VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THU THỦY

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
COMMUNICATIVE TASKS IN SPEAKING CLASSES
FOR NAVIGATIONAL STUDENTS
AT DUYEN HAI VOCATIONAL COLLEGE

(Nghiên cứu tính hiệu quả của Nhiệm vụ giao tiếp
trong lớp học kỹ năng Nói
cho sinh viên ngành Điều khiển Tàu biển,
trường Cao đẳng nghề Duyên Hải)

Minor Programme Thesis English Teaching Methodology
60 14 10
HANOI - 2010
v DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
ABSTRACT
List of Figures and Tables and Abbreviations
Table of contents
PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale
II. Aims
III. Research questions
IV. Scope of the study
V. Methodology
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
I. An overview of Communicative Language Teaching
I.2. An overview of Speaking and Oral communication in CLT
I.2.1. Speaking in Communicative Language Teaching

6
6
8
8
9
9
9
10
11
vi

I.3.2.3.1. Activities’ characteristics
I.3.2.3.2. Activity types
I.3.2.4. Teacher role
I.3.2.5. Learner role
I.3.2.6. Settings
I.3.3. Summary
CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY
II.1. Subjects
II.2. Data collection instruments
II.3. Procedure
CHAPTER III: DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
III.1. The teacher survey result
III.1.1. Teacher’s choice of communicative task activities
III.1.2. Achievements teachers gain in using communicative tasks
III.1.3. The way teachers monitor the communicative tasks
III.1.4. Teachers’ method(s) of giving instruction
III.1.5. Teachers’ feedback and correction
III.1.6. Teachers’ difficulties in conducting communicative tasks
III.2. The student survey result

30
30
30
31
31
32

32

33

33
34
vii

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
IV.1. Findings
IV.1.1. The effectiveness of using communicative tasks in speaking classes for
navigational students at Duyen Hai Vocational College
IV.1.2. Existing problems affecting the effectiveness of using CT in speaking
classes
IV.1.3. Possible reasons affecting the effectiveness in using communicative
tasks in speaking classes to navigation students
IV.1.3.1. Teachers’ inexperience
IV.1.3.2. Facility and material shortages
IV.1.3.3. The heavily grammar-oriented syllabus
IV.1.3.4. Large classes

37
37
38
38
38
39
39
39
39
39
40
40
40
41
42
42
42
43
43
43
44
45
viii

APPENDIX
APPENDIX 1: Questionnaires for Teachers I
APPENDIX 2: Questionnaires for Students IV
APPENDIX 3: Class observation VI
APPENDIX 4: Unit 5 – Meeting with an agent VII
APPENDIX 5: Unit 6 – Manning VIII

Table 6. Students’ comments on teacher’s class activities
Table 7. Students’ suggestion to using CTA in classroom

3. Abbreviations
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
CT: Communicative task
CTA: Communicative task activities
ELT: English Language Teaching
ESP: English Specific for Purposes
L2: second language 1
PART A: INTRODUCTION

I. Rationale
Among English eager-learning ones, Navigation students can be counted for who consider
English a tool of work and a step to promotion. Firstly, Deck cadets, their title when
navigation students go to work on board, are in charge of radio communication on ship. The
fate as well as the success of a vessel depends on communicative skills of Deck seamen. A
mistake while communicating with the Engine Room, or other vessel in traffic, even a
minor wrong order, possibly leads to the damage of the ship, a collision and the shipwreck
in the worst situation. Secondly, English competence helps deck cadets learn their real jobs
on board a ship, for all instructions on ship are made in English. Seamen‟s jobs are varied
from ship to ship, the knowledge they learn at college cannot meet the demands. Thus, they
will be taught again to perform their tasks well. It also means they will be made signed off
once they are not able to communicate in English. Last but seemingly not least,

