in all activities

Going back more than 10 years ago when the researcher was a middle and high school student, at that time, every lesson in English grammar was extremely boring, all

the knowledge was taken from the textbook, teachers then rewrote on the board, used mother tongue to explain about the structures and their usage Our job was to simply memorize and do the same exercises No games or any activities were given in the class

If this method is applied in teaching, it will certainly make students feel depressed, lose interest in learning, and it will be unable to meet the requirements and standards set by the school for international students that they can communicate fluently and confidently Similarly, Skehan (1996) argued that almost all students fail

to use English fluently and accurately when learning grammar if providing them with knowledge and structures in advance For instance, in the teaching process, PPP includes three steps such as presentation, practice and production which is called free stage Although presentation in the first stage can help students remember and understand grammar points quite well, practice and production do not seem to be effective In the study of Willis (1996), it showed that students can mimic mechanically with examples provided by teachers and then continue to produce forms that have been made clear before He emphasized that this kind of production does not mean free Therefore, it is necessary to find out an effective way that can help students have a rapid progress and apply their knowledge into actual conversation Task- based language teaching has received many consensus and positive feedbacks from educators like Willis (1996), researchers in second language acquisition such as Long (2014); Skehan (2011); and Ellis (2003) Although there has been a lot of researchers about using task- based language teaching, there are also some limits in low level

This present study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of task-based grammatical instruction on primary students’ productive skills and students’ attitudes when learning with this new approach From all the results taken from the research, teachers can apply task- based instruction effectively in teaching grammar

1.3 Definition of key terms

1.3.2 Task- based language teaching

According to the study of Willis published in 1996, task- based language teaching is an approach that involves in students’ production of four skills including speaking, writing, listening and reading through tasks given by teachers at the beginning of the lessons This approach is different from DM (Direct Method), ADL (Audio lingual method) and PPP (Presentation, Practice and Production) because it focuses on form at the end of the process of teaching It means that students carry the tasks by using knowledge and language they have from the previous lessons, then talk

or write how they did the tasks After a process of finding and studying, they get a product and reach an outcome of target language (Moor, 2006) During the task execution process, students need to focus on meaning rather than a form because if they pay more attention to structures when they are making language, it will affect their fluency (Willis, 1996) There are two types of tasks including “real world” and

“pedagogic” (Nunan, 1989) Real world task is a combination of context and interaction between people in that context Pedagogic task is an activity in which there

is only interaction, information exchange between leaners, not associated with actual activities

1.3.3 Young learners

According to Harmer (2007), young leaners are those who can acquire knowledge faster and more effectively in different ways They can acquire knowledge indirectly rather than directly by interacting, watching, listening, touching all of things that are around them They are always interested in learning and finding out what happens around them Students are easily discouraged if they do not engage in any class activities because they only concentrate in a few minutes at the beginning of the lessons He also pointed out that it is difficult for young learners to study complex or abstract definitions when learning grammar structures Understanding young learner development, to teach students at the young age, teachers should provide tools to support them in learning and slowly let them explore skills and knowledge by themselves (Berk & Winsler 1995) Through activities such as readings, finding information from the internet, discussing, students will find and cultivate new skills and knowledge so that they can apply language in practice (Jacobs, 2001) Many classes in which teachers always promote students’ creativity through both learning and playing activities are considered as effective learning environment

1.3.4 Productive skills

Productive skills are called active skills which language users communicate through spoken and written forms The researchers expressed the view that the productive skills can only be improved when they are combined with receptive skills like reading and listening skills In the learning process, receptive skills must come first and then production will happen Therefore, there should be a combination of teaching activities and appropriate exercises to improve these skills (Golkova & Hubackova, 2014)

1.4 Purpose of the study

The objective of this paper is to explore the benefits of task- based instructions

in teaching grammar for elementary students who are in low- level, particularly grade 5

students in Asian International primary school The results of the study explored the ability to use English fluently and flexibly in speaking, writing after studying with task-based grammatical instructions and grammar translation method Furthermore, students’ attitude toward learning both methods was also found out Since then, teachers can choose better method to help students improve their results as well as can use language fluently in real life

1.7 Significance of the study

The results of this study will show the effects of task- based grammatical instructions on grade 5 students’ speaking and writing performance It means that students’ productive skills including speaking and writing improvement is also showed after taking grammar lessons with task- based language teaching

