4.1.3.1 Students‟ diaries
The analysis of the diaries was concerned with the diaries written by the students while and after learning English speaking skills through TBL. It consisted of three steps (Lau, 2009). Letters A to N were given to identify the sample students chosen by the researcher to avoid revealing their identities. In this type of study, it could be better not to indicate the names of the participants lest they would get embarrassed.
The analysis of the diaries had three steps, namely, (1) to read the diaries and to identify the most common comments made by the participants; (2) to read all the diaries again and underline the parts reflecting the students‟ statements about the task-based speaking lessons and the learning resulted from these tasks; and (3) to analyze all the diaries and to make generalizations.
The results from the qualitative data indicate that through the experiment, the group of students regarded English learning as communication-oriented rather than exam-oriented. A total of 301 items of 43 participants after seven task-based speaking lessons were found to exist in the qualitative data.
First of all, the students were aware of their speaking problems. In terms of the awareness of communicative competence, most of the participants (40 out of 43 items) indicated that they found it hard to fully express their ideas in communication, which discouraged them. This explained why they usually used their mother tongue, not the target language to discuss in groups or in pairs. This indicated that their foreign language awareness was increased by the task-based speaking lessons. The following transcripts are shown as examples:
Student A: My first language is Vietnamese, not English. Before this class, when I spoke English with my classmates, I felt a little awkward. Besides, when I was speaking English, I knew that I spoke English very badly. I could not express my ideas. Now, I think I really need to practise English speaking more often.
Student B: I have nothing to say when I was asked to speak English. At first, I
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was afraid of losing faces and making mistakes. Gradually, I find that everyone has the same problem in speaking. I know that even though I may make mistakes in speaking, no one will laugh at me, but my partners encouraged me to speak.
Therefore, I did not worry any more, but became confident.
Student C: I believe that because I did not speak English much in daily life, so when I wanted to speak English in the class, I could not immediately express my ideas in English. I knew exactly how to say them in Vietnamese, but I didn‟t know how to say them in English.
From the extracts above, we can see that the students were aware of the problems they confronted in communication. All the three students A, B, C admitted that they were aware of their inability to convey meanings from the native language to the target language. As a result, they tended to give up speaking English with others. When they did not fully express their meanings from Vietnamese to English, they were afraid of losing faces in front of other people. Student A felt embarrassed when they had to spoke English, but after the experiment, the student felt confident.
Moreover, the participants‟ attitudes towards English speaking skills have changed. After the task-based learning employment, the participants felt comfortable in communicating with others in English. Three of their comments are shown as examples:
Student D: I have learnt many things such as some new English words, some phrases, and some sentences which can be applied to different situations. The most important thing is how to use English in our daily life. The task-based speaking lessons were quite fun and interesting. I have had more opportunities to practise speaking English.
Student E: I enjoyed learning in today‟s class very much. Through tasks, we were involved in English learning relating to a real-life situation. I did not feel embarrassed when making mistakes. My partners encouraged me to correct my mistakes. I felt comfortable when taking part in completing the tasks. I learned a lot when doing the tasks.
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Student F: The task-based speaking lessons gave me chances to speak English.
Now I am confident enough to express my own opinions. My partners were helpful as they helped me to learn many things in the lessons such as vocabulary, phrases, how to present a topic clearly and briefly, how to write a report and so on. I realize that English is not as difficult as I have thought. However, I find the task-based English speaking lessons interesting and comfortable.
The extracts above show that the changes in the participants‟ attitudes toward English speaking skills were very obvious and active. All of the three students admitted that they enjoyed the speaking lessons as they were confident enough to convey their opinions. Additionally, TBL offered them chances to practise speaking.
Student D described the task-based speaking lessons as interesting and exciting one, while student E enjoyed the lessons as they were related to the meaningful and real- life situations. Besides, student F received a lot of assistance from others, so the student learned English speaking skills confidently.
