VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE USING TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING IN TEACHING GRAMMAR TO ADULT LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER IN HO CHI MINH CITY A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By LUU THI HONG NHUNG Supervised by NGUYEN DUY MONG HA, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, OCTOBER 2022 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE USING TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING IN TEACHING GRAMMAR TO ADULT LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER IN HO CHI MINH CITY A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By LUU THI HONG NHUNG Supervised by NGUYEN DUY MONG HA, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, OCTOBER 2022 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this thesis could not have been possible without the encouragement and assistance from a number of people who all deserve my sincerest gratitude and deepest appreciation. First of all, my gratefulness goes to my respectful supervisor, Dr.
Nguyen Duy Mong Ha, for her insightful guidance and constructive criticism throughout the course of writing this thesis paper. Her intellectual support, constant supervision and empathy have always been a source of inspiration and motivation for me to accomplish my thesis. I am deeply thankful for the considerable support provided by the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature during the MA program in TESOL. Also, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the students who participated in the present study.
I greatly appreciate their generosity with their time in filling in the questionnaires and answering my questions for the interviews. Without their participation, I could not have completed my thesis. My thanks also go to my friends and my colleagues for their words of encouragement when I was doing this thesis. Last but not least, I am deeply indebted to my family, especially my husband and my son.
Their love and sacrifice truly gave me a great deal of strength to overcome the difficulties occurring during the time of writing this paper. Once again, I deeply appreciate all. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled USING TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING IN TEACHING GRAMMAR TO ADULT LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER IN HO CHI MINH CITY in terms of the statement of the requirements for the Theses in Master’s program issued by the Higher Degree Committee. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institutions.
Ho Chi Minh City, October 2022 Luu Thi Hong Nhung ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Luu Thi Hong Nhung, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of the thesis. Ho Chi Minh City, October 2022 Luu Thi Hong Nhung iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY .ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. viii LIST OF TABLES. ix LIST OF FIGURES.
xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY .2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM .3 AIM OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY .5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY .6 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS. 4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .1 GRAMMAR TEACHING AND LEARNING .1 The definitions of “grammar” .2 The roles of grammar in language learning and teaching .1 Deductive approach and inductive approach.2 Traditional methods of grammar teaching and communicative approach to grammar teaching .2 AN OVERVIEW OF TBLT .2 The definitions of “task” .4 Task types in EFL teaching .5 Basic principles for implementation of TBLT .6 Procedures for TBLT .3 ADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES OF TBLT .6 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE .1 Data collection procedure .2 Reliability and validity .7 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE. 36 v CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Students’ attitudes towards grammar lessons using OCT .2 Advantages of grammar lessons using OCT .3 Disadvantages of grammar lessons using OCT .3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY .4 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH. 61 APPENDIX A1 - QUALITATIVE QUESTIONNAIRE.
61 APPENDIX A2 - BẢNG KHẢO SÁT. 62 APPENDIX B1 - QUANTITATIVE QUESTIONNAIRE. 63 APPENDIX B2 - BẢNG KHẢO SÁT. 66 APPENDIX C - OBSERVATION NOTES.
69 APPENDIX D1 - QUESTIONS OF THE SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW. 78 APPENDIX D2 - CÂU HỎI PHỎNG VẤN HỌC VIÊN. 79 APPENDIX E - COURSE SYLLABUS. 80 APPENDIX F - LESSON OUTLINES.
82 vi APPENDIX G - INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS. 103 APPENDIX H - DATA FROM THE QUALITATIVE QUESTIONNAIRE. 118 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AR Action Research CEFALT Center for Foreign Affairs and Languages Training in Ho Chi Minh City EFL English as a Foreign Language ELT English Language Teaching GE General English OCT Oral communicative tasks TBLT Task-based Language Teaching viii LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Brief descriptions of the research cycle.2 Summary of the research instruments.3 Data collection time frame .4 Oral communicative tasks used in the research cycle .1 Responses to Item 1 in the questionnaire.2 Responses to Item 2 in the questionnaire.3 Responses to Item 3 in the questionnaire.4 Responses to Item 4 in the questionnaire.5 Responses to Item 5 in the questionnaire.6 Responses to Item 6 in the questionnaire.7 Responses to Items 7-8 in the questionnaire.8 Responses to Items 9-12 in the questionnaire.9 Responses to Items 13-14 in the questionnaire.10 Responses to Item 15 in the questionnaire.11 Responses to Items 16-18 in the questionnaire.12 Responses to Item 19 in the questionnaire. 49 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.