Based on the results of this study, applying task- based instruction in grammar teaching changes their attitudes towards grammar as a “boring subject” In class, students have more chances to use target language to communicate with their friends to

complete the tasks, which not only helps them become more active but also improves their critical thinking skills Instead of reading sentence patterns in their books and remembering structures mechanically, students can deeply understand new knowledge and apply them immediately into real life situations Therefore, not only grammar knowledge but also other English skills are improved in a lesson

For teachers, understanding the effectiveness of task- based instruction in teaching grammar helps them to choose an appropriate method that suits young learners

1.8 Organization of the study

This research shows the effects of task-based grammatical instructions on primary students’ productive skills The organization of this thesis is as follow

Chapter 1 introduces the overview of current teaching, recent problems From the issues raised, the author offers research directions for this issue Chapter 2 is about Literature Review including three parts Part 1 is about theorical background which focuses on definitions relating to the key points of the study Part 2 is to review previous studies to find out what the previous researchers have not done to find out the research gap that is stated in Part 3 Chapter 3 presents Research Methodology In this chapter, research design, research context, participants, instruments, process of conducting research and the way to validate the data are demonstrated Chapter 4 shows the findings and analyzes results collected, which answers research questions given in Chapter 1 Chapter 5 gives main findings and some recommendations for the future research Furthermore, it also provides pedagogical implications for teachers’ teaching in the future

presents the aim of the study in section 1.4 and it is followed by research questions and hypothesis in section 1.5 and 1.6 In section 1.7, the significance of the study is

revealed Lastly, section 1.8 summarizes the structure of the study

Chapter 2 Literature review

In this chapter, the researcher finds out definitions that relate to the topic studied and different grammar teaching methods and reviews the previous research papers to find a new problem for this study This chapter also presents task- based language teaching and describes the characteristics, steps in this method Moreover, benefits and drawbacks when applying this method in teaching are also introduced Lastly, the researcher presents issues that need to be studied in the context of Asian International Primary school

2.1 Theorical background

2.1.1 Methods in teaching grammar

The method of teaching grammar has gone through many years of innovation and improvement to better suit the awareness of teaching In the past, teaching grammar was just to help students remember the grammatical structures, sentence patterns, practice many times and students do not have more chance to interact with their friends or teachers However, nowadays, grammar not only helps students to proficiently use sentence patterns but also know how to apply knowledge into real communication to convey the meaning (Richards & Renandya, 2002) Although there have been many methods and approaches in teaching grammar, the most effective grammar teaching method is still a controversial issue Born in the late 18th and early

19th centuries, grammar translation method (GTM) has not achieved the effect of improving students’ communication ability yet (Brown, 1994) because students have little use of the target language, the instruction focuses on form and only some exercises are given to students to translate sentences from target language to mother tongue After that, direct method was developed by the end of nineteen century, which improves disadvantages of grammar translation to give opportunities for students to use the target language However, inductive presentation is unsuitable for some students who may benefit from explanation of rules (Richards & Rogers, 2001) The 1950s and

1960, audiolingual method was also enhanced based on direct method but added some more features which are considered as not effective Particularly, drilling that induces the development of cognitive engagement and ability of meaning negotiation when students just repeat after the teacher to avoid errors (Richards & Rogers, 2001) The 1970s and 1980s saw a new renovation in teaching method with communicative method, which focuses on meaningful communication Communicative approach was used with the goal of providing students with many opportunities to apply English language in communication There is no doubt that the benefits of communicative language teaching provide real- life situations for meaningful interaction, but when students pay more attention to meaning, they often overlook grammar mistakes In the 1990s, task- based language teaching continued to emphasize on meaning rather forms Both CLT and TBLT have similarities like focusing on meaningful communication, real- life language use, cognitive development, engagement in four skills, but clear communicative outcome is a new point in task- based language teaching that makes this approach unique

