This section is to answer research question number 2 - What are the EFL teachers’ perceptions, especially benefits and drawbacks of the use of TBLT in their classes? The answer to this question is findings from the interview data. It is presented in two sections: (1) the benefits of the use of TBLT and (2) the drawbacks of the use of TBLT.
4.1.2.1 Benefits of the use of Task-Based Language Teaching Motivation
Five participants shared that the TBLT approach would motivate the learning process. They proved their confirmation by explaining different aspects of motivation. T1 indicated that students already had a lot of lessons from their public schools to do, if they received lots of assignments from the language center for doing at home, they would feel tired of studying. It also meant that they did not have much motivation for their studies. He continued
“the activities in class are to make them happy, to make them feel more active, more interested” and “they have more confidence in their ability and they improve.” When students had confidence, at least, they could do something with the task in class, believe in their ability and get improved.
Similarly, T2 added that the TBLT approach allowed students to talk about things in real-world situations that they were interested in, which made them spend more time and effort expressing themselves. Also, T3 stated that the TBLT approach provided real-life situations which demanded role play, and students had a chance to be in those real cases, which made them feel excited. T4 and T6 confirmed that teenagers wanted more independent tasks and showed less interest in games. T4 shared that students “want more independent tasks, I think task-based activities give them that independence, empowering, nature to be able to figure out things and work on their own.”.
T6 added TBLT was “an interesting task” for students because “they are
teenagers, they don’t want to play any games”. Meanwhile, T5 did not emphasize much on the benefits of motivation.
Authentic practice
Findings from the analysis of interview data shows three teachers (T1,3,5) revealed that students would have lots of opportunities to use authentic language in real-life contexts. According to T1, if students were interested in the lesson, they would study better and achieve good results. To gain the interest, students should take part in the interesting activities about their real- life needs, which made them remember better and even longer than passively listening to teachers. Moreover, T3 & T5 added that students were put in those real contexts, which forced them to know and use how the language should be used. This was called learning by doing. This learning style proved that students knew “why they should learn the language to communicate and express their ideas in a real context” (T5) instead of just doing the tests at school better or gaining a certificate.
Formative assessment
Concerning formative assessment, two participants (T2,4) showed their appreciation on the immediate report of their students’ ability after students’
presentation or any kinds of performance corresponding to the task. To be more specific, T2 emphasized that TBLT offered her a chance “to understand more about my students’ level and I enjoy listening to their performances”.
Additionally, T4 indicated it was hard to see “progress in a very short time”.
She thought that it was the progress of that day if her students could use the vocabulary and structures introduced. T4 called this process as “an immediate progress report” which actually reflected how much knowledge her students absorbed from the lesson.
Creativity
Two participants (T2,4) shared that they preferred the TBLT approach to others because it gave students “a chance to show their creativity”(T2) beyond granting them interest and opportunities to use the language better. T4 revealed that her students were always encouraged to think “bigger and deeper than the questions required”. T4 added when her students finished the questions, they could “challenge the questions to see the outside”, which could boost their critical thinking skills.
Suitability
All participants of the study firmly agreed that the use of TBLT for teenage students was surely suitable for some reasons.
Firstly, as mentioned above, teenagers would “prefer more independent tasks” (T4) and tended to show “less interest in games” (T6). Luckily, TBLT absolutely gave them that independence. Students could brainstorm and present their own ideas without restraint, so creative and interesting tasks should be exploited. Having said that, they were still under control by their teacher to some extent.
Secondly, three participants were convincingly admitted that TBLT was one of the best choices for a group of mixed students - a group of mixing of good and fair students - because they could help each other in solving the task.
T4 revealed that “I think this task-based activity is really good for a group of mixed students”. T5 said that TBLT was a really good study method for teenagers because “their English level is around Intermediate and above or Pre-Intermediate” so she thought “they have the ability to communicate and express their ideas much better than low level students”. Besides, T4 added that
“interaction gives them social emotional skills which could make them be more independent and work better in teams”. In addition, students could communicate better with each other to complete the task since they not only learned from the teacher, but they also learned from their friends when they
helped each other in building sentences or noticed the pronunciation mistakes.
Once again, it confirmed that the TBLT approach gave students the power of independence.
Thirdly, one participant (T2) said that teenagers often showed their curiosity to everything around them. At this level, somehow teenagers accumulated their life experience beyond sharpening their English ability.
Therefore, they tended to work out something challenging and relevant to them in order to satisfy their curiosity.
Last but not least, one participant (T3) showed that small class size was also one of the benefits of ASTON language center. Using the TBLT approach in a small class, the teacher would have more time to take care of students although two participants (T1,4) mentioned that big class size was not a big deal for the performance of TBLT.
