MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY
NGUYỄN THỊ LÊ HẰNG
APPLYING TASK-BASED INSTRUCTION IN
TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR TO THE 10
TH
GRADERS AT NGUYEN SY SACH HIGH SCHOOL

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

NGHỆ AN - 2014
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY
NGUYỄN THỊ LÊ HẰNG
APPLYING TASK-BASED INSTRUCTION IN
TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR TO THE 10
TH
GRADERS AT NGUYEN SY SACH HIGH SCHOOL

Major: Teaching English to Speakerss of Other Languages (TESOL)
Code: 60.14.01.11
MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. NGÔ ĐÌNH PHƯƠNG
Nghệ An - 2014
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings
discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission, and have not been
published elsewhere.
Author
Nguyen Thi Le Hang

using TBI in teaching grammar to the 10
th
students at Nguyen Sy Sach high school
as well as the problems arising from this and makes some suggestions as a view to
help teachers reduce difficulties and make their lessons more effective. The
suggestions come from the real need of both learners and teachers identified from
the survey, which was carried out with 10 teachers at NSS high school. The
questionnaire collected information to see if the teachers had the knowledge of TBI,
which tasks and how often they applied in teaching grammar in the class, and for
what purposes. Besides, the survey also concerned about possible difficulties the
teachers had to face with during the teaching process. In order to justify the results
obtained from the questionnaire, three class observations of three teachers were
conducted. Furthermore, to know whether or not teach grammar to high school
students through task-based instruction is more effective or not, this study was also
carried out with the participation of 60 tenth graders who were non-randomly
chosen from one Natural Science class and one Social Science class at NSS upper
secondary school. In the totality of 60 students, 30 students who were from the 10
Natural Science Stream class took part in the experimental group and were taught
by a new method, i.e. teaching grammar through communicative tasks. In contrast,
30 students who were from the 10 Social Science Stream class took part in the
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control group and were taught by a very traditional method. The pretest and posttest
were designed and conducted on these students in order to test their grammaticality
before and after experiment which took place for 3 months. Both pretest and
posttest scores were used to measure the impact of the treatment. The present study
shows that this approach can be applicable to the high school context, but its impact
may not be greater than the traditional approach. It can be concluded that teaching
grammar through communicative tasks may not be more effective to the
development of students' grammatical competence than the traditional approach to
teaching grammar. The students' positive attitudes towards this approach to teaching

2.2.4. Approaches to grammar instruction 11
2.2.4.1. Deductive and Inductive approaches 11
2.2.4.2. Different approaches to grammar teaching 13
2.3. A Brief Review of Task-based Language Learning 14
2.4. Tasks 15
2.4.1. Defining tasks 15
2.4.2. Characteristics of Tasks 16
2.4.3. Classifying task 16
2.5. Task-based language teaching 18
2.5.1. What is TBLT? 18
2.5.2. Definition of task 20
2.5.3. Principles of the TBLT approach 22
2.5.4. The basic characteristics of TBLT 22
2.5.5. A framework for task-based learning 23
2.5.6. Studies on TBLT 25
2.6. Task-based grammar teaching 27
2.6.1. Why task-based grammar teaching 27
2.6.2. Steps in Task-based grammar teaching 29
2.6.2.1. Pre-task 29
2.6.2.2. Task 29
2.6.2.3. Post-task 29
2.6.3. Characteristics of the Task-based Grammar Class 30
2.6.4. Studies on Task-based grammar teaching 31
2.7. Summary 32
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 33
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3.1. Overview of the current situation of teaching and learning English at Nguyen Sy
Sach High School (NSSHS) 33
3.1.1. The school context 33
3.1.2. The new textbook English 10 (the standard textbook) and its Language Focus