students at Duyen Hai Vocational College?
2. How effective are their communicative tasks from DVCOL ESP teachers‟ point of view?
3. How effective are their communicative tasks from DVCOL navigational students‟ point
of view?
IV. Scope of the study
In my thesis, I would like to investigate the advantages of using communicative tasks as
activities to teach speaking to navigation students at Duyen Hai Vocational College. There
are two reasons affecting my choice of this frame. Firstly, these activities, which are based
on the students‟ demand for the active learning, possibly motivate students to make effort to
speak. Besides, communicative task activities are various and flexible, the teacher can have
a lot of choices to find some suitable with students‟ need and interest. Last but not least,
navigation students at Duyen Hai Vocational College have had chances to experience some
kinds of communicative activities before, thus, they can provide me some useful
information about the use of these activities in vocational college. Also, it would be
convenient for me when I can take advantage of my teaching time at the vocational college
to carry out questionnaires for the research purpose. Their opinions will help me have an
overall view of how communicative tasks are used in speaking classes effectively.
V. Methodology
To gain the fulfillment of the aims, qualitative and quantitative methods are chosen for the
study. Comments, remarks, comparison, suggestions and conclusions are based on factual
research, observation, experience and discussion. The most important techniques are a
cautious data collection and sharp comparison before leading to a conclusion. Data for
analysis in this study are gained through the following sources:
- Survey questionnaire
- Interviews and discussion.
- Observation
The method can be described in a procedure of data collecting – data analysis – conclusion.
3
2. The primary function of language is for interaction and communication.
3. The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses
4. The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but
categories of functional and communicative as exemplified in discourse.
These characteristics not only acknowledge the interdependence of language and
communication of CLT, but reveal that meaning plays an undeniably important part in CLT.
Meaning, according to Larsen-Freeman (2000), is derived from the written word through an
interaction between the reader and the writer, just as oral communication becomes
4
meaningful through negotiation between speaker and listener. CLT allows learners to
acquire the linguistic means to perform different kinds of functions. Hence, in CLT,
“meaning is paramount” (Finocchiaro and Brumfit 1983).
In the light of language theory, Nunan (1991) characterises CLT as:
1. An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language
2. The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation
3. The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the
learning process itself
4. An enhancement of the learner‟s own personal experiences as important contributing
elements to classroom learning
5. An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the
classroom
Highlighted in his state, materials are also one important aspect which should be taken into
accounts of CLT. In attempt to make claims for communicative materials, McDonough and
Christopher Shaw (1993) extract and adapt some statements taken from various standards
published materials as follows:
1. „for students interested in using language rather than learning more about structure…
students learn to use the appropriate language they need for communicating in real life.

Communicative Language Teaching or Communicative Approach. The communicative
approach makes sure that the interactions which take place in the classroom are replications
of, or necessary prerequisites for, a communicative operation. The focus changes from the
accurate production of isolated utterances to the fluent selection of appropriate utterances in
communication.
In deeper view of Speaking and oral communication, Brown and Yule (1983) suggest that
teachers concerned with teaching the spoken language must confront the following types of
questions:
- What is the appropriate form of spoken language to teach?
- From the point of view of pronunciation, what is a reasonable model?
- How important is pronunciation?
- Are those structures which are described in standard grammars the structures which our
students should be expected to produce when they speak English?
- How is it possible to give students any sort of meaningful practice in producing spoken
English?
Obviously, speaking is the skill which generally has to be learned and practiced. Most
language teaching is concerned with developing skills, interactional exchanges in which the
learners is only required to make one or two utterance at a time.
In short, the success of teaching speaking is measured by the students‟ ability to make a
conversation in the target language. It is the learners‟ ability to produce accurate sentences
and connect isolated and appropriate utterances in communication.
I.2.3. Characteristics of a successful speaking activity
According to Nunan (1989), a successful oral communication involves developing:
- The ability to articulate phonological features of the language comprehensibly;
- Mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns;
- An acceptable degree of fluency;
6

- Tasks defined as a non-technical, non-linguistic one
According to Long (1985):
… [a task is] a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some
reward. Thus, examples of tasks include painting a fence, dressing a child, filling out a
form, buying a pair of shoes, making an airline reservation, borrowing a library book,
7
taking a driving test, typing a letter, weighing a patient, sorting letters, taking a hotel
reservation, writing a cheque, finding a street destination and helping someone across a
road. In other words, by „task‟ is meant the hundred and one things people do in everyday
life, at work, at play, and in between.
(Long 1985:89)
There are two main points necessary to be highlighted in this definition. Firstly, some of the
examples provided may well not involve language. Secondly, as the result, it raises a major
problem with the concept of „task‟ as a unit of analysis with the concern of its boundaries.
- Tasks defined in pedagogical perspective
According to Richards, Platt and Weber (1986),
… An activity or action which is carried out as the result of processing or understanding
language (i.e. as a response). For example, drawing a map while listening to a tape,
listening to an instruction and performing a command, may be referred to as tasks. Tasks
may or may not involve the production of language. A task usually requires the teacher to
specify what will be regarded as successful completion of the task. The use of variety if
different kinds of tasks in language teaching is said to make language teaching more
communicative… since it provides a purpose for a classroom activity which goes beyond
the practice of language for its own sake.
(Richards, Platt and Weber 1986)
In this definition, tasks are defined in terms of what the learner will do in the classroom
rather in the outside world. In other word, defining „task‟ in this way somehow does not

