This section is to answer research question number 1 - How do EFL teachers apply Task-Based Language Teaching to their classes? Through the analysis of interview and observation data sets, the researcher presented the current practice of the TBLT approach in terms of procedure, instruction, groupings, task types, skills applied and roles of the teacher and students.
Procedure
Based on the interview data, five participants shared a similar procedure when they performed Task-Based Language Teaching in their teenage classes (ET classes). Although their division of steps was different, they unconsciously followed three phases: (1) Pre-task (Introduction to topic and task); (2) Task cycle (Task, Planning, Report); and (3) Language focus (Analysis, Practice) suggested by Willis (1996). T1 carried out three steps, consisting of
“introduction, practice and activation”. T3 clarified that she conducted four steps, including “introducing the topic and giving instruction”, presentation
preparation, “students’ presentation” and “giving feedback”. Only T6 shared that she could not state exactly the number of steps because she just followed the flow of the lesson and focused on its target skills. When being asked about the procedure of a task, she shared that “ I cannot tell you step by step”. She added that she usually split her lesson into two parts: lesson introduction and practice. She always began the lesson with a speaking task which was considered as a task-based activity. Subsequently, she introduced the language focus of the new lesson of that day. After that, she led her students to part two which was called practice. Despite not stating clearly her application of the TBLT approach, the author could see her implementation in the observation day. Three participants shared:
T2: First I prepare the lesson plans, then I give instruction, then put students into groups so that they do the task. Lastly, I have them read their answers or present their answers.
T4:Four stages would be explaining the task, second stage is students do the task, the third one is students checking their work or can be peer review and the fourth is collectively go over the learning together. That’s the whole group.
T5: …usually I have three phases. The first one is a Pre-task, I will basically introduce the topic to the class,[...] For the second phase - the task-phase, they […] do the planning to answer the task and give their presentation. The last phase, reviewing, […] I will have students give feedback or give their opinion on completed work and analyzing different ideas.
In general, the participants performed the tasks in their classes, which was witnessed through observations. To put it another way, the teachers of teenage levels at ASTON language center highly appreciated the use of TBLT.
Based on the observation data, the participants preferred TBLT at the beginning of the lesson. Four teachers (T1,2,4,6) used TBLT to brainstorm ideas and engage students. Three teachers (T1,2,3) used TBLT to lead to the
new topic by raising some speaking questions. T5 performed TBLT at the post- stage to have students practise some target grammar structures. Through the analysis of interview and observation sets, the researcher undoubtedly concluded that the participants performed the tasks very often in their classes (one or two tasks in every lesson). The performance procedure was aligned with the task-based lesson procedure proposed by Willis (1996) in terms of content although the number of steps shared was different. This difference would be examined more carefully in the section of discussion.
Based on the analysis of observation data, teaching procedure of six teachers can be summarized as inTable 4.1as below.
Table 4.1 The procedure of TBLT implementation by six teachers at ASTON
Teacher & No of
steps Procedure
T1 (3 steps)
Step 1:Introduction
Step 2:Student practice and Activation Step 3:Feedback and step 2 if needed T2
(4 steps)
Step 1:Preparation
Step 2:Instruction and putting students into groups Step 3:Doing the task and presentation (by students) Step 4:Checking, feedback and correction as a class T3
(4 steps)
Step 1:Introduction and instruction Step 2:Students’ preparation Step 3:Students’ presentation Step 4:Teacher’s feedback
T4 (4 steps)
Step 1:Explaining the task (by the teacher) Step 2:Doing the task (by students)
Step 3:Checking their work: peer review (by students) Step 4:Collectively going over the learning together T5
(3 steps)
Step 1: Introducing the topic; activating the topic by providing vocabulary and grammatical structures (by the teacher)
Step 2: Working in pairs/ groups; delivering the presentation or giving out clear answers. (by students)
Step 3: Focusing on accuracy; summarizing students’ answers;
giving feedback and analyzing different ideas of students. (by the teacher)
T6 Part 1: Activating the class atmosphere with a speaking task;
introducing the target lesson
Part 2:Practising the target grammatical structures by using some games, speaking and writing tasks
As illustrated in table 4.1, only T6 did not follow three phases of TBLT.
Instead, she split the lesson into two parts: introduction and practice. Actually, she still used TBLT in her lesson, but she adapted it by shortening the number of steps and expanding time for any steps which she felt that students struggled with.
According to Willis (1996, p. 38), the very first phase would be
“introduction to topic and task”, which means that the teacher must introduce the topic to students at the beginning and then introduce or explain the task.
Based on the analysis of the observation data set, all six participants introduced the topic and explained the task at the start of their performance. However, only four participants explained the task meticulously by having students
brainstorm ideas or asking students to come up with answers, and their students could understand immediately what to do. Those participants claimed that the language used in class was the target language only. The other two participants made an effort to explain the purpose of the task, but some students remained confused with the task. Then, teachers explained the same task for the second time and used Vietnamese instead of the target language. Two teachers above revealed that they used around 80 to 90 percent of English in class and 10 to 20 percent of Vietnamese so that they could clarify some confusions or sometimes help weak students. In short, the researcher confirmed that every participant was aware of introducing the topic and explaining the task before giving students some time to complete the task. They ensured that every student knew what to do with the task before they moved to the next step.
