BM 01-Bia SKKN

S GIÁO D C VÀ
:

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AN INNOVATION IN APPLYING TASK

BASED LANGUAGE

TEACHING APROACHES IN DEVELOPING SPEAKING COMPETENCE
FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Ng

i th c hi n:
-


BM02-LLKHSKKN

I.
1.
2.
3.
4.


III.
-

-

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School Year: 2016

2017

ACTION RESEARCH

Research Title:
AN INNOVATION IN APPLYING TASK

BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING

APROACHES IN DEVELOPING SPEAKING COMPETENCE FOR HIGH SCHOOL
STUDENTS

3


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

master of Le Hong Phong high school, the school managing board and all of
the teachers in English group as well for their meaningful supports of spirit

up process innovation was to find out the effect

based language teaching (TBLT) in improving speaking

competence of Le Hong Phong high school students, in Bien Hoa, Dong Nai
province. The innovation was implemented from October 3 rd to November
26th , 2016 (see the appendix A). It was based on the problem solving model
(Markee, 1997 p.66), in which the researcher working as an implementer and
an inside change agent used the comparisons of pre test and final

test

results between two classes 11B2 and 11B5, class room observation records,
interviews and feedback questionnaires. Two of the
acted as insides change agents and implementers. And ninety

two students

in two classes participated in the innovation (potential adopters or resisters).

I. INTRODUCTION
English has been one of the compulsory subjects to secondary and high
school students in Vietnam in the last fifteen years. Students have to spend at
least three classes a week to study English. It is one of six subjects included in
the GCSE examination which high school students have to pass to finish their
hig

86.8% of the students

graduating from high school admit that they are not be able to communicate

written for teaching 4 skills: Reading, Speaking, Listening, and Writing, both
teachers and students feel hard to teach and study speaking and listening
because of time limitation. Thus, teachers sometimes neglect the speaking and
listening sections to concentrate on grammar, reading so that their students
can pass the examinations which only test their writing, grammar points and
vocabulary memorable competences.

Thirdly, there are often over forty

students in one class, it is also a problem in teaching by using communicative
skills. In addition, despite the comparatively high-level understanding of
TBLT concepts, many teachers actually hesitate to adopt TBLT as an
instructional method in classroom practice. This may result from the fact that
most of the teachers still use the traditional lecture-oriented methods, which
they are accustomed to, and more than that, they have the psychological

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pressure of facing some new disciplinary problems in using TBLT. Then the
main research questions arise:
1.
speaking skill?
2. What
English?
II. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
Definitions of task: According to Nunan (1989),communicative task is

manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their


interviewer who interviewed the experimental group. The other was an
interviewer who interviewed the control one. These two colleagues also

observers in classroom observation of this research.
The Students: The students in the innovation are in grade 11. Most of
them have studied English, at least, for 6 years from grade 6 to grade 11.
As can be seen, schools in Vietnamese educational system are divided
into three groups: elementary school (from grade 1 to grade 5), secondary
school (from grade 6 to grade 9) and high school (from grade 10 to grade
12).
To students at high school, English is a compulsory subject and it is
taught three periods or more a week.

III. LITERATURE REVIEW
1. The literature review of Task based Language Teaching:
Task-based language teaching can be considered one particular

2004, p.1). In other words, it is a communicative approach to language
teaching, using the successfu
primary organizing principle. With the approach of the communicative
language teaching approach in the early 1980s and much emphasis on

commonly use in the field of second language acquisition in terms of
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developing process-oriented syllabi and designing communicative tasks to
-based view of language
teaching, based on the constructivist theory of learning and communicative
language teaching methodology, has evolved in response to some limitations

1994).
2. The literature review of Innovation:
According to Markee (1997), Innovation and change were variously
treated by writers. Some considered them different processes, others thought
these were synonymous. He added that:
innovation is
a species of the genus change, in which change is an ongoing, almost unconscious
process that involves reworking familiar elements into new relationships;
innovation on the other hand, is a willed intervention, which results in the
development of ideas, practices, or beliefs that are fundamentally new (Miles
1964; A. Nicholls 1983). I accept that innovation in education should be a

is an
orientating attempt to treat the problems in a particular context so that some better
success could be made by applying a new method of teaching. Although the
innovation expects to be succeeded, it sometimes fails in applying. In this case, the
implementer needs to investigate why it does not work and what is needed to make
it success.
3. Cultures and innovation:
Cultures play a very important role in innovation. As Tudor (2001) noted
that:
erful role in
guiding their behaviours in the classroom as well as their evaluation of the actions
and behaviours of other participants. The second is that participants may not be
explicitly

aware of the principles on which they are operating. Their culture of

learning may thus constitute a powerful but potentially - hidden agenda, one


Stakeholders are those who are involved in an innovation that takes up in a
certain social system (Miles 1964 p.13