2.1.2 Grammar teaching: Explicit or Implicit?

There are many rules in teaching grammar and it also has a lot of controversy about this issue There are two pairs of definition including explicit, implicit learning, and deductive and inductive learning These pairs have a close relationship and are related to each other Explicit grammar teaching means that students will learn grammar structures before learning examples so that they can master in using language efficiently and accurately Implicit means that no rules are presented before and students can acquire language naturally through realistic context (Dekeyser, 1994) Krashen (1985) expressed the view that only when communication used in the process

of learning can knowledge acquisition be formed Only implicit knowledge helps students acquire knowledge through comprehensive input, while explicit knowledge cannot According to Brown (2000), students should learn and get knowledge

automatically and unconsciously through language tasks To support the view of implicit instruction’s advantages, Brown showed the positive sides when applying implicit knowledge in teaching grammar The results illustrated that students learned more actively, totally interacted with other members in class in communicative activities Moreover, students had a chance to link and apply previous knowledge in the process of acquiring new knowledge (new rule in grammar) In other discussion, Widodo emphasized the advantages of implicit grammar teaching in his study in 2006 that learners had a greater degree of cognition by discovering by themselves, which enhanced their autonomy and helped them become more active in their learning process Additionally, problem- solving skills also made students be interested in challenges and motivated to explore more

To emphasize the role of teachers in teaching implied from implicit and explicit teaching, Kumaravadivelu (1994) concluded that students prefer to talk with their friends than teachers, which helps them learn better In the past, effective teacher is a person who contributed their teaching by trying to explain all the concepts, demonstrated the activities or even regularly spent more time on checking students’ memory of knowledge they learned In contrary to the traditional teaching method, now teachers’ role should be declined, they just monitor, give an opportunity for students to practice and interact with their friends Therefore, it is better to give students an opportunity to learn from their friends

On the other hand, Erlam (2003) gave an evidence to support the role of deductive instruction in class when he compared the effect of inductive and deductive instructional treatments on the students’ comprehension and production of target structure This research was conducted in one of the largest secondary school in New Zealand There were 69 participants divided into three groups: induction, deduction and control groups All of them had to finish four tests consisting of oral, written, listening and reading comprehension tests The results indicated that although

deductive instruction group got the highest scores among the three groups, it also showed the most dramatical drop in effect size over time In contrast, induction group maintained the score As can be seen that, deductive instruction could help students apply their knowledge learned immediately but it could not ensure to bring long-term effects like inductive instruction

Andrews (2007) conducted a study of effects of explicit and implicit in teaching simple and complex rules This did not only exam the beginner level but also intermediate and advanced There were 70 participants ranging from the age of 13 to

19 years old All of groups got two treatments including explicit at the beginning of the research and then implicit The results showed that the scores of students in explicit group were higher than those in implicit group It is because that some rules are too difficult to induce, and students need explicit instruction from their teacher In contrast, students got benefits from both explicit and implicit instructions and there was no significant difference between two kinds of treatments It is necessary for teachers to

be flexible in teaching, arrange and allocate time appropriately so that students can do and discover simple rules by themselves Teachers should consider the purpose of teaching carefully to choose better methods and materials that meet the students’ need

Following Lynch (2005), grammar should be taught explicitly and implicitly In terms of implicit teaching, students will have effective language acquisition rather than language learning since it helps students understand how language works by teaching students through context instead of forcing them to know the rules and raise their awareness of using correct grammar structure By this way, it leads to natural language use in communicative situations However, structures that are difficult to make students understand although still set in a specific context such as determiners, auxiliaries, prepositions, interrogatives, intensifiers and model verbs need to be provided in advanced by explicit teaching

Ling (2015) also expressed agreement in incorporating both implicit and explicit

in grammar teaching While explicit teaching focuses on the forms of language that helps students use correct structured sentences, implicit provides them with a lively learning atmosphere, effective real- world communication through a combination of multimedia such as pictures, sounds, texts and magazine, newspaper By this way, students can digest new knowledge easily and effectively

2.1.3 Task- based language teaching

Task- based framework developed by Willis (1996), which is built based on implicit instruction by learning through tasks (Rahimpour, 2008) He pointed out three steps in using task- based for teaching It includes pre- task, task cycle and post- task

In the first step, students are introduced to the topic and teachers should help students understand the goals and tasks they must do, emphasize some necessary words

or phrases but not provide them with new structures In task- cycle, teachers encourage students to use their language to complete the tasks During this stage, teachers do not correct any grammatical errors that students have After that, students continue to plan what to do before sharing with their friends in front of class about what and how they did the tasks, what their achievements are after performing tasks The other groups will listen, take note, compare the results with each other, give some comments and opinions In the final step, teachers provide activities to help students find out and explore language about characteristics, meaning and how to use this new structure by themselves Students can also practice through activities such as repetition, memory challenge game or completion Therefore, students can remember for a long time and easily identify or use them in any context later Thanks to the activities in three stages, students can access new knowledge easily, become familiar and understand how to use

it in the future and promote students’ learning attitudes through exploration by themselves

