VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

 VŨ THỊ PHƯỢNG

INVESTIGATION INTO TASK- BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING
METHOD IN TEACHING ESP TO THE NON- ENGLISH MAJOR
SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT ACADEMY OF FINANCE
(Tìm hiểu phương pháp dạy học thực thi nhiệm vụ trong
giảng dạy tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên không
chuyên năm hai ở Học viện Tài chính)
M.A. Minor Thesis Program

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10 HANOI- 2013
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



VŨ THỊ PHƯỢNG

INVESTIGATION INTO TASK- BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING


v

PART I: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale 1
II. Aims 3
III. Scope of the study 3
IV. Overview of the study 4

PART II: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND and LITERATURE
REVIEW
I. Theoretical background
1.1. Task 5
1.1.1 Definition 5
1.1.2 Characteristics of tasks 7
1.1.3 Types of task 9
1.2. Task- based language teaching 12
1.2.1 Definition 12
1.2.2 Task- based frame work 13
1.3. English for Special Purposes (ESP) 15
1.3.1 Development of ESP 15
1.3.2 Definition 16
II. Literature Review 18

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LISTS OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS

List of tables:

Table 1: Teachers and Students’ opinion about ESP
Table 2: Teachers and Students’ perceptions of tasks
Table 3: Students’ perceptions of task features
Table 4: Frequency of task types used ESP class
Table 5: Problems of using tasks in ESP class

List of figures

Chart 1 (a) (b): Frequency of using TBLT in ESP teaching for the 2

th
century, along with globalization trends, the
demand for English as a global language in international business, travelling
and cultural exchange etc has becoming higher and higher. As a result,
nowadays, a new method of teaching and learning English to serve those
purposes has been indeed indispensable, and learner-centered approaches
have been developed. The new approaches draw knowledge from the learner,
working through their needs and interests and selecting materials, activities
and tasks accordingly. One modern method is Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT). According to Richards and Rodgers (2001), CLT is the
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acquisition of communicative competence via student engagement in
meaningful use of language at discourse level. To achieve this, the teacher
facilitates communicative activities by managing the classroom environment,
providing resources and acting as a communicator. “Classroom activities are
often designed to focus on completing tasks that are mediated through
language or involve negotiation of information and information sharing”
(Richards and Rodgers 2001: 165). One of the most popular methods within
CLT recently is task-based language teaching (TBLT). This method promotes
communication and social interaction. In this method, learners are presented
with a task or problem to solve and do not concentrate on language features
during performance. Language analysis is incorporated after learners have
performed a task.
TBLT focuses on using the tasks which are suitable for or meet
students’ needs. The reasons are TBLT seems to bring meaningful use of
language with authentic tasks and it can promote autonomous learning. With
such advantages, it has been applied into many English courses. There is no
exception of TBLT application to English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
courses in which the requirements are the knowledge of specialization and

III. Scope of the study
First, although TBLT is generally set as the title of the whole study, it is
impossible for the researcher to cover everything related to TBLT but only
some aspects of the issue in the given context. This research only focuses on
the context of ESP course in AOF for non- major second- year students.
Secondly, the research is done to find out the perceptions of teachers and
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students in terms of concept, features, task realization and disadvantages of
TBLT. Thirdly, it is noteworthy that the sample of the research is restricted to
60 students and 10 teachers in Faculty of Foreign languages in AOF.
IV. An overview of the rest of the paper
The rest of the paper includes 2 parts as follows:
Part B: Development
Chapter 1 – Theoretical Background and Literature review – provides the
background of the study, including definitions of key concepts, discussions of
related studies and how the present study fits into the field.
Chapter 2 – Methodology – describes the participants and instruments of the
study, as well as the procedure employed to carry out the research.
Chapter 3 – Data analysis and discussion – presents, analyzes and discusses
the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected according to
the three research questions.
Part C: Conclusion
This part summarizes the main issues discussed in the paper, the contribution
as well as the limitations of the research, suggestions for successful TBLT
application in ESP course and some suggestions for further studies. Following
this chapter are the References and Appendices.