18). Each of them has their own point of

view on education. As Roger (1983), innovation in schools occurs in a finished
organization. And in considering about stakeholders of an innovation, Lambright
and Flynn (1980) remarked that stakeholders are regarded as adopters or resisters,
clients, implementers, suppliers and change agents. All of them relate to each other
in an innovation.
a.

Adopters:

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Markee (1997 p.58) outlined five different types of adopters of an
innovation based on the diffusion curve. They are innovators, early adopters, early
majority, late majority and laggards. In the light of this, the adopters of this
innovation can be seen that the researcher, two teachers who were invited to join
the innovation, students in two 11 grade classes in Le Hong Phong high school.
b.

Resisters:

Resisters are those who opposite to adopting the ideas from the change
agents and unwilling to change. In this innovation, there were some students in
these two classes who resisted the innovation.
c.

V. METHODOLOGY:
1. Background:
a. The school and the English group:
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This research was carried out to investigate whether TBLT could help
students at Le Hong Phong (LHP) high school improve their English

approach. It was executed at LHP high school, a small school located Bien Hoa
town, Dong Nai Province, South Vietnam. There are ten teachers of English in the
language group of this high school. Seven of them graduated from college. Two of
them including the researcher had a post-graduate diploma in TESOL. The last one
took Master in TESOL already.
b. The syllabus design and its cultural context:
Generally, the textbooks used to teach in grade 11 consisted of 16 units. It
was designed by The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training. The
duration time for each unit is 5 periods (one period lasts forty _ five minutes). Each
unit has five parts: reading, listening, speaking, writing, and language focus; which
are corresponded to 5 periods. There are 3 prescribed English studying periods per
week. Some high schools can hold some more extra periods per week if necessary.
In order to implement TBLT, the researcher had to have extra curricular
communicative activities in eight weeks (2 extra periods a week) from the 3th of
October to the 26th of November, 2016.

c. The rationale behind the innovation:
As mentioned above, The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training
(MOET) reformed new English textbooks for high school students six years ago. In
these textbooks, students are asked to do tasks to improve all of the language skills.
However, the tasks in the textbooks might be considered structure and grammar focused tasks. In speaking tasks, for instant, they mainly focus on the development

A is 43 years old. He has been teaching English at LHP high school for 6 years (he
had taught English in other high school for 6 years before he came to teach at
LHP). He is also an expert in applying TBLT for teaching speaking. Teacher B is
35 years old. He has been teaching English at LHP high school for 10 years.
However, he seldom uses TBLT in teaching.
2. Stages of the innovation, finding and analyses:
2.1.

Pilot study:

* The questionnaire for feedback after learning of students:
The researcher sent the questionnaire (see the appendix G) to three experienced
speaking teachers who did not participate in the study to check for its validity. Two
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of them have been teachers of English at

Dong Nai for 12 years. Only the items which were accepted by two of three
teachers or by three of them were left in the questionnaire. After their approval of
the items, the researcher sent the questionnaire to ten students including task based

reliability.
* Pretest and posttest topics:
The pretest and posttest were sent to the three mentioned-above teachers to
check for the validity. The researcher asked ten students including task - based
students and non task to check for the reliability.
* The classroom observational checklist:
In the same vein, the classroom observation checklist was sent to the three
teachers as mentioned above before to check for the validity. After that, the

marks and the remains reached over 5 marks. These two twelve student groups
were regarded as representatives of two classes. Therefore, they were paid much
attention to during the research. Their pretest results were compared with the
results of the posttest at the end of the research.
The pretest was marked by two examiners at the same time (the researcher
and the teacher who was in charge of these classes). The test consisted two parts.
In the first part, students selected a sheet of paper with a topic written on it. They
had to speak for two minutes on this topic. They could not ask for another topic.
They were given one minute to write down their ideas. A sheet of paper and a pen
are provided. Once they finished their two minutes, the examiners stopped students
and then asked them some questions on what they had talked about. The second
part lasts a total of 3-4 minutes. The students were marked on fluency, vocabulary,
grammar, pronunciation and ideas. (see the topics in Appendix B)
Posttest: After eight weeks of the research, students of these two classes did
the post test. The post test was carried out in the same process with the pretest. In
fact, the topics in the two tests were absolutely same.
Finding and Analyses:
Table 1:
CLASS 11B2

No.