Table 2.1 Framework of task- based language teaching

2.1.4 Task and exercise

Task and exercise are two different definitions and they should not be misunderstood Willis (1996) and Ellis (2003) defined task as an activity that learners use their language to reach their outcome not to practice language use It requires students to pay attention to meaning The task involves in using language in real- world processes and students will not only engage four skills including receptive and productive skills but also cognitive skills

Tasks used in the class are divided into two groups including the pedagogical task and the target task Pedagogical task is work that students can only perform in the classroom environment According to Nunan (2004), pedagogical task requires students

to use their own grammatical knowledge to comprehend, express ideas and thereby produce target language Although in this task, students do not focus on grammar mistakes, they still face certain difficulties in exchanging information with their peers to achieve the outcome In contrast, target task is a kind of task that relates to daily life activities such as booking a room, ticket, filling a CV, making reservations, typing a letter, etc When students learn new knowledge, they are not expected to know about the language, but they should master it and be able to use it in their lives Therefore, task- based instruction is a bridge to connect knowledge in class and daily life interactions through performing tasks in class (Yildiz & Senel, 2017)

Pre-task Introduce the topic and task

Report

Practice

There are some activities designed in task- based language teaching like solving problems, cooperating with peers, sharing knowledge and experiences between group members, which not only promotes level of each student’s participation, but it also boosts their language skills (Lee, 2000) Learners can freely use language without paying attention to the accuracy of its structure, what they have to do in the task is to exchange information with each other for real goals

In contrast to task, exercise is an activity to help students practice new structures that they have just learned such as “asking students to describe pictures using the structure below” In the research of Willis (1996), there are many specific tasks including listening tasks, ordering and sorting tasks, adding tasks, problem solving tasks, sharing personal experiences and creative tasks Depending on the ability of the learners, teachers will choose the task items accordingly There are many activities of tasks based on a written text, a recording, opinion, a game, a description or an interview, so that learners can exchange, understand the tasks and complete task assignments

2.1.5 Types of tasks

2.1.5.1 Closed/ Open tasks

According to (Nunan D , 1999), closed task focuses on structure and a specific goal For example, reading to compare the differences between the topic of two texts and the instruction is specific Whereas, open task like giving the opinions of the topic

of two texts, which does not limit the outcome of the task

2.1.5.2 Information gap tasks

This type of task requires one student find out the information by asking the other student some questions On the other hand, two students get two different information and they try to exchange information to reach the goal Information gap task is regarded as an effective way to encourage students to use communication strategies to get target (Ellis, 2003)

2.1.5.3 Opinion gap/ Reasoning gap tasks

According to Ellis (2000), opinion gap tasks relate to identifying person’s feeling or attitude This task is conducted base on factual expression to guess the other’s opinion Reasoning gap task is an activity that deduction or implication new information is completed base on given information

2.1.5.4 Information processing tasks

2.1.5.4.1 Listing and ordering tasks

Listing means students have to use their own knowledge to do the tasks It includes some steps like brainstorming, finding fact from the others and completing the list Ordering tasks involve in sequencing, categorizing and classifying Sequencing is arranging events in chronological order, categorizing is arranging based on given categorizes, which is contrary to classifying (Klippel, 1984)

2.1.5.4.4 Problem solving tasks

(Bruton, 1999) illustrates problem solving task as the most practical activity when all members have the same information and then give different opinions to solve the problem Depending on the topic of the tasks, students will make suggestion, support or refuse opinions from the others (Nation P , 1999)

2.1.5.5 Social interactive tasks

Role- play and interview are the examples of this type of task Role- play is a way to help students imagine a situation and play a hypothetical role for that situation

in form of discussion or debate Interview encourages students to use questions and answers to share information with the others (Bygate, 1987)

2.1.6 Requirements in task- based language teaching

2.1.6.1 Review of learner errors

When students perform the tasks, teachers should go around the class, listen and note down the errors that students make In the post- task, teachers introduce errors to the whole class, explain and correct them According to (Lynch T., 2001), one of good activities is called “proof listening” which requires students listen first, then get feedback from their friends and teachers to get any comments at points they have missed