4.3.1.2. Task 53
4.3.1.3. Post task 54
4.3.2. Findings 54
4.3.2.1. Comparison of the pretest and posttest scores, the gain values between the
two groups 55
4.3.2.2. Subjects' attitudes towards the new teaching method - teaching grammar
through tasks 58
4.3.3. Discussion 61
4.3.3.1. The impact of TBLT on grammar acquisition 61
4.3.3.2. Students' attitudes towards teaching grammar through tasks 62
4.4. Summary 64
CHAPTER 5 RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 65
5.1. Some recommendations 65
vi
5.2. Limitations of the study 65
5.3. Conclusion 66
REFERENCES 68
APPENDIX 73
vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
10 NSC 10 Natural Science class
10 SSC 10 Social Science class
EFL English as Foreign Language
ELT English language Teaching
ESL English as Second Language
FLTL Foreign Language Teaching and Learning
M Mean
No Number
NSS High School Nguyen Sy Sach High School
NSSUSS Nguyen Sy Sach Upper Secondary School

Vietnam. It has made a demand for studying English increase faster and faster.
Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Training in Vietnam offered English as a
core subject in the curriculum of almost all of schools, colleges, universities and
took English do examinational subject in the high school graduation exam, and the
input of departments in all areas at universities.
In addition to the growing demand for learning English, there has been an
innovation in English teaching and learning methods everywhere in Vietnam. For a
long time, language teaching in Vietnam was strongly influenced by the
structuralism tradition. Emphasis was placed on mastery of language structures.
Students have been taught how to form correct utterances and to understand the
structures of the language without any consideration of language use. However,
regarding the psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic research, language teaching has
moved from the traditional to a more communicative approach. In this current
approach, language is considered as a form of social behavior. The objective of
language teaching is teaching learners to communicate fluently, appropriately and
spontaneously in the cultural context of the target language as well as, to help
students get a good communication when they have opportunities to use English in
a cross-cultural environment.
Accompanied by the research about the National Curriculums of school
education system in Vietnam, it was recognized students at high school have to
learn English, which aims at improving skills more and more as possible, some
1
grammar points were studied almost in Primary and Lower Secondary. In Upper
Secondary, they are requested to learn English grammar only to review, so this is
easy to make students bored and English periods become monotonous.
Recognizing the educational trend and the special need for language learning
of students, teachers and administrators at Nguyen Sy Sach high school also hold
extra-curricular of English, English clubs, the group discussion, and evaluation of
annual teaching experiences to find the teaching methods increasingly improved
and more efficient. However, language teaching in students has many difficulties.

study are the followings:
Firstly, the study carries out an investigation into the reality of the teachers’
application of TBI in teaching grammar thanks to experimenting teaching grammar
through communicative tasks for grade 10 students and testing its result.
Secondly, through the investigation the research will find out the difficulties
the teachers encounter with their application of TBI in teaching grammar.
Thirdly, the study will be to aim at experimenting teaching grammar through
TBI for grade 10 students and test its result and investigating the experimental
students' attitudes towards teaching grammar through communicative task at NSS
high school.
Lastly, the study will provide practical recommendations for the possibility
of TBI in order to narrow the gap between teaching styles and learning styles,
thereby increasing the students’ motivation in grammar learning as well as
heightening the effectiveness of English language teaching.
1.3. Scope of the Study
This research focuses on investigating how NSS language teachers exploit
TBL in teaching English grammar in their classes. Due to the limitation of time, the
author only fulfilled the study among ten teachers and sixty the 10
th
graders at NSS
high school.
1.4. Research Questions
In order to serve therefore said aims, the research attempts to answer the
following questions:
1. What is the application of TBI in teaching English grammar the 10
th
graders at NSS high school?
2. How are TBI employed in terms of frequency and purposes?
3
3. What are the difficulties in applying TBI to teaching English grammar at

