MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY -------- ∞0∞-------- TRAN XUAN TRANG THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS FOR NON-MAJORED ENGLISH STUDENTS: A VIETNAMESE CASE STUDY AT HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL HO CHI MINH CITY, 2022 Tai Lieu Chat Luong MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY -------- ∞0∞-------- TRAN XUAN TRANG THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS FOR NON-MAJORED ENGLISH STUDENTS: A VIETNAMESE CASE STUDY AT HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Major code: 8 14 01 11 MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL Supervisor: VO THI HONG LE, Dr. HO CHI MINH CITY, 2022 TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM THÀNH PHỐ HỒ CHÍ MINH Độc lập – Tự do – Hạnh phúc KHOA ĐÀO TẠO SAU ĐẠI HỌC GIẤY XÁC NHẬN Tôi tên là: TRẦN XUÂN TRANG Ngày sinh: 02/12/1989 Nơi sinh: Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh Chuyên ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp dạy học bộ môn Tiếng Anh Mã học viên: 1981401111023 Tôi đồng ý cung cấp toàn văn thông tin luận văn tốt nghiệp hợp lệ về bản quyền cho Thư viện trường đại học Mở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh. Thư viện trường đại học Mở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh sẽ kết nối toàn văn thông tin luận văn tốt nghiệp vào hệ thống thông tin khoa học của Sở Khoa học và Công nghệ Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh. Ký tên ii Statement of authorship I attest that my thesis, “The effectiveness of Task-based Language Teaching to Improve Writing Skills for Non-majored English Students: A Vietnamese Case Study at Ho Chi Minh City Open University”, is entirely original work.
As a thesis for the Master’s in TESOL program at the Ho Chi Minh City Open University, it is based on my personal study. Each and every source utilized to support this thesis has been listed. No one else’s work has ever been used without proper credit. At the Ho Chi Minh City Open University or elsewhere, this thesis has never before been presented for evaluation in any subject or course.
Ho Chi Minh City, September 2022 Trần Xuân Trang iii Acknowledgements The following individuals deserve my deepest thanks; without them, my thesis would not have been feasible. I would first like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Vo Thi Hong Le for her unwavering guidance and supervision during my research and thesis writing. Without her expert guidance and support, I would not have been able to finish this thesis.
I was able to enrich my intellectual and professional life for my professional development because of their enthusiastic contributions. In addition, I want to thank the other members of the HCMC Open University staff who always provide for our needs as students. I would also like to express my gratitude to my dear classmates. During the MA in TESOL degree, we experienced both good and difficult times together.
We did form a team, and everyone on it motivated and inspired the others to keep going toward the goal. Furthermore, I want to express my gratitude to my supportive colleagues at the Ho Chi Minh City Open University who helped me a lot when I implemented this study at the university. Last but not least, I owe my family a huge debt of gratitude for all of their help both before and during my studies for the Master’s in TESOL degree. I wouldn’t have been able to get that far without my parents, my son and my soulmate.
iv Abstract This study explores how teachers and students have changed the methods to teach and learn English in recent times. Writing has always been perceived as a difficult task for English Foreign Language (EFL) students at Ho Chi Minh City Open University (HCMC OU), are at elementary level of English with significant challenges in writing, including lack of confidence in communicative skills resulting in their inability to communicate efficiently in authentic out-of-class scenarios. In line with recent empirical scholarship on EFL pedagogies, Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) is proposed as an effective approach that facilitates both the teaching of communicative skills and engagement through the use of the target language and tasks in an authentic manner as used outside of the classroom. This paper, drawing on a mix-methods case study with 60 Vietnamese non- English major EFL students who are learning English as a compulsory subject at elementary level (A1-A2) at HCMC OU, examines what to extent TBLT can help improve writing skills for these non-English major students at the tertiary level.
The control group included 28 participants, whereas the experimental group included the remaining participants. The data were collected via questionnaire, writing tests, and teacher’s observation. For data analysis and statistical inference, Statistics Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 was used. The findings indicate that the implementation of TBLT tasks in writing lessons provided by the teacher resulted in crucial improvements in students’ writing performance in terms of accuracy and fluency in the classroom.
In addition, learner’ attitudes generally were positive toward writing lessons via TBLT in the classroom. This study thus reaffirmed the educational benefits of TBLT in terms of students’ writing abilities. v Table of contents Statement of authorship. iv Table of contents.
v List of figures and tables. viii List of abbreviations. xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Background to the study.
Statement of the problem. Significance of the study. Organization of the study. 7 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW.1 The definition of writing .2 Principles of teaching and learning writing .3 Assessment of learners’ attitudes toward using TBLT .4 The integration of TBLT in writing.
Task-based language teaching. Communicative language teaching .2 The characteristics of Task-based language teaching .3 The frameworks of task-based language teaching .6 The benefits of TBLT vs traditional method .5 Empirical studies on TBLT and English writing teaching. 19 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.1 Test data analytical framework .2 Questionnaire data analytical framework .3 Observation data analytical framework .5 Reliability and validity issues. 34 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION .1 Writing test results.