2.1.6.2 Consciousness’s raising tasks

CR- tasks is an abbreviation of consciousness’s raising tasks which is regarded

as a discovery tasks where students are asked to formulate a grammar rule based on some language examples (Ellis, 1997) CR- tasks are not used to emphasize the accuracy in learner production, which helps students build a foundation of target language knowledge

2.1.6.3 Production practice activities

These activities include traditional exercises like transformation drilling, repetition, substitution, gap sentence and dialogue which may help students remember the knowledge automatically when they use it (Ellis, 2002)

2.1.6.4 Noticing activities

In the research of Lynch (2001), reflective noticing activity was examined for learners of English for Academic Purposes They were asked to write down the transcripts of extracts After working collaboratively and edited with their friends, their works were passed to the teacher who made the further corrections with learners

Lynch recognized that students cooperated effectively in transcribing and corrections The results show that transcribing and editing can encourage students learn the target language in a natural way

In summary, when using TBLT in teaching, teachers should be ones who support, encourage students and make them proactive in all learning activities

2.2 Previous studies

There are many studies about benefits of task- based learning Beglar and Hunt (2002) supported the idea that when students engage in negotiation, they can have a higher degree of comprehension To make it clear, Kumaravadivelu (1994) demonstrated it is because that there is a far more interaction between students when they work in groups than with teachers

Hasan’s study in 2014 demonstrated the positive effect of Task- based on enhancing speaking performance for secondary school students There were 44 students taking part in the research, but the number of students in experimental groups

is more than that in the control group, which may affect the result of this research Quantitative method was used in this research by analyzing the scores of the experimental and control group in both one- way monologue and two-way dialogue After conducting the study, students in experimental group had higher scores than those in control group When comparing the results of the experimental group students’ oral performance in both one- way monologue and two- way dialogue, there was a significant difference between the scores of one-way monologue and two-way dialogue It is because that when students have a monologue, they do not have any interruption such as unexpected questions from the others students, which affects their fluency

In the study of Fotos and Ellis (1991) at a college and the participants were students in intermediate level, they investigated the use of communicative, grammar- based task in EFL classroom There were two groups including control group which

was taught with grammar- based and experimental group which was taught with task- based The results showed that the effect of task in teaching grammar is to promote students’ knowledge of grammar points and interaction between students help them acquire knowledge better Students could learn grammar well when they took part in communication to exchange information through tasks However, task lessons had less long-term proficiency effect than the traditional lessons in students who were both English and non- English majors The reasons were the ineffectiveness in groups and pair works and the ability to understand the goals and procedures when performing tasks They also emphasized that tasks were not suitable for people with low qualifications because they could not communicate fluently and complete the task Proficiency is a solid wall that makes learners at low level unable to fulfill the requirements of communicative approach (Li, 1998; & Karavas- Doukas, 1995) The results also showed that some of their participants felt bored with the grammar lessons because the tasks were so difficult for them to discuss Carless (2003) and Myers (2000) disagreed with this idea when they studied the activities of interaction between students in task- based learning and found out the factors that made the task better These factors include activity construction, interaction, and class morale It is understood that the selection of tasks, the impact of textbooks and the topics given by teachers needs to be careful and appropriate related to reality to make students feel excited The role of teacher is to let students complete the tasks by themselves based on their abilities Enough support from teacher will bring high effect Moreover, follow-up homework will give students a chance to use language more Therefore, before choosing a task, it is necessary for teachers to consider all the factors, characteristics and development as well as level of students Depending on the level and ability of students, teachers should choose appropriate topics and tasks for them to complete

In the study of Torky in 2006, he found a positive effect of task- based activities

on the development of students’ speaking skill in a secondary school The research was

conducted to compare the scores of control and experimental groups in terms of overall speaking proficiency and speaking subskills Quantitative method was used in this study The results showed that using task – based instruction was very effective in enhancing students speaking skill in general and speaking sub – skills in particular This result is similar to which in the researches of Nation in 1991 Moreover, self or peer assessment help improve their self-study because when they receive comments from their friends and teachers, they can recognize their strengths and weaknesses, so that they do self- correction to improve and develop skills (Lynch, 2001)