Regarding the second phase of Willis (1996), the Task cycle consists of three sub-phases: Task, Planning and Report. In this second phase, the author highly appreciated that the majority of participants confidently performed the task by having students do the task in pairs or groups using their prior knowledge. Students learned by doing, and the teacher just stayed there to support and facilitate students’ learning. Only half of participants applied peer review before students reported their outcomes. Then, moving to the third phase - Language focus, all teachers ensured the accuracy of the task and provided some further practice on some problematic issues.
Instruction
Three participants emphasized on giving a short and clear instruction and always using the target language. The instruction must be “easy to understand, easy to follow and simple language” (T1). T2 revealed that she would deliver a clear instruction to ensure that every student understands what to do with the task. Likewise, T3 emphasized on the repetition of the instruction and then provided examples or demonstrations. On the other hand, T4 and T5 said that they always used the target language, and T6 shared that
she would use English to give the instruction at first and followed by Vietnamese in case some of her students could not understand it.
T1: Instruction to me must be easy to understand, easy to follow and simple language. Really short, but clear. […] That means there are four steps for them to do, but we just ask them to do step by step. And while they are doing that, you write the steps of what they need to do on the board. The first done, the second step done, the third done, the fourth done.
From the observation notes, the author described that five participants (T1,3,4,5,6) delivered “a short and simple instruction to tasks or exercises” in class. They split the instruction into smaller steps and asked students to follow one-by-one. This worked well because teachers could divide appropriate time for each step and students followed more easily. T2 also divided the instruction into smaller steps; however, she presented it quite unclear. She had to “stand closer to each group to provide further explanation”.
In conclusion, it could be seen that the instruction in the TBLT approach should be short and easy for students to understand. Moreover, the language should be in English because English ability of teenage levels was good enough.
Groupings
Regarding putting students in groups, all participants agreed that it was really dependent on the lesson as well as the task which was intentionally performed in teenage classes. Specifically, four participants (T1,3,4,5) preferred pair work to group work or individual work. T1 and T4 shared that they normally applied pair work or group work after finishing individual work so that students could have peer review before collectively checking answers as a class. Moreover, T5 indicated that groupings were also dependent upon the difficulty of the task and the level of students. Therefore, teachers should be flexible in the choice of class groupings to their certain teenage classes. They shared:
T3: My students often work in pairs or groups of 3 or 4 (just small groups) because the number of students are around 8 to 12 students. […]
I think they prefer to work in pairs.
T4:Hmm, it’s really depends but I think if it is even individual work, I would make them do pair work at the end to compare each other’s answers. So I would say I usually mix them up so that they have more chance to interact with each other. Even it’s group work I would say group of three, group of four, but not bigger than that.
T2 did not affirm her favorite type of groupings. She indicated that task types enabled her to choose pair work or group work. For instance, students might work in groups of three or four students efficiently if the task was a project. Also, T6 confirmed that working in pairs or in groups of four or five students would be effective in a well-organized class. Yet, in an unorganized class, students were normally distracted, so the teacher should interact with students on a one-by-one basis.
Findings from the observation data analysis showed that various kinds of grouping were made in every class of teenagers. T2 asked her students to
“work in groups of four students before the project was introduced.”. During homework checking, two teachers interacted one by one with students. Two teachers (T1,4) asked students to “compare the answers with their partner”
before confirming the answers. Other two teachers (T2,3) called students out to
“write their answers on the board for checking”. In the warm-up part, four teachers had students discuss in pairs to brainstorm some ideas for the leading questions, and other two teachers split students into groups of four to do a task.
In general, for a big task, teachers had their students work in groups of three or four students. If the task belonged to listing or matching, the teachers preferred pair work than group work.
In a nutshell, in the TBLT approach, pair work and group work were frequently adopted to promote interaction between students. Yet, in certain
cases, teachers could choose any working type as long as they thought it worked best in their class.
Task types
In a general view, all participants applied various types of tasks when the TBLT approach was performed in ET classes at ASTON where the class size was small (around 8 to 12 students). Four participants accentuated that some preferable types of tasks such as sharing personal experiences, creative tasks and matching were used very frequently. In particular, T2 showed her interest in story-telling, posters and surveys which were interesting and relevant to her students. T6 clarified her choice of using a variety of task types such as sharing personal experience, matching, listing, ordering and sorting, etc.
All participants revealed that they followed the order of task organization of Prepare books. They admitted Prepare books were designed in a professional way with appropriate tasks for different levels of students. They often relied on the given tasks of this textbook. In certain topics, they adopted and adapted some tasks to suit their students’ age groups and their life experience.