In addition, the students‟ motivation was affected by the tasks. The participants were motivated in their English learning because the tasks were relevant to their needs, interests, and life experience. A total of 300 items mentioned by 30 students, four of which are shown as examples, indicate that they were motivated to learn to speak English through TBL.
Student G: The three tasks made me more positive and active when I learned to speak English. The topics of the tasks were familiar to me. I found them practical and beneficial to us. In fact, something practical and familiar encouraged me to speak more as I had enough English words to express my ideas.
Student H: I think three tasks are relevant to my needs and life experience.
Through the tasks, I‟ve learnt a lot of useful things. When I found that the topics were important, practical and helpful for my life, I was willing to speak more and then I had something to share with my partner. Therefore, my attitude towards speaking lessons was changed positively.
Student I: In my opinions, the tasks are meaningful, so I have been motivated
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in my English speaking learning. Working together to do the tasks, I was aware of my shortcomings in English learning. At that time, my partner helped me much.
When the topics were relevant to me, I was confident to speak out.
Student J: I realized that the active communication in groups motivated me most. Moreover, I had a desire to learn what was practical and meaningful in my life. This means that I really wanted to learn what was practical so that I could use it in daily life. The three tasks changed my attitudes toward English speaking lessons. The topics were practical and relevant to my life. Working in groups caused me to feel safe and confident.
The extracts above indicates that the students positively change their attitudes towards English speaking skills they found boring and were afraid before the task- based learning were implemented. For this reason, they felt motivated as the tasks were meaningful so that they could apply what they had learnt in their everyday lives. The students G, H, I, J all found the tasks relevant to their interests and knowledge. Furthermore, the participants were motivated because of collaborative learning. Student J admitted that completing the tasks in groups or in pairs made the student feel confident enough in speaking English.
In addition, the results from the participants‟ diaries support that they enjoyed all the three tasks, namely, listing, sharing personal opinions and problem- solving.
Table 4.9. Students‟ interests in 3 types of tasks before and after the treatment Kinds of tasks Pre-treatment (%) Post-treatment (%)
listing 81.4 86
problem solving 86 90.7
sharing personal experiences 83.7 90.7
Before the task-based speaking lessons took place, they also choose these three tasks, i.e., problem-solving tasks (86%), sharing- personal-experience tasks (83.7%) and listing tasks (81.4%) after the researcher explained to them about 6
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types of tasks in TBL. At the end of the experiments, when they were asked what tasks among the three they enjoyed best, the answers were similar to those in the pre-questionnaire. 39 out of 43 participants (90.1%) enjoyed problem-solving tasks.
The sharing- personal-experience tasks had the same percentage (90.1%). 86% of the students (37 out of 43 students) admitted that they liked listing tasks. Four extracts are shown as examples:
Student K: I enjoyed all kind of tasks in this experiment. When doing the tasks in groups, we were given opportunities to share our ideas, to learn from others‟
experience and their different ways of expressing themselves in English. I had paid attention to different partners used different ways of expressions. Some of my classmates were good at speaking English, so I learned from them a lot. It was they that stimulated me to improve my English.
Student L: I liked the three kinds of tasks, but I like the problem-solving tasks most as through these tasks, I tried to brainstorm and find the best solutions to the problems. This made my ability improve and sharpen. I mean that I had to solve the problems logically and convincingly. Working together gave us to collect many solutions that one person hardly thought of.
Student M: of the three kinds of tasks, I like the task in unit 6, namely, listing the advantages and disadvantages of the solutions to global warming. From this task, I learned more what I should do to protect our planet. This task was helpful and meaningful. Our group was eager to complete this task. We had to discuss and negotiate with one another until we had the best solutions. Then we decided who would be a representative to report our „outcome‟ to the class. I enjoyed this way of learning English because of task collaboration.
Student N: I enjoyed all the task-based speaking lessons but the listing task.
For this reason, I found it quite boring. In my opinion, this kind of tasks forced me and my partner to have broad knowledge of the topics. Even though our group worked hard, we couldn‟t list more than 2 things. However, in the report steps, we learned from other groups. I had to admit that they were well-done. From that day, I
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came to realize that it was important for us to work in groups and learn together, which helped me broaden my knowledge and positively change my attitude towards English speaking lessons.
