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

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LƢƠNG THỊ MINH PHƢƠNG

A STUDY ON THE USE OF TASK-BASED APPROACH IN
TEACHING SPEAKING TO THE 2nd YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED
STUDENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƢƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC THEO
ĐƢỜNG HƢỚNG GIAO NHIỆM VỤ TRONG DẠY HỌC KĨ NĂNG
NÓI CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 6014.0111

HA NOI, 2014


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

-----***-----

LƢƠNG THỊ MINH PHƢƠNG

Luong Thi Minh Phuong


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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my respectable
supervisor, Dr. Duong Thi Nu for her restless and sympathetic
encouragement, valuable advice and patient guidance until the completion
of this study.
My sincere thanks also go to my dear colleagues at Vietnam
University of Commerce for all their helps, supports and encouragement
when I encountered difficulties.
I wish to acknowledge my thankfulness to class 1405ENPR5011 of
English Faculty at Vietnam University of Commerce for their enthusiastic
participation in the experiment.
Finally, I am deeply indebted to my beloved mother, my family
members and my post-graduate friends Nguyen Thi Mai Huong, Anh20B,
Ta Thi Mai Huong, Anh20B, Tran Thi Long, Anh20B, Tran Thi Huyen,
Anh20B, Nguyen Hoang Do, Anh20A and others for their sacrifice and
encouragement and care.


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Abstracts
The focus of this study was on the use of task-based approach in
teaching speaking for the 2nd year English majored students at Vietnam
University of Commerce. A one group pre-test/post-test quasiexperimental design was employed with the participation of 40 students

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW ... 5
1.1 Theoretical background ......................................................................................... 5
1.1.1Business English ............................................................................................... 5
1.1.2Speaking ............................................................................................................ 6
1.2 Task-based language teaching ................................................................................ 9
1.2.1Task-based language teaching .......................................................................... 9
1.2.2Definitions of Tasks within TBI ..................................................................... 10
1.2.3TBL in a Business English course .................................................................. 12
1.2.4Framework for Task-based Instruction (TBI) ................................................. 13
1.3 Advantages of TBLT .............................................................................................. 14
1.4 Misunderstanding about TBLT ............................................................................ 15
1.5 Theoretical justification for TBLT ....................................................................... 16
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHOD .......................................................................... 18
2.1 Context of the study ............................................................................................... 18
2.2 Participants .............................................................................................................. 18
2.3 Research Design ..................................................................................................... 19
2.3.1 Quasi-experimental Research ........................................................................ 19
2.3.2 Design ............................................................................................................ 20
2.3.2 Instrumentations ............................................................................................. 20
2.4 Data Collection Procedures ................................................................................... 22
2.5 Data Analysis Methods .......................................................................................... 22
CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ............................................................. 24
3.1. Students’ improvement in learning speaking ..................................................... 24


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3.2. Students’ attitudes towards and motivation of the Task-based project .......... 30
a. Students‟ attitudes ........................................................................................... 30
b. Level of motivation amongst students adopting the TBL ............................... 33


English for Specific Purposes

TB:

Task-based

TBI:

Task-based Instruction

TBLT:

Task-based Language Teaching

TBL:

Task-based Learning

TBT:

Task-based Teaching

VUC:

Vietnam University of Commerce


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their

language

skills

and

ability

for

international

business

communication. However, the current situation of teaching and learning now in
Vietnam is of critical problem to solve resulting from inappropriate teaching
materials and instructional techniques. Here comes the same context to what
happens in the teaching and learning ESP at Vietnam University of Commerce. The
traditional method being applied now is mainly teacher-centered and lectureoriented, which commonly results in the passivity and non-involvement in speaking
activities of students. From all of the above, finding appropriate methods is an urge
that the teachers here are striving for.
Willis and Willis (2007:1) asserts that “…the most effective way to teach a
language is by engaging learners in real language use in the classroom. This is done
by designing tasks – discussions, problems, games, and so on – which require
learners to use the language for themselves.” Other language researchers and
practitioners like Candlin (1987), Swain (1995) and Hutchinson and Walter (1987)
all agree that TBLT could bring good opportunities for students to master their
language skills through numerous and useful kinds of tasks.

of enhancing second-year students‟ speaking ability. As a result, the teachers at
VUC are persuaded to adopt this approach in their teaching not only speaking but
other language skills.
5. Method of the study
a. Sample
The sample consists of 40 students of the early second year in English
Faculty of Vietnam University of Commerce. The students were selected randomly
according to their credit registration at the end of the first year.
The class were to receive TB instruction following an oral pre-test and then
another post-test to check the effect of the new approach on speaking ability.


3

The class were taught by the teacher who is qualified and has 5 years of
experience in teaching business English at VUC.
b. Instrumentation
A quasi-experimental research were employed in this minor thesis to find out
the attitudes and motivation of 2nd year students toward speaking as well as the
influence of TBLT on their speaking ability.
In order to collect sufficient and relevant data for the study, two research
techniques were implemented:
-

Using an oral pre-test and a post-test to evaluate the teaching and learning
results

-

Conducting a semi-structured questionnaire to investigate how the

Chapter 2 – Research Method continues with the research method
including the participants of the study, the instrumentation, the methods
and procedures of data collection and data analysis.