Aliakbari and Jamalvandi (2010) investigated the impact of role- play in improving student’s speaking ability when using TBLT in teaching 60 students from university of Ilam – Iran took part in the research To make the scores become reliable, there were four raters marking the tests After two months of doing research, the advantage was that role- play was useful, it helped students enhancing their oral skills They admitted that task- based learning helped learners

to access to real world language and meet their needs

Besides the research about effects of task-based language teaching on students' learning, there are many drawbacks when applying task- based in real teaching Mc Donough and Chaikitmongkol in 2007 explored more deeply about teacher and student’s responses when applying task-based learning at a University in Thailand The paper only used qualitative method to obtain results from spoken and written data including task evaluation, learning notebooks, observations, course evaluation and interview According

to the research questions, three themes were investigated included learner independence increase, course content concerns, and real world relevance Using these instruments can help researchers know skills, knowledge and strategies that students get from doing tasks and measure the relevance of materials to reality The results showed that students became more independent in learning and task- based language teaching met their real-world academic needs Although they had some problems with understanding at first because

they were not familiar with this approach before Therefore, they needed a lot of support from teachers to successfully complete task assignments According to them, when they worked alone, it was like they did not know what to do Moreover, teachers also should provide clear, specific instructions for students to see what they need to do and why and prepare supplementary materials in each lesson

Another study on grammar teacher’s task- based conception and teaching practice was conducted by Chiu in 2011 in a secondary school in Hong Kong However, it was not just about studying how to teach grammar The paper also focused on examining whether policies, curriculum mapping and materials were aligned with teaching process To achieve the results, the researcher sought information from various sources including Hong Kong curriculum documents, theory about teaching grammar and materials used through the review of research papers Moreover, he studied the views and practical teaching of teachers by observation and interview instruments The results showed that the task- based grammar teaching program was not specific, not much related to reality There was no similarity between curriculum and educational policies such as tests and evaluation system In terms of materials, asking teachers to follow the textbook did not provide enough knowledge with students, so that teachers often used supplemental materials as well In terms of teaching, the perception of teachers was similar to their teaching in class However, they also encountered many difficulties Task- based teaching was not used thoroughly in class activities, teachers relied too much on books and regularly gave students explanation and controlled their practice Therefore, students did not have many opportunities to produce language

Barnard and Nguyen Gia Viet (2010) explored teacher’ beliefs of task- based teaching by using narrative Narrative is similar to semi- structured interview, but it asks the participants to tell a story of their teaching experience, about what they think, why they

do freely without worrying about face- threating questions (Creswell, 2005) After the teachers wrote opinions about their attitude of the role of task- based teaching and

applying this approach into actual practice, the results showed the contrast Particularly, although teachers expressed the importance of task- based in teaching, they just paid attention to form focus instruction and grammar use correction of students in practice Although narrative gave the participants freedom to answer the questions, there were many people who were not willing to give necessary information, leading to misleading or incomplete information Therefore, privacy is needed to be guaranteed

In the study of Hao (2017), she investigated the task- based application and challenges in teaching at Hanoi university This research was conducted with 30 participants

at 5.5 IELTS level by using a variety of instruments like observation with the support of camera and semi- structured interview, which is reliable The results showed that teachers were still center in the class, students used their mother tongue and dictionary to assist in task execution Teachers corrected errors while they were doing tasks, which is contrary to the characteristics of task- based This is because that students in low level are unable to finish the tasks without the support of teachers, which is consistent with the research of Fotos and Ellis (1991) However, she also pointed out that exam pressure affected her teaching because of the needs of the learners They take this course to get the higher mark in IELTS test, and she has to focus on form rather than meaning to help them avoid mistakes when they take the real test Furthermore, teamwork culture made group activities ineffective Students only wanted to work with those they like and seemed to ignore the others they do not like

In short, there have been many researches on the effectiveness of task- based application to teach speaking and grammar However, most of them were conducted in students at secondary school and universities Additionally, there is no research on applying task- based language teaching in grammar to help students improve their speaking and writing performance Furthermore, to investigate the effects of task- based grammatical instructions, this research used mix-methods which have not been done in the previous studies