Two definitions above reach an agreement that a task is a purposeful
activity and used in teaching and learning the target language with
communicativeness. The ultimate goal of each task is to reach certain
objectives of the lesson through a process of the students’ involvement.
Teachers, of course, are not centered in carrying out a task, the centeredness
or the focus of each task is students. With task implementation, the role of
teachers and students in class has changed in comparison with old methods;
the teachers are just facilitators. Teachers just guide, control and support
students’ working in a task.
Here is another definition of tasks:
“an activity or an action which is carried out as the result of processing or
understanding a language. For example, drawing a map while listening to a tape,
listening to an instruction and perform a command may be referred to as tasks.
Tasks may or may not involve the production of the language […] A task usually
requires teachers to specify what will be regarded as the successful completion of
the task. […] The use of different kinds of tasks in language teaching is said to
make language teaching more communicative …since it provides a purpose for a
classroom activity…”
(Richards, et al (1986: 289)
The definition above seemed to agree on the point that task is as a
work-plan in classroom. It tells readers what students do in a task and
emphasize the purposeful characteristic of a task. Various types of activities
can be exploited in a task to reach a given goal of the lesson specified by the
teacher. A task serves the need of teaching and learning a language in a
communicative way.
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There have been various definitions of tasks so far. However, in this
study, the researcher suggested the Nunan’s definition that tasks are “a piece
of classroom work which involve learners in comprehending, manipulating,

task and combination of exercise and task is highlighted in the table
below:

Exercises
Exercise-Tasks
Tasks
Low degree of
communicative purpose
and contextualisation
Contextualised practice
of discrete items
High degree of
communicative
purpose and
contextualisation
Focus on discrete items
and/or skills
 
Purposefulness
and
contextualisation
(Littlewood, 1993)
It can be seen that an exercise is exploited to support the task. Teachers
tend to combine these two kinds of activities for knowledge enhancement and
skills practice.
Skehan (1998) put forward five key characteristics of a task in terms of
task- focus, task types, task priority and task assessment as follow:
 Meaning is primary
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be appreciated by audience.
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Pica, Kanagy and Falodun (1993) (in Richards and Rodgers (2001:
234), put tasks into five categories according to the type of interaction that
occurs in task accomplishment:
Types of tasks
Features
Jigsaw tasks
learners combining different pieces of
information to form a whole
Information-gap tasks
One student or group of students has
one set of information and another
student or group has a complementary
set of information. They must
negotiate and find out what the other
party's information is in order to
complete an activity.
Problem-solving tasks
students are given a problem and a set
of information. They must arrive at a
solution to the problem. There is
generally a single resolution of the
outcome.
Decision-making tasks
students are given a problem for
which there are a number of possible
outcomes and they must choose
through negotiation and discussion

a needs analysis and turn out to be
important and useful in the real world.
Pedagogic tasks
Have a psycholinguistic basis in SLA
(second language acquisition) theory
and research but do not necessarily
reflect real-world tasks
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less interesting. Therefore, teachers can follow students’ needs to outline the
goal of each lesson and choose a better type of task and adapt tasks suitably.
1.1.3.3 Focused tasks and unfocused tasks
The term “focused” and “unfocused” tasks were proposed by Ellis
(2003). In unfocused task, “no effort is made in the design or the execution of
a task to give the prominence to any particular linguistic features” (p.204).
However, focused tasks do “result in some linguistic feature being made
prominent” (p.204). As a result, focused task has two main aims: the first one,
like unfocused task, is to “stimulate communicative language use” and the
second is to “target the use of particular and predetermined linguistic features
in meaning- centered communication”
Willis’s and Pica, et. al’s classification seem easier for students to
recognize than others’ in comparison with the classification of Nunan or Ellis.
The classification of Nunan or Ellis is often taken notice of by teachers rather
than students when teachers design tasks with objectives of the lessons.
Besides, as said above, some types of tasks of Pica, et. al and Willis are
overlapped; as a result, it does not make so much differences to choose
Willis’s types or Pica’s ones and the researcher would focus on Willis’s to
refer to in this study.
1.2 Task- based language teaching
1.2.1. Definition of task- based language teaching