-

Chapter 3 – Findings and Discussion demonstrates the findings
accompanied by data analysis and discussion.

Part C – Conclusion recapitulates the major findings of the study and
represents further recommendations for the implementation of
TBLT.


5

PART B - DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1 – THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1.1 Business English
Business English has been receiving much concern from ESP practitioners,
learners and language researchers. Orr (2002) sees Business English as a subfield
that focuses on the development of communicative competence for business settings,
also known as target situations or situated contexts in business.
Business English is a rapidly growing field within the area of English
language Teaching (ELT) and ESP (English for Specific Purposes). It is a
straightforward term that is widely used and readily understood by practitioners, but
its generality can lead to confusion (Johnson, 1993, Pickett, 1986 and Johns, 1986).
The term can be used to describe courses that range from an essentially English for
General Purposes course that includes the teaching of some business lexis, to very

teaching are of utmost importance to BE teachers.
Career content concerns all activities related to the process of
communication and learning of students including reading, listening, writing and
speaking. By the way of illustration, career content in speaking skills is placed on
the performance-related activities like socializing or providing for personal needs
when on a business trip. The real content deals with the language used in ESP
materials and teaching. As being defined by Dudley-Evans and John (1998), real
content includes linguistic and communicative skills of students‟ communicative
and learning activities.
There is a significant correlation between career content and real content for
the former is made the focal point while the latter is introduced the following career
content requirements. It leads to the achievement of the integration of particular
content with language teaching aims, so that the career content dictates the selection
and sequence of language to be learned by students.
1.1.2 Speaking


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Various definitions on the concept of speaking have been pointed out by a
number of language researchers. According to Chaney (1998, p. 13), speaking is the
process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal
symbols, in a variety of contexts. Accordingly, Brown, (1994); Burns & Joyce,
(1997) and Florez (1999, p.1) consider speaking as an interactive process of
constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing
information. Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs,
including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical
environment, and the purposes for speaking.
Speaking plays a vital role in communication. Ur (1996), Bailey and Savage
(1994: vii) claim that, “for many people, speaking is seen as the central skill

to participating in meetings can be found in negotiating, setting out facts and
figures, expressing opinions, supporting an argument, agreeing and disagreeing,
balancing points of view, make suggestions, promising, interrupting, and adding
new points (Ellis & Johnson: ibid).
b. Oral presentations
Oral presentation, or spoken monologue, can be a feature of EOP and EAP
works (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998:112) including BE. Presentations are great
way to have students practice all language system areas (vocabulary, grammar,
discourse and phonology) and skills (speaking, reading, listening and writing). They
also build confidence and presenting skills that needed for most people in the world
of work. Presentation skills can be built through different sets of activities and
learning form, take task-based as an example. According to Dudley-Evans and John
(1998), confidence is a significant factor for many people in speaking a language
and classroom feedback should be based on maintaining and increasing confidence.
Teacher can make a motivation for speaking by highlighting and building on their
students‟ strengths as well as discussing positive features first. Areas for
improvement in students‟ oral presentation skills need concrete suggestions of ways
and means of achieving them.
c. Telephoning


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Telephoning can be distinguished as a performance area even though it
actually refers to a channel of communication and may cover a wide range of
situations and types of interactions (Ellis and Johnson, 1994) in business. For nonnative speakers, speaking on the telephone presents a variety of new and difficult
barriers to natural communication because of having no visual supports (graphics,
figures, facial expression, etc.), yet it is an unavoidable and crucial part of the
business world.
d. Socializing

learning process. During this interaction practices, students have chance to
understand each other and to express their own meaning. Richards and Rodgers
(2001) and Larsen-Freeman (2000) give their own definition on the term „task‟, a
frequently used words in classroom for years. In TBLT, tasks are always central
activities where the target language is used for a communicative purpose in order to
achieve an outcome emphasizing on exchanging meaning not producing language
forms. The tasks here cover a wide range of language but a concentration on one
particular structure, function, or vocabulary group. This belief is based on the belief
that student can use language effectively when focusing on the task itself rather than
on the language they are using. Since tasks are basic unit of a TBLT framework, it
is crucial to give clear definitions of tasks.
2.3.1 Definitions of tasks within Task-based Instruction (TBI)
According to Willis (1996), tasks are activities where the target language is
used by the learner for a communicative purpose (goal) in order to achieve an
outcome. That means a task can be anything from doing a puzzle to making an
airline reservation.
Other definitions are provided by a number of scholars like Nunan (2004),
Long (1985)s, Breen (1987), Skehan (1996b). Those concepts are defined on the
basis of scope and perspective. Nunan (2004) describes task as a piece of classroom
work that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing, or
interacting with the target language while their attention is focused on mobilizing
their grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning … rather than form. He
emphasizes the fact that pedagogical tasks involve communicative language use as
well as agrees with Willis and Wills (2001) that tasks differentiate themselves from
grammatical exercises by aiming to achieve an outcomes with a free use of range of