A three-dimensional grammar framework. Components of the task-based learning framework. The conceptual framework of the study. Cyclical AR model based on Kemmis and McTaggart (1988).
The research cycle. 33 x ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate the learners’ perceptions of the teacher’s using oral communicative tasks in teaching grammar. The study was conducted with the participation of 16 adult learners in a General English class at a language center in Ho Chi Minh City. The data of the study was collected from classroom observations, qualitative questionnaires, quantitative questionnaires and interviews.
In terms of the learners’ perceptions of the implementation, it was found that the students who participated in the study showed their positive attitudes towards grammar lessons using oral communicative tasks. Additionally, the advantages of the implementation of oral communicative tasks to teach grammar to adult learners were detected and recognized. In addition to improving the students’ understanding of grammar, oral communicative tasks greatly contribute to the enhancement of their self-confidence and motivation for grammar learning coupled with the development of independence in English learning and their soft-skills. On the other hand, the shortcomings were also detected.
Despite this, it is believed that the benefits of oral communicative tasks somehow outweigh the drawbacks in improving students’ English speaking performance. Key words: oral communicative tasks, grammar teaching, adult learners xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This introductory chapter presents the background to the study by highlighting the importance of grammar in English language learning and briefly stating the current situation of grammar learning in the teacher-researcher’s context. Next, the statement of the problem, the research aim and the research question are provided, followed by the significance of the study and organization of the thesis chapters.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY Over the past decades, there seems to be a general recognition that globalization has considerably influenced almost every life aspect, including the increase in the demand of learning English because of its international values. Accordingly, more attention has been paid to English learning.
People of all ages try to grasp the language as much as they can to serve their purposes. While graduate students and undergraduate ones learn it for their job opportunities, those who are working learn it to gain deeper insights into their working fields and to be able to communicate well with their international partners or even to get promotion. Regardless of different purposes of English learning, they, as English language learners, are believed to share a common goal of being able to communicate effectively. Naturally, grammar learning should not be ignored since “efficient communication cannot take place without correct grammar” (Savage, Bitterlin & Price, 2010, p.
In a similar vein, grammar is needed because of its importance in making people’s language production more accurate and standard. It is also considered “a meaning-making resource and that our ability to speak grammatically is one of the things that makes us human”. (Larsen-Freeman & Celce-Murcia, 2016, p. Furthermore, correct grammar in the areas of listening, speaking, reading, and writing helps prevent communication from being disrupted (Savage et al.
As an EFL teacher who has a great number of chances to teach adult learners at a language center, I realize that when it comes to grammar learning, many of them 1 tend to learn grammar in the way they used to be taught, which is grammar translation. Specifically, teachers usually provide students with grammatical rules and explain them clearly while learners learn the rules and use them to make sentences. Unfortunately, “learning sentence-level grammar did not result in learners being able to use the English language for communication” (Celce-Murcia, 2016, p. Even knowing the rules and structures, they still do not know how to use them in practical situations properly although initially, when starting to learn the language, they wish to achieve a practical use of English.
That is the reason why “most of us are familiar with the phenomenon of students who know the rules of grammar but who are nonetheless unable to ask for simple directions” (Savage et al. In the light of giving adult learners a clear perspective of which language items and how they are applied to real-world situations as well as raising their awareness of the importance of grammar in obtaining standard command of communication, this research works on an approach of teaching grammar that can address the problems stated above, Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT), particularly the implementation of oral communicative tasks (OCT). It is believed to make a big change in grammar learning which can boost students’ interest and motivation as well as help improve the students’ use of grammar in real-life communication.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The students participating in this study are adult learners. Most of them are university students and office workers.
They have clear purposes of learning English, so they frequently make considerable efforts in learning. However, by the teacher-researcher’s close observation and frequent conversations with her students, it can be seen that when it comes to grammar, they tend to be uninterested and demotivated. Additionally, most of them have difficulties in activating and applying their knowledge of grammar into real-life situations. This urges the teacher- researcher to find out a way to enhance her students’ motivation for learning grammar, thus helping better their use of English.
2 Additionally, there is a fact that most language centers nowadays often design their course syllabuses based on available English textbooks without taking adult learners’ prior knowledge of English into consideration. This may lead to a total waste of time when they keep learning what they have already known. As a result, using supplementary sources of teaching is considered necessary to help learners reinforce their English skills. Another inspiration for conducting the current research is that for the past few years, the teacher-researcher has used some kinds of tasks in teaching grammar to her students.