2.3 Research gaps

Based on what has just been presented, the researcher draws some following issues It is undeniable that the role of task- based approach in teaching for motivation and improving the learning outcomes of students, for those who are from pre-intermediate level to advanced However, the numbers of studies of the use of task- based to teach grammar are very few, especially for students at the elementary level In addition, applying grammatical instruction to support the outcome of writing and speaking of primary students is limited Therefore, this study will be conducted to gain

a better understanding of the effectiveness of task- based grammatical instructions in order to develop productive skills for elementary students at Asian International primary school in Ho Chi Minh City The application of both quantitative and qualitative methods to find the effects of using task-based instruction in teaching grammar is also new in this research

The studies in chapter 2 show that, it is necessary to choose a method that helps students especially for elementary students to play and study, promote their curiosity, which is completely consistent with task- based approach

Chapter 3 Methodology Chapter 3 presents the methodology of the research that helps to find answers to research questions Research design, context, research process, and research tools used to collect data are also presented carefully to ensure the reliability and validity of the research

This study was designed by using mixed methodology to get reliable results Quantitative method was used to find out clearly the impact of task- based grammatical instructions on primary student’ speaking and writing performance Moreover, the information about students' attitudes of using task- based grammatical instructions was also illustrated through qualitative research

3.1 Research design

Research was designed to collect data of effectiveness of grammatical instruction on grade 5 students’ speaking and writing performance and their learning attitudes According to (Vogt, W.P., Gardner, D.C., & Haeffele, L.M, 2012), research design should be chosen to avoid bias that might have in research investigation

Firstly, to examine the improvement of students’ writing and speaking performance, quantitative research was implemented to have statistic conclusions This kind of research design generalized results from a larger sample population Moreover, the results of each student’s test were scored on a scale based on specific criteria, which could not be judged from experiences or opinions of participants Therefore, quantitative was suitable in this case Quasi- experimental design involved in putting participants into control and experimental groups without any random pre-selection processes This division is convenient, especially in educational situation because it causes less disruption and saves time and money

Secondly, to investigate students’ attitudes towards task-based grammatical instruction, qualitative research was needed Through an interview after each lesson, students’ attitudes toward their current learning method was found out Semi-structured

interview also allowed informants the freedom to express their view in their own terms and the researcher could get more details about participants’ thoughts

(Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007) illustrated four main typologies, in which the triangulation mixed methods design was applied in this study It was used to gather information on the same topic but from different sources for analysis and interpretation 3.2 Research setting and participants

3.2.1 Research setting

The Asian International School is a school for all students from the ages of 6 to

18 years old It is a member of the Group of Asian International Education (GAIE)- an educational and research group in Vietnam This school was allowed to establish by Ho Chi Minh Department of Education and Training in 1999 with the name of International Primary School (IPS) In 2002, it continued to establish two kinds of education including secondary and high schools In 2004, the university switched to the other name as Asian High School (AHS) and until 2012, IPS and AHS were emerged into multi- level school with the name Asian International School Students study semi- boarding with program of the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam and international English program designed according to the standard of education American Education Reaches Out (AERO) and Common Core State Standard of United States Being established since 1999, there have been 13 branches and 6 constructing buildings which are ready to use and over 2000 teachers and staff working here to serve the learning needs of students The Asian International Primary School (IPS) at Cong Hoa campus where the researcher is teaching is chosen for research in this study

3.2.2 Participants

There have been many researches on using task- based in teaching for students in intermediate and advanced level (Fotos and Ellis, 1991; Mc Donough & Chaikitmongkol,

2007; Chiu, 2011, and Hao, 2017) This paper focuses on effects of task- based in teaching grammar on students’ speaking and writing outcome in elementary level

This research was conducted in the semester 2 at Asian International Primary School located in Cong Hoa district in Ho Chi Minh City Students of this school study bilingual English and Vietnamese but the main language is still English They spend most of time to attend the English class However, at the first semester of the school year, students cannot communicate or express ideas in writing Students participating

in this study were 5th graders who have had four years of studying at this school, they have learned many grammatical structures since grade 1 and are regularly reviewed at higher classes All the students in 2 classes of grade 5 took part in this research, the total number was 60 students They were given two tests including speaking and writing The score of both tests was marked based on specific criteria After that, students in the same level were chosen There were 40 students divided randomly into two groups participating the research after taking the pre-test, 20 of them were in experimental group, the rest was in control group The students were asked do the post- test and interview