applied in this stage such as material exploitation: using a picture/text etc. to
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lead into the topic, brainstorming: making a list; comparing ideas; sharing
experiences, activating language: eliciting and providing vocabulary.
In the second stage, the learners are expected to raise up. This phase
focuses on the importance of preparing learners thoroughly, where necessary
rehearsing the task in order to recycle the language and familiarize learners
with the context as much as possible. This stage could involve learners in a
discussion of their attitudes to it, and preparing their arguments for a debate,
or their ideas for a leaflet to draw peoples’ attention to the issue. Learners
prepare own input for tasks such as planning a report, practicing role-play,
writing a questionnaire to be administered, thinking of issues in a debate,
brainstorming necessary language, activating language: eliciting and
providing the necessary language.
In the next stage, this part of the task cycle will mirror as closely as
possible an authentic undertaking. Learners produce/perform/present their
tasks e.g : Producing a poster, Performing a role-play, Having a debate,
Producing a leaflet, Giving a presentation
In the last stage of Post-Task, there are some options such as Language
focus, Feedback and evaluation, Reflection upon task realization, Language
reflection.
There is another way to divide the stages in TBLT by Long and
Crookes (1992). Task has 3 phases: Pre- task, task cycle and language focus.
In the pre-task stage, the topic is defined and essential vocabulary is
highlighted by the teacher. In the task cycle, learners perform the task in pairs
or small groups; rehearse their reports before presenting findings in front of
the audience. The final stage is the language focus, during which specific
language features that learners encountered in the task are examined and
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opportunity for form-focused work.
It is clear that there are phases in task- based cycle. Each stage has its
specific purposes to achieve. It is crucial that teachers realize these purposes
to facilitate students’ learning.
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1. 3. English for Special Purposes (ESP)
1.3.1 Development of ESP
Since the early 1960’s, ESP has become one of the most prominent
issues in EFL teaching. Its growth is reflected in increasing number of
universities offering ESP course, even MA in ESP such as University of
Birmingham (England). This is because ESP derives from the needs to use
language as a tool in professional life, not as a hobby or so-called
communication.
Gatehouse (2001) pointed out 3 main factors which led to the rapid
development of ESP. They are: the demand of Brave New World, the
revolution of linguistics, and focus on the learner. The Brave New World,
which was concerned with 2 major events (the end of the World War II and
the Oil crisis), led to the exchange in science, technology and economy. At
that time, English became the language of these changes. Therefore, English
for science, economy etc. was paid much more attention to. The second reason
is the changes in language teaching and learning. It means that languages
should be learnt for many purposes. Some scholars claimed that language
should vary in different situations; therefore, it is necessary to adjust language
to meet learners’ needs in specific contexts. Finally, ESP was stimulated when
learners became the center of language teaching. Language was designed to
satisfy learners’ needs and interests.
1.3.2 Definition of ESP
ESP has gained ascendency in different fields (Johns & Dudley-Evans,
1998). They suggested that ESP has been defined by needs of a specific

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learners’ occupations or professional activities. The language in ESP is also
appropriate to these activities. Moreover, it may be limited to skills to be
learnt.
II. Literature review
Using TBLT in ESP course is not a new idea and it has got a lot of
researchers’ attention.
Kavaliauskienė, (2005), studied the relationship between TBL and
students’ outcomes in ESP lessons. This article addresses research into
learners’ attitudes to Task-Based Learning, and the investigation of TBL
influence on learning outcomes in the English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
classroom. The research reveals that teaching through tasks creates favorable
learning conditions for students who study English for Specific Purposes
(ESP) at tertiary level. Specifically, TBLT helped them with build-up of
professional vocabulary, development of speaking skills, and refinement of
listening skills. Concerning participants’ favorite task types, sharing personal
experience and problem- solving are two most favorable types ones (83%).
There is also a relating research by Patricia (2009). It investigated into
the application of task- based instruction in an ESP course in the computer
centre at the University of Costa Rica. The study stressed the benefits of
TBLT in ESP course. TBLT is more motivating, more challenging, more
innovative, more appealing and more meaningful to students than other
traditional grammar-based approaches. Moreover, the study listed some
considerations ESP teachers should take into when employing TBLT in ESP
such as the integration of different language skills within the TBL framework,
the use authentic materials (oral or written) to design the lesson, the role of
comprehensible and meaningful input etc.