I would like to state my agreement on this definition in term of the communicative task. The
task, as he claims, is recognised as focused on meaning, communicativeness, authenticity
and learner-centeredness. The task, therefore, has a sense of completeness, being able to
stand alone as communicative act in its own right. Nunan‟s definition of the communicative
task can be regarded as an appropriate one.
When a communicative task, from now on can be stated as „task‟ sometimes, is fully
defined, it leads to a request of task design and an analysis of task components. It is the very
important knowledge to provide a supporting background for an investigation of a task
implementation‟s effectiveness, which is the ultimate goal of this study.
I.3.1.3. Implications for task design
As pointed out in the previous part, a task must be designed with its focus on meaning,
communicativeness, authenticity and learner-centeredness to achieve its fulfillment. I,
therefore, with reference to the view of Nunan (1989), would like to list out three matters
may concern in designing tasks:
1. Firstly, the extent to which it is necessary to focus on linguistic form.
In other word, a linguistic focus, in the form of grammatical consciousness-raising
activities, should be incorporated into task design. (Rutherford 1987)
2. Secondly, the examination of the macroskills relates to the real-world uses the learner has
for the target language.
3. Finally, the learners‟ various needs.
The various uses which a learner has (or, in the case of some foreign language learners,
might potentially have) for learning another language can be revealed through various
forms of need analysis. Tasks are then justified on the grounds that they will help the
9
learner develop the skills they will need for carrying out real-world communicative tasks
beyond the classroom.
(Nunan 1989)

I.3.2.1. Goals
Nunan (1989) claims goals as „the vague general intentions behind any given learning task‟.
He simply defines the goal as a question of “Why did you get learners to engage in Task
X?”. Also, Nunan (1989) lists out some basic characteristics of goals as follows:
Activities
Settings
A framework for analysing communicative tasks (Nunan 1989)
10
 Possibly related to a range of general outcomes (communicative, affective or cognitive)
or directly describe teacher or learner behavior.
 Not always explicitly stated, although they can be inferred from an examination of a
task.
 Rarely simply involved in one-to-one relationship between goals and tasks. In some
cases a complex task involving a range of activities might be simultaneously moving
learners towards several goals.
 not necessary mutually exclusive, and that there may be tasks which cover more than
one goal
(Nunan 1989)
Communicative goals are subcategorised into three goal areas:
1. Establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships, and through this to exchange
information, ideas, opinions, attitudes and feelings, and to get things done.
2. Acquiring information from more or less „public‟ sources in the target language (e.g.
books, magazines, newspaper, brochures, documents, signs, notices, films, televisions,
slides, tape, radio, public announcements, lectures or written reports etc.) and using this

Business cards
Star signs
Memo note
Hotel entertainment programme
Photographs
Tennis court booking sheet
Family tree
Extracts from film script
Drawings
High school year book
Shopping lists
Note to a friend
Invoices
Seminar programme
Postcards
Newspaper reporter‟s notes
Hotel brochures
UK travel regulations
Passport photos
Curriculum vitae
Swop shop cards
Economic graphs
Street shop
Menu
This list, with its provided sources, quite looks like an extract of life. It matches the
demands of CLT for its authenticity. It, once again, highlights that input for a
communicative task must be as realistic as possible. Thus, a criterion to scale a
communicative task input is its capacity to prepare learners for coping with the language
they hear and read in the real world outside the classroom. (Nunan 1989)
I.3.2.3. Activities