T2:In my classes, I usually have tasks like sharing personal experience such as story-telling that is related or interesting to them. Or I have projects and creative tasks like posters, surveys, anything like that about their topic that is relevant to them.
T6: Matching, sharing personal experiences, comparing and contrasting, ordering and sorting, listing, and for projects and creative tasks are usually used in the post-stage not warm-up. I use all of these task types for any parts of my lesson, not just the warm-up one.
Based on the observation data, the study showed that sharing personal experience was used by three teachers. Specifically, two teachers (T1,4) used this type of tasks to brainstorm ideas to lead to the topic. One teacher (T3) asked students to “share their feelings after reading a passage in the textbook”.
Doing a project was conducted by another teacher at the post-stage to have
students practise the target structure (T2). Ordering and sorting were also applied for listening skill (T4).
In brief, the TBLT approach could be performed through various types of tasks. Textbooks contained a great source of suggested tasks which were helpful for teachers. Moreover, some adjustments of a few tasks in the books needed to be made in order to correspond to certain learners.
Skills applied
Four participants indicated that the TBLT approach was quite broad, and it worked for any language skills. They clarified that they would try to do as much as they could to ensure that everyone has a chance to use the language.
Two other participants expressed that they preferred this approach for Speaking skill because it had “a clear purpose in communication” (T5), and she also wanted to “focus on the fluency of speaking” (T5). In addition, some participants conveyed that the allotted time for each task was around 10 or 15 minutes depending on how much time the teacher had for the lesson and learners’ ability. Having said that, another teacher (T5) who usually applied TBLT to speaking activities in the last part of the lesson (the production stage) revealed that “students need to have some basic knowledge from the lesson to apply during the discussion when they do a task”, so she thought it should be applied in the production stage and with a longer time.
Findings from observation data indicated that TBLT was applied for speaking the most. All the participants “applied the TBLT approach for speaking section”. For grammar, reading and writing, two participants (T2,6) applied the TBLT approach to provide students more chances to work.
However, in listening skill, teachers had students do exercises provided in the textbook only.
In short, Task-Based Language Teaching could be applied for any language skills. It could be inferred that application for speaking skill was one of the most efficient ones because of the main characteristics of a task -
focusing on meaning and having a clear communicative outcome. The study also found that listening was hardly applied TBLT for.
Roles of the teacher and students
Roles of the teacher
Findings from the interview data set showed that teachers played different roles in class. Some participants called the title of the teacher’s role while others indicated what they carried out in their own class. Some roles such as a monitor, a facilitator, an instructor, a mediator and even a participant were remarked by four participants. They shared:
T2: My role in the class would be to monitor them doing the task, giving questions and answers when needed. […] I will also correct their answers or give feedback so that everyone can have the right approach to the task they’re doing.
T3: the teacher as a mediator of the students’ solving tasks’
process, contributing to the effectiveness of the tasks’ objectives.
T5: In general, the role of the teacher is a facilitator - providing help, but not involving too much in the activities because this approach tends to have less teacher-centered classroom and more on the students.
T6:If the class is too noisy and naughty, I have to take part in it. It means I am also a student in the class. If the class is so nice and kind, I am not a participant any more, I am an instructor.
Other two participants clarified their roles as a person who explained the task, listened to students’ conversations, stayed in the center of the class and had an observation. Both of them agreed that they would not get involved in students’ work immediately when students had difficulties. T1 revealed that “if you recognize they need help, you can have a question or suggestion to give
them ideas and let them answer by themselves”. T4 expressed that “I would let their partner help them first before I step in”. Besides, T4 added that the teacher was expected to collect some common mistakes and collectively checked as a class in the feedback section. Based on the data of observation forms, the author witnessed teachers’ roles which were in line with their sharing.
Roles of students
The analysis of interview data shows that the participants did not have much to say about students’ roles in class. To be specific, the participants illustrated that students must pay much attention to the instruction to know exactly what they must do with the task. T4 said “they need to listen” to know what they should do and “work with their partner” to solve the task. In other words, students would work in pairs or groups to solve the given tasks. T3 stated that students were titled as participants who would play the central role in doing tasks. Fortunately, the analysis of observation data provides more data and validates the data shared by the participants. Observation data show that students contributed to the process of giving feedback and questioning their mates during the peer review section before the teacher’s feedback. Therefore, based on the analysis of two sets of data, the duties of students in a task-based lesson were not much different from what students performed in the study.
As described above, the participants of the study positively showed their application of TBLT in teenage classes. They adopted and flexibly adapted the approach according to their specific classes. It was concluded that (1) the procedure must include three phases: Pre-task, Task cycle and Language focus although they were reached in different ways, (2) instruction should be clear and understandable, (3) pair work and group work were preferable, (4) favorite tasks consist of sharing personal experiences; projects and creative tasks, (5) this approach could be applied for all the language skills, and (6) the teacher plays the role of a monitor and students play the central role.