research will be presented. Following the chapters are the references and appendices.
4
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The theoretical background of the study will be fully developed later in the
thesis. The following is an overview of grammar, grammar teaching, tasks, the task-
based view of language teaching and learning, characteristics of the task-based
grammar class to teach English grammar.
2.1. Previous Studies Related to the Thesis
During the past decade, it can have been addressed the necessity of being
able to communicate effectively in English as students mastery is directly
associated with future educational opportunities, career and income. In National
English Curriculum Standard in Vietnam, one of most essential changes is the
implementation of student-centered, task-based language teaching. However, the
task-based approach has been a controversy of many method experts.
Firstly, in the discussion of getting learners to acquire English through tasks,
it was initiated in India by Prabhu in the 1980s. Prabhu noticed that his students
could learn language just as easily with a non-linguistic problem as when they were
concentrating on linguistic questions. Assessment primarily based on task outcome
(in other words the appropriate completion of real world tasks) rather than on
accuracy of prescribed language forms. This makes TBLL especially popular for
developing target language fluency and student confidence. As such, TBLL can be
considered a branch of Communicative Language Teaching.
The next view mentioned by Harmer about TBL is that, “Many
methodologists have concentrated not so much on the nature of language input, but
on the learning tasks that students are involved in.” He argued that there seemed to
have been an argument that pure rote learning or de-contextualized practice is giving
way to language learning that is required as a result of richer experiences in life.
However, historically reviewed, TBL appears to have gained its currency
since the 1996 publication of Willis’s “A Framework for Task-based Learning”

graders in Dien Chau 3 high school.
6
At NSS high school of Thanh Chuong in Nghe An, the traditional structural
method also has no longer been the teachers’ favors. The teacher-centered method
is giving way to a more learner-centered approach. This thesis, therefore,
concentrates on studying the application of TBL in teaching English grammar to
probe its feasibility and validity in the setting of NSS high school in Nghe An.
2.2. The Importance of Grammar in Language Teaching and Learning
2.2.1. Definitions of grammar
Concerning the terms “grammar”, several researchers have attempted to
define it. Apparently, depending on one’s theoretical orientation, different people
define grammar differently.
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (as cited in Harmer,
1987, p.1) defines grammar as “the study and practice of the rules by which words
change their forms and are combined into sentences.” There are two basic elements
in this definition: the rules of grammar; and the study and practice of the rules. Here
grammar constitutes a subset of rules relating to word formation (morphology) and
sentence formation (syntax).
Huddleston (1984) shares the similar view when seeing grammar as consisting
of morphology and syntax. According to him, morphology deals with forms of words
while syntax deals with the ordering of the words to form sentences (p. 1)
As can be inferred from the two definitions above, grammar is
conventionally seen as the study of morphology and syntax of sentences.
Cobbett (1984) regards grammar as “constituting rules and principles that
help a person to make use of words or manipulate and combine words to give
meaning in a proper manner. It concerns with form and structure of words and their
relationships in sentences”.
According to Fromkin and Rodman (1998), "The sounds and sound patterns,
the basic units of meaning such as words and the rules to combine them to form
new sentences constitute the grammar of a language" (p.14).

definition shows both linguistic and social features of grammar as it refers to not
only rules to make correct sentences but also meanings and functions of such
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sentences in the language, which is necessary for the teaching and learning of
foreign language.
2.2.2. Role of grammar in English language teaching and learning
Along the history of second language teaching, the role of grammar has been
an issue of controversy. According to Richards (2002), it is “perhaps the most
controversial issue in language teaching” (p. 145). Thornbury (1999) asserts that “in
fact, no other issue has so preoccupied theorists and practitioners as the grammar
debate, and the history of language teaching is essentially the history of the claims
and counterclaims for and against the teaching of grammar” (p. 14). The debate has
brought about an extreme split of attitudes, namely, those who hold that grammar
should receive a central attention in language teaching and those who hold that
grammar should not be taught at all.
2.2.3. The importance of teaching grammar
Most language learners and teachers agree that mastering the grammar of a
language may form part of the knowledge of it. Eric Hawkins (1984;150) affirms
the value of grammar: “The evidence seems to show beyond doubt that though it is
by communicative use in real speech acts that the new language sticks in the
learner’s mind, insight into pattern is an equal partner with communicative use in
what language teachers see as the dual process of acquisition. Grammar,
approached as a voyage of discovery into the pattern of language rather than the
learning of prescriptive rules, is no longer a bogey word”. According to his ideas,
he sees grammar as an interesting thing to learn (“a voyage of discovery”).
Although it is not always certain that all students may find an intrinsic interest in
learning grammar, it is such a sharp view of him that grammar can be an effective
means to help and boost language learning.
However, there exist some controversial opinions about the teaching of
grammar. One of the biggest challenges to the necessity of grammar teaching comes