From the extracts above, we can see that the task-based speaking lessons attracted the participants and had a positive effect on the students‟ attitudes towards English speaking learning. The three chosen kinds of tasks encouraged the students as they were supported by their partners in the learning process. Task collaboration helped the students K, L, M, N to be more interested in speaking English although at first the student N found the listing task quite boring.
In general, the research findings from the students‟ diaries revealed a great satisfaction with the tasks used. The diaries showed that the amount of students‟
talking time in class increased as the participants had more chances to express their opinions in English. Moreover, the findings of the students' diaries indicated that tasks encouraged students‟ performance since the students gave positive comments on tasks used in class. Through the tasks, the students learned a lot from their classmates such as vocabulary, structures, how to write a report, and how to present a topic well.
4.1.3.2 Teaching journals
The teaching journals of the researcher after each task-based speaking lesson and at the end of the study indicate that the participants really enjoyed the seven task-based speaking lessons. Most students actively took part in the group discussion although at first some of them were afraid of exchanging their opinions.
For this reason, they found it hard to express their ideas even though they could know how to say it in Vietnamese. Gradually, they were confident enough to convey what they thought because their partners encouraged them to talk without laughing at them when they made mistakes or said something wrong. Secondly, the class became more comfortable. The participants were motivated to complete the tasks.
They were encouraged to use their own language knowledge to solve the problems and share their own personal experiences together, which is in line with Lau (2009).
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Moreover, the students‟ attitudes towards English speaking changed positively.
Before the study, most of the participants admitted that they were indifferent in learning English speaking skills because they had nothing to say and were afraid of losing faces. However, learning speaking skills through TBL helped them to overcome their speaking problems since TBL offered them enough time to prepare for their reports and enough opportunities to work together to develop their potentials. This made them feel confident and comfortable to express their opinions.
As a result, they enjoyed task-based English speaking lessons and the atmosphere of the classroom changed entirely and actively.
The researcher‟s teaching journals also revealed that I felt closer to the students. All students contacted me more openly than ever before. Perhaps they really wished to have their task completed as well as possible. The participants asked some questions in English to make sure they understood how to achieve the task outcome well whenever they got stuck. After implementing TBL, the way lessons continued completely changed. The participants increasingly took part in the task-based lessons as a result of the suitable tasks used in class. They concentrated on the speaking lesson and did their best to give the best report in front of the class. Therefore, I recognized my teaching role as nothing more than a guide and a facilitator; whereas my students‟ roles were highly active.
As a teacher, I have been highly aware of the necessity of preparing lesson outlines carefully in details, which could help the teacher to elicit the speaking lesson shortly and interesting and make sure that the lesson would go smoothly.
Preparing speaking lesson outlines in advance surely made the teacher more confident. Furthermore, preparing my lesson plan well help me spend sufficient time for each stage of the lessons. This gave me more respect from the participants as they could think that I was a well-trained and devoted teacher. Accordingly, they dedicated their best to the lessons. Generally, the lessons got the initial expectations from the teacher and students. I was also aware of that all the tasks had to connect the real world so that the participants would be eager to put what they had learnt
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from the tasks into practice. For this reason, thanks to my classroom observation written in the researcher‟s teaching journal, what was meaningful attracted the participants a lot.
In the experiment, I had prepared seven different tasks with three types of tasks, namely, listing, sharing personal experiences and problem-solving for the students. The participants were required to work together in pairs or in groups to complete the certain tasks. As a result, they were enthusiastic to speaking English in doing the tasks. Most of the tasks were paid special attention to by the participants.
Sometimes, they needed to use their smart phones to look for information. When following the instructions, they were eager to work together. Once in a while, I heard laughter or screams. The classroom atmosphere was quite comfortable and exciting. Every member had opportunities to convey their opinions in English while others carefully listened and added something or corrected in order to make their report as perfect as possible.