In brief, all participants highly appreciated the use of TBLT in classes of teenagers. They showed their excitement when they realized the appropriateness of the TBLT approach for this group of students.
Improvement
In terms of progress, four participants (T1,4,5,6) meant many students made improvement on various aspects such as teamwork skill, presentation skill, critical thinking skill, analytical and logical reasoning skill besides the linguistic strategy and communicative competence through the application of TBLT. Not everyone could gain all of those skills mentioned above, but each student possibly developed one or two skills which were very helpful for students. This was also the foundation skills for moving up to the higher levels of education in the future.
4.1.2.2 Drawbacks of the use of Task-Based Language Teaching Choice of tasks
First and foremost, five participants showed that task selection was considered as a difficult task for some participants apart from one participant (T1) with more than 20 years of teaching experience. Those participants clarified that if the teacher was new to the class, this led to the lack of knowing about students. Therefore, it might be challenging to assign appropriate tasks.
T2 continued that she usually “get stuck at finding suitable tasks” for students when “some uncommon topics” were given. She mentioned that although “the textbook and teacher’s book provided lots of useful tasks”, sometimes she needed to “modify those suggestions” for her students. Furthermore, another participant also emphasized that in some classes, the real-life experience of the students was modest, so they could have trouble with ideas. The teacher must recognize that problem and consider giving the right task.
Preparation
Preparation was listed as a drawback of the application of the TBLT approach by one participant (T3) while other participants emphasized that they could deal with it. Having said that, T1 added if the teacher was a novice, it would surely “take lots of time to prepare even a simple lesson”, not just a task- based activity. No matter what levels of students he/she would teach or what teaching approaches the teacher would use, that person must find preparation challenging. Luckily, this issue could be absolutely improved by practice through time. Furthermore, T4 shared that she did not spend much time preparing the lesson due to “the availability of lots of online materials these days”. In short, preparation was an indispensable task of a teacher before coming to class. Thus, the teacher should not be reluctant to try any approaches when the planning was required.
Negative factors
Concerning negative factors, three participants (T4,5,6) indicated that this drawback discouraged the teacher from performing TBLT to teach teenage learners. Three participants strongly pointed out that if a class had lots of negative factors: unorganized classes, poor lesson plans, time-consuming preparation, students’ refusal of involvement and unexpected language use, they would use the task-based lesson less frequently than a well-organized class.
To be specific, according to T4, if a class had “many misbehaved students”, and the task-based lesson gave them too much independence, “the class must have chaos”. Hence, it was really dependent on the class for the teacher to choose the suitable approach to teach.
T5 modified that many factors would affect the results of task completion. In relation to the teacher’s side, firstly, the teacher must ensure their well-planned tasks. If not, “the lesson would be a mess, and had no purpose at all or achieved little result”. Secondly, time-consuming preparation which was mentioned above might prevent the teacher from using this approach in spite of its benefits. Thirdly, T5 continued if the teacher “involves too much, it would reduce the amount of time for students’ practice”. In regard to students’ side, the first factor was the refusal of involvement. In particular, if the topic of the task was not about students’ interest, they might not be motivated to do the task. If some students were too lazy to talk, and they just sat still and stared at their mates, they would lack chances to practise. The second factor was the unexpected language use. According to T5, when the students were so excited, they would use separate words such as “this, that, you’re wrong, that’s right” instead of practising the things that the teacher aimed at.
Imprecision
Regarding the imprecision, two participants (T1,T2) found that it is hard to deal with the fact-checking of the information presented by students (T1 emphasized if the teacher was a novice) because the TBLT approach focused on meaning, and tasks belonged to real-world tasks. According to T1, if the teachers had “lots of teaching experience as well as real-life experience”, it would not be a big deal to verify the authenticity of the information. Otherwise,
“the same problem in class” would be a big obstacle for “a new teacher to the job”. T2 shared that carrying TBLT out in class, teachers might “give wrong information” because it was related to real-life situations. Therefore, the concern of the accuracy of some information probably hindered the participants from applying TBLT for some difficult or uncommon topics.
Assessment
As mentioned in the first section of findings, one participant (T4) showed that the teacher preferred pair work and group work to individual work, which led to a drawback in assessment of an individual. Specifically, T4 shared when the teacher asked students to work in groups, sometimes “the answers may be just from one student in a group”. T4 added that normally she could
“guess who that student is”. In general, it was hard to assess the level of each student if they worked together frequently.
4.1.2.3 Conclusion
As presented, six remarkable benefits and five drawbacks of the use of Task-Based Language Teaching were revealed by six participants of the study.
Those benefits comprise motivation, authentic practice, formative assessment, creativity, suitability and improvement. Those challenges contain choice of tasks, preparation, negative factors, imprecision and assessment of an individual.