grammar. Moreover, Grammar exists to enable us to ‘mean’ and without it, it is
impossible to communicate beyond a very rudimentary level because “speech is no
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more than sounds, writing is no more than hieroglyphics” (Peck, 1988:127). For all
these reasons, the teaching of grammar is quite important in ELT.
2.2.4. Approaches to grammar instruction
2.2.4.1. Deductive and Inductive approaches
While evidence for the need for formal instruction has been established
through such research studies, there is still some controversy regarding how and
how much instruction is necessary. From this debate, a broad distinction is often
made between deductive and inductive approaches (Thornbury, 1999).
 Deductive approach
Deductive approach is often called rule-driven learning (Thornbury, 1999).
In this approach, a grammar rule is explicitly presented to students and followed by
practice applying the rule. The deductive approach maintains that a teacher teaches
grammar by presenting grammatical rules, and then examples of sentences are
presented. Once learners understand rules, they are told to apply the rules given to
various examples of sentences. Giving the grammatical rules means no more than
directing learners’ attention to the problem discussed. However, deductive approach
to grammar teaching receives less support than inductive approach. As Ellis in
Richards (2002) reported, there has not been convincing empirical verification as
well as theoretical validation that the acquisition of grammar structures involves the
process of learning the rules and practicing them through gradual autoimmunization
of production. Even so, deductive approach is often used by many teachers due to
its advantages such as time-saving for teachers and respect for students’
expectations about classroom learning.
 Inductive approach
In contrast to deductive approach, inductive approach, which is labeled as
rule-discovery learning, starts with examples from which a rule is inferred
(Thornbury, 1999). The procedure is similar to the process of children acquiring

how well the two approaches are combined. As according to Corder (as cited in
Celce-Murcia, 2001, p. 264)
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What little we know about …second language learning …. suggests that a
combination of induction and deduction produces the best result. The old
controversy about whether one should provide the rule first and then the examples,
or vice versa, is now seem to be merely a matter of tactics to which no categorical
answer can be given”
Indeed, the combination of two approaches to presenting grammatical rules
both provides students with more active learning environment and prevents them
from inducing inaccurate rules for themselves.
2.2.4.2. Different approaches to grammar teaching
In the last over one hundred years, language teaching methodology has
changed in approaches and methods of grammar teaching. From the mid to late 19
th
century, the dominant trend was a non-communicative approach. It was Grammar
Translation Method. With this approach, grammar was deductively taught in an
organized and systematic way, by studying grammar rules. Learners were instructed
to do exercises involving translation from the second language to the first language
and vice versa. River (1981:31) comments this method as follows: “There is much
stress on knowing rules and exceptions” and “communication is neglected”.
In the late 19
th
century, increased opportunities for communication among
Europeans crested a demand for oral proficiency in foreign language. The Direct
method came into being in order to satisfy the demand. The Direct method based on
the belief that a language could best be taught by its vivid use in the classroom
reflected the Reform Movement. There is no translation anymore and the silent
study of literature was replaced by actual use of spoken language practice, and
explicit and deductive grammar instruction was replaced by an implicit and

the ‘discovery techniques’ aims to lead students towards a generalized grammar
rule or pattern.
2.3. A Brief Review of Task-based Language Learning
Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is a communicative approach to
language instruction, using the successful completion of communicative tasks as its
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