67 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION.2 Contribution of the study .1 Recommendations for teachers .2 Recommendations for students .5 Suggestions for further research. 81 viii List of figures and tables Table 2.1: Three aspects of language production .2: Willis’s Task-based language teaching framework (1996) .3: Ellis’s Task-based language teaching framework (2006) .4: The benefits of TBLT vs.1: Observation’s objectives and tools .2: Key points of observation checklist .3: Data collection’s procedure .1: The case processing summary in the Pre-test .2: Tests of Normality of pre-test scores .1: Normal Q-Q Plot for the pre-test results .3: Descriptive Statistics of the pre-test results .4: Hypothesis Test Summary for the writing Pre-test results .2: The distribution of the writing pre-test results .5: The case processing summary in the Post-test .6: Tests of Normality of post-test scores .3: Normal Q-Q plots for post-test results .7: Descriptive Statistics of the post-test results .8: Hypothesis Test Summary for the writing post-test results .4: The distribution of the writing post-test results.9: Descriptive Statistics of the control group .10: Descriptive statistics of the experimental group .11: Questionnaire’s reliability statistics of the control group .12: Questionnaire’s reliability statistics of the experimental group .5: Participants’ ideas before the writing lessons start.13: Means of items for participants’ feelings toward the writing exercises in the textbook .14: Frequencies of items for participants’ feelings toward the writing exercises in the textbook .15: Means of items for participants’ ideas on working in pairs/groups .16: Frequencies of items for participants’ ideas on working in pairs/groups .17: Means of items for participants’ ideas on teacher’s support in classroom .18: Frequencies of items for participants’ ideas on teacher’s support in classroom.19: Means of items for classroom environment .20: Frequencies of items for classroom environment .21: Means of items for participants’ opinions about further exercises/homework .22: Frequencies of items for participants’ opinions about further exercises/homework .6: Participants’ ideas on warm-up activities .23: Means of items for participants’ opinions about the tasks .24: Frequencies of items for participants’ opinions about the tasks .25: Means of items for participants’ opinions on working in groups .26: Frequencies of items for participants’ opinions on working in groups .27: Means of items for participants’ opinions toward teacher support .28: Frequencies of items for participants’ opinions toward teacher support .29: Means of items for classroom environment .30: Frequencies of items for classroom environment .31: Means of items for participants’ ideas on final exercises in class and homework .32: Frequencies of items for participants’ ideas on final exercises in class and homework. 60 xi List of abbreviations. CLT: Communicative Language Teaching.
CG: Control group. DM: Direct Method. EFL: English as Foreign Language. EG: Experimental group.
GTM: Grammar Translation Method. HCMC: Ho Chi Minh City. PPP: Present-Practice-Production. SD: Standard deviation.
SLA: Second Language Acquisition. SPSS: Statistics Package for the Social Sciences. SRL: Self-regulatory learning. SD: Standard deviation.
TBLT: Task-based language teaching 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the background of this study on using Task- based language teaching to improve writing skills for non-majored English students at Ho Chi Minh City Open University (HCMC OU). The provision will include the statement of problems, research question, significance, and the study’s scope to situate and contextualise the study’s subject matter. Background to the study The context of globalization has spurred a significant interest among scholars in the importance of English as a lingua franca, which bridges the gap in people’s mother tongues from various social and cultural backgrounds. The demand for the acquisition of English as an international language has fostered the growth of language education on a global scale.
However, mastery in English still has to confront certain obstacles in both language skills and language constructions (Harmer, 2011b). In recent years, teachers and students have changed the methods to teach and learn English. Teachers are trying to enhance the students’ not only receptive skills (listening and reading) but also productive skills (speaking and writing). Of all these language skills, writing is considered the most challenging skill and it is very hard to master (Zhaochun, 2015), especially for those learning it as a foreign language.
The natural order in which a child learns his or her mother tongue is further supported by Ellis (2003), and it is undeniable that writing is the most difficult ability to master. It requires the synthesis, critique, and evaluation of the topic matters to produce effective writing performance without immediate interactions (Nation, 2018). Compared to speaking skills as the other productive skill, writing does not allow the readers and writers to generate the speech acts of confirmation, affirmation, and request for further information to ensure the understanding of the target messages. Specifically, writing has always been a difficult task for EFL students (Phuong, Van den Branden, Van Steendam, 2 & Sercu, 2015).
Hence, the writing of essays, for example, must be concise, precise, and most importantly, intelligible, so that the readers can understand the exact meanings of the utterances with the low possibility of miscommunication. The progressive development of English language teaching over the last three decades has witnessed the emergence of various methods in language education from different theoretical and empirical perspectives. As a part of the strong vision of communicative language teaching, which emerged in the 90s, TBLT is a method that creates opportunities for the learners to obtain language skills in integrating real-world tasks (Long, 2014). Curricular policies, according to research undertaken throughout East Asian contexts, have had a limited overall impact on English language education, which remains traditional with an explicit grammar-teaching focus (Adams & Newton, 2009; Carless, 2007; Hu, 2005; Zhang, 2007).