this study, I would like to deal with two authors: Prabhu and Pattinson.
According to Prabhu (1987) three principal activity types are used: information gap,
reasoning gap, opinion gap. These are explained as follows:
1. Information-gap activity, which involves a transfer of given information from one person
to another – or from one form to another, or form one place to another – generally calling
for the decoding or encoding of information form or into language.
2. Reasoning-gap activity, which involves deriving some new information from given
information through processes of inference, deduction, practical reasoning, or a perception
of relationships or patterns.
3. Opinion-gap activity, which involves identifying and articulating a personal preference,
feeling, or attitude in response to a given situation.
(Prabhu 1987)
Pattison (1987) also proposes seven activities. These are as follows:
1. Questions and answers: These activities are based on the notion of creating an
information gap by letting learners make a personal and secret choice from a list of
language items which all fit into a given frame. The aim is for learners to discover their
classmates„ secret choices. This activity can be used to practice almost any structure,
function or notion.
2. Dialogues and role-plays: These can be wholly scripted or improvised. „If learners are
given some choice of what to say in their role-plays, they may aim to be achieved by
what they say in their role-plays, they may participate more willingly and learn more
thoroughly than when they are told to simply repeat a given dialogue in pairs.‟
3. Matching activities: Here, the task for learner is to recognise matching items, or to
complete pairs or sets. „Bingo‟, „Happy families‟ and „Split dialogues‟ (where learners
match given phrases) are examples of matching activities.
13
4. Communication strategies: These are activities designed to encourage learners to

These aspects discussed above can be all used as criteria to decide the effectiveness of a
communicative task. 14
I.3.2.4. Teacher role
„Role‟, as Nunan (1989), refers to the part that learners and teachers are expected to play in
carrying out learning tasks as well as the social and interpersonal relationships between the
participants. Meanwhile, Richards and Rodgers (1986) point out that teacher roles are
related to the following issues:
- The types of functions are expected to fulfill, e.g. whether that of practice director,
counselor or model
- The degree of control the teacher has over how learning takes place
- The degree to which teacher is responsible for content
- The interactional patterns that develop between teachers and learners
(Richards and Rodgers 1986)
Though defined in different ways, teacher role always stays a big concern of every language
class, especially in CLT. The development of CLT has had a drama effect on the roles that
learners are required to adopt. This is particularly true of oral interaction tasks. The roles of
teacher and learners are, in many ways, complementary. I agree with Nunan (1989) that
giving the learners a different role (such as greater initiative in the classroom) requires the
teacher to adopt a different role.
According to Breen and Candlin (1980), the teacher has three main roles in the
communicative classroom.
- As a facilitator of the communicative process
- As a participant
- As an observer and learner

- Learner listens to teacher and repeats; no control over content
or methods
2.
Audiolingual
- Learner has little control; reacts to teacher direction; passive,
reactive role
3.
Communicative

- Learner has an active negotiative role; should contribute as
well as receive
4.
Total Physical
Response
- Learner is a listener and performer; little influence over content
and none or methodology
5.
The Silent Way
- Learner learn through systematic analysis; must become
independent and autonomous
6.
Communicative
Language Learning
- Learners are members of a social group or community; move
from dependence to autonomy as learning progresses
7.
The Natural
Approach
- Learners play an active role and have relatively high degree of
control over content language production

7. Making errors work
8. Using your linguistic knowledge
9. Letting the context help you
10. Learning the make intelligent guesses
11. Learning formalized routine
12. Learning production techniques
13. Using different styles of speech and writing
(Rubin and Thompson 1982)
Pointing out the learner role can reveal a matter of fact that the way learners function
themselves in language class can affect greatly on the effectiveness of the communicative
tasks in Speaking class. The effectiveness depends on whether and how successfully the
learner fulfills their role. Also, the satisfaction they gain in each speaking class using CT or
after every CT activity is a criterion to scales CT‟s success.
I.3.2.6. Settings
Nunan (1989) stated, “„Settings‟ refers to the classroom arrangements specified or implied
in the task, and it also requires consideration of whether the task is to be carried out wholly
or partly outside the classroom”.
Strevens (1987) suggests three particular benefits of using tasks as community resource:
- They provide learners with opportunities for genuine interactions which have a real-life
point to them;
- Learners can adopt communicative roles which bypass the teacher as intermediary;
- They can change the in-class role relationship between teacher and pupils.
17


TASKS

Learner role
Activities Settings
(Wright 1987: 58)
18
1. GOAL:
 Possibly related to a range of general outcomes (communicative, affective or cognitive)
or directly describe teacher or learner behavior.
 Not always explicitly stated, although they can be inferred from an examination of a
task.
 Rarely simply involved in one-to-one relationship between goals and tasks. In some
cases a complex task involving a range of activities might be simultaneously moving
learners towards several goals.
 not necessary mutually exclusive, and that there may be tasks which cover more than
one goal
2. INPUT:
Its capacity to prepare learners for coping with the language they hear and read in the
real world outside the classroom (Nunan 1989)
3. ACTIVITIES
 Characteristics: manipulating, meaningful, and communicative
 Types:
1. Questions and answers
2. Dialogues and role-plays