3.3 Research procedure

To achieve the best and most reliable results, research was done through five steps First, pre-test and post-test format were taken from the Cambridge Flyers and piloted with 2 classes of Ms Diep who is teaching grammar for grade 5 in the AIS The adjustment was made if necessary, to ensure the reliability of the tests Secondly, all students in two classes took a pre- test From the scores obtained from the test, students with the same level would be selected Next, 40 students chosen were introduced about task- based instruction, requirements when they did the tasks After that, those students were divided into two classes, control and experimental groups The two classes would have a time of 8 weeks to study grammar with two different ways of teaching For experimental group, they learnt grammar with task- based instruction For eight weeks,

students conducted the tasks given by teacher All of them needed to interact with the others to complete the tasks, the role of teacher was just a guide controlling the activities in the classroom Whereas, in control group, students learnt with the traditional method- grammar translation, which focused on teaching grammar rules and usage without the necessity of communication between students, because all knowledge was presented on the board After 8 weeks, both groups continued to take the post- test and its format was the same as the pre-test In addition, students would be interviewed to answer questions about their attitudes of the method they learnt All results from pre-test, post-test and interview were submitted and analyzed by SPSS software version 16

3.4 Teaching procedure

In week 1 and week 2, both classes were taught simple past tense with regular and irregular verbs In week 3, week 4 and week 5, students were taught with Past continuous In week 6 and week 7, students were taught with If clause (first and second condition) In week 8, lesson covered the content of the 3rd condition Despite the same amount of knowledge and learning materials, there were differences in teaching methods between two classes- control and experimental groups In control group, students were taught with GTM that is currently used in this school Every lesson followed the order of steps consisting of warm- up, lead-in, new lesson, practice and consolidation Before each session, teacher (also the researcher) let students sing and dance to stir up the classroom atmosphere Next, teacher used some pictures, flashcards

to introduce new vocabulary and new structure Then, teacher asked students to repeat the structure before doing the similar exercises

Unlike the steps in the control class, there were only three steps in experimental group class with pre- task, task cycle and post- task Instead of providing students with new knowledge at the beginning of the lesson, students in experimental group had to

do a small task that required them to use their previous knowledge to complete In this

stage, focusing on form was ignored Working in groups and discovering new knowledge by themselves were very important points in using task- based instruction After understand the meaning of new lesson, teacher encouraged students to use target language to practice through the other tasks

After 8 weeks, students were required to take the post-test and two teachers marked the pre- test and post-test based on the criteria

Chart 1: Procedure of applying grammar translation method in teaching

grammar

0

Teacher provided new structure and explains

Teacher asked students to repeat the structure

Teacher provided exercises

Teacher corrected the exercises Teacher provided new vocabulary Students sang a song to warm up

Chart 2: Procedure of applying task- based method in teaching grammar

Teacher introduced the topic

Teacher gave task

Students worked in groups and planned what to

3.5 Instruments

3.5.1 The tests and rubrics for the tests

The main purpose of this research is to measure the use of task- based

grammatical instructions help grade 5 students improve their speaking and writing performance, so tests and test evaluation are very important A pre- test and a post- test were used to investigate the impact of using task- based instruction in teaching

grammar to develop productive skills The two tests were taken from FLYERS

examination The highlight of these tests is that they are interestingly and vividly

designed, which focuses on using contextual language and real- world situations to assess students’ ability It means that no paired format is given to limit students’

interactional skills (Field, 2018) However, only speaking and writing parts were

selected by the teacher (also the researcher) and approved by the international program manager of AIS at Cong Hoa campus The tests were piloted to 40 students in the other classes before being used The design of writing and speaking assessment was based on the scales and criteria of flyers but there are some adjustments to suit the purpose of the study The rubrics for speaking was adapted from that of Flyers but there were some adjustments for writing assessment The total score of writing test was 15 divided into three parts including ideas, sentence structure and grammar usage and mechanics The way of using criteria was discussed and come to agreements between teachers and approved by the international program managers They agreed that this rubric for

writing could measure students’ overall writing outcome

3.5.2 The pre-test and post-test writing

Although FLYERS for reading and writing test consists of seven parts, only part

7 was selected for the pre-test and post- test of writing In writing test, there were three pictures that students had to describe This writing test could measure the ability to express the ideas to make the story become more coherent, fluent and meaningful based on given situations It took 20 minutes to do the writing test