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language structures. Skehan (1998) proposed a definition of task following Candlin

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information without pre-reading), two-way tasks (accessing final results of a
problem solving activities); (2) dealing with task preparation: planned tasks (for
dealing with interviews), unplanned tasks (face-to-face conversations); (3)
convergent tasks (problem solving through social interaction) and divergent tasks
(exchanging information to achieve the same outcome).
b. Task components
Drawing on the conceptualizations of Candlin (1987), Wright (1987a) and
some others, Nunan (1989:48) analyzes task in terms of its components: goals,
input, procedures, teacher role, learner role, and settings. The diagram of task and
its components is displayed as follow:
Goals
Input

Teacher role
TASK

Activities

Learner role
Settings

Figure 1: Task components
-

Goals are the general intentions behind any given task.

-



simulated meeting or getting them to prepare a short presentation defending a
certain point of view.
-

Within classroom environment, tasks must be deeply defined so that the
learners know exactly what the setting is, who they are supposed to be, what
sorts of things they are supposed to communicate in certain business
contexts, and what is expected in performance.

-

It is essential to set up the tasks thoroughly in order to get maximum value
from it as much time can be wasted if learners do not know what they are
supposed to be doing.
Tasks chosen depend on the needs of the learners in relation to their jobs. If

the learners are experienced ones, more supporting materials will be referred to the
tasks as well as relied on only minimal input from the learners.
1.2.4 The framework for task-based instruction (TBI)
Willis (1996:38) presents TBLT in three sections: pre-task, task cycle, and
language focus.
The pre-task stage aims at exploring the topic with the students to raise the
schematic knowledge of it, and to provide a reason for real communication as well
as providing a model of similar task to make the language available so noticing can
occur (Schmidt, 1990). Concurrently, this stage covers the brainstorming and mind
maps activities. Skehan (1998) accordingly proposes the activities used in pre-task
stage including a model to introduce, mobilise, recycle language, to ease processing
load (content focus), and to push learners to try new form of language (Sato, 1988;
Chafe, 1994). Learners may be asked to engage in pre-task planning with which

informed by the most recent research findings on second Language acquisition
(SLA). As such, it plays an important role in current language pedagogy (Solares,
2006). Amongst advocates of TBLT are Ritchie (2003), Skehan (1996b), Bowen
(2000), or Nunan (2005). TBLT has the advantage of getting the student to use
their skills at their current level. To help develop language through its use. It has the
advantage of getting the focus of the student toward achieving a goal where
language becomes a tool, making the use of language a necessity. Ritchie (2003),
consider TBLT a better approach over traditional ones because learners are exposed
to richer language, namely the comprehensible input.
Skehan (1996b) indicated that the strength of TBLT is that it provides learners
the opportunity to make use of lexical resources they have either from previous
knowledge or the pre-task input. Then through interactions or negotiations of
meanings, students can eventually develop greater fluency (p.22).


15

Bowen (2000) and Frost (2004) highlight the advantages of TBLT over the
more traditional Present, Practice, Produce (PPP) approach as it allows students to
be free of language control, not the pre-selected items and focus on form in general,
not any the single ones. In addition, Nunan (2005) added that “TBL does provice a
flexible, functionally compatible and contextual sensitive approach for many
teachers, as well as the learners”. He also emphasizes that the attractiveness of TBL
relates not only to the enumerated benefits as “it provides rather a useful practice
that can be applied across many approaches, as well as boundaries. TBL may
provide an enduring legacy that meets the test of the time. It may also provide a
curricular and syllabus framework of flexibility that logically students and teachers
will be drawn to even if it need not to be the central features for certain places”.
1.4 Misunderstanding about TBLT
Ellis (2009) figured out the misunderstandings about TBLT. The most

tasks, for example, according to Prabhu). Besides, the role of the teachers do not
show only in facilitating learners to understand what to do but also in the pre-task
and post-task stages as correctors and providers of new language. Also, the TBLT
do not prohibit learners from using L1 (mother tongue) all the time as sociocultural
theory views the L1 as a useful cognitive tool for scaffolding L2 learner production
and facilitating private speech (see, for example, Anton and DiCamilla, 1998); and
Learners make effective use of the L1 to establish the goals for a task and the
procedures to be followed in tackling it.
1.5 Theoretical justification for TBLT
TBLT has evolved in a respond to a better understanding of the way languages
are learned, claimed Foster (1999), that is, language is acquired through
communication (Howard, 1984). This comment is based on the research findings in
SLA (second language acquisition) that learners do not acquire target language in
the order it is presented to them no matter how carefully teachers and textbooks
organize it (Foster, 1999; Skehan, 1996). The rationale for the employment of
communicative tasks is based on contemporary theories of language learning and
acquisition, which claim that language use is the driving force for language
development (Long, 1989; Prabhu, 1987). For example, advocates of such theories
(see Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun, 1983) suggest that, as Norris et al. (1998) put it,
the best way to learn and teach a language is through social interactions. […they]
allow students to work toward a clear goal, share information and opinions,
negotiate meaning, get the interlocutor’s help in comprehending input, and receive