Pre test Result

Posttest Result

FOUR STUDENTS GOT FROM 1 TO 3 MARKS AT THEIR
PRETEST
1


6

FOUR STUDENTS GOT FROM OVER 3 TO 5 MARKS AT THEIR
PRETEST
5

E2

4

6

6

F2

5

7

7

G2

5

8

8


7

12

L2

8

9

9
8
7
6
5

Pre- Test

4

Final - Test

3
2
1
0
A2B2C2D2E2F2G2H2I2 J2K2L2

17



1

3

4

P5

3

4

FOUR STUDENTS GOT FROM OVER 3 TO 5 MARKS AT THEIR
PRETEST
5

Q5

4

4

6

R5

5

6


7

7

11

W5

6

7

12

X5

8

8

18


8
7
6

Pre- Test



Pretest

F2
Q5
E2
P5
D2
O5
C2
N5
B2
M5
A2
0

5

10

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As can be observed from the charts above, most of the students got some
progresses, some got much and other got little. However, the students in class
11B2 (treated with TBLT) seemed to be a bit better than students in class 11B5
(Non - TBLT treated
speaking competence in some way.
* Classroom observation:
As mentioned above, two teachers were invited to teach these two classes.

recall and activate the process of opening by explaining the situation (let them
work as researchers). In the while-task, students worked in group of four or five.
First, every of them had to go around and interview their classmates with
suggested questions in the interview paper (handout in Appendix E). Then students
worked in their group, comparing the results they got from the interview and
decide which kind of shops they were going to open. During the task, teacher went
around and helped students to solve some of their difficult problems or suggested
some ideas. And in the post task, teacher randomly chose two groups to report the
plan to the whole class. After their reports, teacher gave feedback about their work.
In this class, it could be seen that students were very interested in doing the tasks.
They could practice their speaking skill freely based on tasks. Moreover, the tasks
used were realconstitutes 75% of the speaking class. This proved that TBLT could help to enable
students in using the target language in both classroom and real life context.
Although there were many advantages in applying TBLT in teaching, we did
have to face some problems. The first one might be the noise. In this kind of
teaching, students often make noise when they go around the classroom and
discuss in groups. The second one was the classroom management. In spite of the

on in each group due to large size class. And one more problem was that the
students who were talkative seemed to dominate the group or the pair works,
which makes some shy or low

ability students keep being silent during the

speaking period.
Class 11B5:
In this class, teacher B used the tasks in the textbook (see the teaching plan
in appendix D). There was still communication in class, but it was too little. As the
structure of the tasks in the textbooks, there were also three phases for each task:
the pre-speaking, while- speaking and post-speaking. In task 1, teacher asked


Normal

Boring

11B2

32.60%

58.70%

8.70%

0%

11B5

0%

6.52%

26.08%

67.40%

As can be seen from above table, 67.40% of students in class 11B5 felt
bored in comparison to 0% of students in class 11B5. Moreover, 91.30 % of
students in the first class, felt interested in the second period while there were only
6.52 % of students in the second class. This proves the effect of TBLT in
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67.39%

Period 11B5

speaking class. It showed that no one felt interested in the tasks in the textbook.
The tasks in the text book made students (67.39%) feel bored, while 95.65% of
students were fond of the tasks applying the TBLT. It can be explained that in
TBLT students often have opportunities to create, choose what they should do to
finish the tasks themselves, which leads to the success of the speaking tasks.
Table 5:
Difficult

Suitable

Easy

Class 11B2

2.17%

76.09%

21.74%

Class 11B5

0%

63.04%



4.35 %

clear as in non- TBLT class (78.26 % in comparison with 89.13 %). It should be
noticed that, in the second class, the instructions were available in the textbook,
moreover the tasks were also very simple, so it was very easy for them to follow

context, and explained the roles, so it might confuse the students. This suggested
that teacher in TBLT class should pay more attention about explaining the tasks so
that they are clear enough for the students to follow.
Table 7: Communication in the class
Very much

Much

Little

Class 11B1

21.74 %

52.17 % 26.09%

0%

Class 11B5

2.17%

41.31%

the tasks in the first class very useful for them in the real life. However, the task in

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