MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING BARIA-VUNGTAU UNIVERSITY -------------- THE EFFECTS OF TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING ON EFL LEARNERS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENTS AT HUYNH THUC KHANG HIGH SCHOOL --------------------------- Student’s name: BUI THI THUY HA Student’s code : 18110089 Class : MTESOL18K3 Instructor’s name: DUONG MY THAM, Ph. Ba Ria-Vung Tau, 03/ 2022 i Statement of Original Authorship I certify that this thesis, “The effects of Task-based Language Teaching on EFL learners’ reading comprehension achievements at Huynh Thuc Khang high school”, is my own work. Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person. Signature: _________________________ Date: _________________________ i Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my advisor, Dr.
Duong My Tham, for providing me with academic guidance and constructive feedback during the writing of this thesis. Without her support and encouragement, this work would not have been completed. Next, I would like to thank the principal and the English teachers at Huynh Thuc Khang High School where I did my research. They gave me a lot of time during the data collection process, and they also encouraged me to complete my research.
My gratitude also extends to my students. They participated fully in the experimental lessons, answered the questionnaires, and completed the reading comprehension tests. Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family and friends, who have always been by my side to encourage and be a great source of encouragement and motivation to help me complete this thesis. ii Abstract The aims of this study were to examine if Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) improved high school students’ reading comprehension as well as to investigate the students' attitudes toward the use of TBLT in the TBLT-based reading class.
The participants in this study were equally divided into two groups: an experimental group and a control group. The participants for this study were 70 tenth grade students at Huynh Thuc Khang high school. Each group consisted of 35 students. Reading comprehension tests (i., pre-test and post-test) and a closed-ended questionnaire were used to collect data.
The data were analyzed by using the independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test in SPSS 20. Also, the descriptive statistics was run to calculate mean and standard deviation. It was found that there was a significant difference between the two groups (i. This means that TBLT had positive effects on the students’ reading comprehension.
The results from the questionnaire also indicated that most of them held positive attitudes towards the use of TBLT in the reading classes. Based on the findings of the research, several implications are offered to assist teachers and educators in constructing and implementing TBLT. Keywords: Attitude, High School Students, Reading Comprehension, Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT). iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of Original Authorship.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv List of Figures. vii List of Tables. viii List of Abbreviations.
ix Chapter 1: Introduction .1 Background of the study .2 Statement of the problem .3 Aims and objectives of the study .5 Scope of the study .6 Significance of the study .7 Definition of the key terms .8 Organization of the thesis. 7 Chapter 2: Literature review .3 Models of reading process .2 Factors influencing EFL learners’ reading comprehension .3 Principles for teaching EFL reading comprehension.3 Task-based language teaching (TBLT) .1 Definition of task .2 Types of task .3 Task based language teaching as a teaching approach .4 TBLT in teaching reading comprehension .2 Components of learning attitudes .3 Roles of learning attitudes in EFL learning and teaching.1 The effects of TBLT on students’ reading comprehension ability .2 The effects of TBLT on students’ attitudes in Reading. 33 Chapter 3: Research Methodology .1 English reading comprehension pre-test and post-test .6 Data collection and analysis procedures .8 Validity and reliability .1 Pre-test and post-test reading comprehension. 42 Chapter 4: Results and discussion.1 Students’ reading comprehension achievements before the experiment .2 Students’ reading comprehension achievements after the experiment .3 Students’ reading comprehension achievements.
The effects of TBLT on students' reading comprehension achievements .2 The Effects of TBLT on students’ attitudes in reading. 57 Chapter 5: Conclusions and recommendations .1 Students' reading comprehension achievements .2 Students' attitudes toward the use of TBLT in reading classes. Implications for students. Implications for teachers.
Implications for administrators. Recommendations for further research. 699 vi List of Figures Figure 2.1 Models of reading process (Anderson as cited in Nunan, 2003) .2 The conceptual framework of this study .1 Data collection and analysis procedures .1 Distribution of the pre-test scores of the control group .2 Distribution of the pre-test scores of the experimental group .3 Distribution of the post-test scores of the control group .4 Distribution of the post-test scores of the experimental group. 46 vii List of Tables Table 2.1 Task-based lesson plan model (Willis, 1996, p.1 Pretest and posttest specifications.3 Reliability statistics for attitude questionnaire .1 Tests of normality of the pre-test .2 Descriptive statistics of pre-test scores between control group and experimental group .3 Independent samples t-test of the pre-test in both groups .4 Tests of normality of the post-test .5 Descriptive statistics of post-test scores between control group and experimental group .6 Independent samples t-test of the post-test in both groups .7 Paired Samples Statistics of the control group .8 Paired Samples T-Test of the control group .9 Paired Samples Statistics of the experimental group .10 Paired Samples T-Test of the experimental group .11 EFL high school students’ attitudes towards TBLT .12 EFL high school students’ behavioral attitudes towards TBLT .13 EFL high school students’ cognitive attitudes towards TBLT .14 EFL high school students’ emotional attitudes towards TBLT.
54 viii List of Abbreviations CG Control group EFL English as a foreign language EG Experimental group GTM Grammar-Translation Method M Mean SD Standard deviation SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences TBI Task-based Instruction TBLT Task-based Language Teaching ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Background of the study Today, English is considered an international language. According to Wikipedia, it is used by more than 400 million people worldwide as their first language, and over 1 billion people speak English as a second language. Many international events, such as the Olympics, global organizations, multinational companies, etc., consider English as the common language of the media. Understanding this, the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam has been continuously improving the quality of teaching and learning foreign languages through comprehensive innovation.
English is a compulsory subject for school years from primary school, and there is also a compulsory graduation exam for high school students. On that basis, the Project "Teaching and learning foreign languages in the national education system in the 2008-2020 period" was approved by the Prime Minister's Decision No. 1400 /QD-TTg of September 30, 2008 (Foreign Language Project 2020). The goal of the project is that by 2020, most Vietnamese young people who graduate from intermediate schools, colleges, and universities have the ability to use foreign languages independently and confidently.
However, after 10 years of implementation, the project has not achieved the desired results, and the situation of ineffective English teaching and learning has been mentioned many times in the different survey results. According to the Ministry of Education and Training's statistics, in 2018, there were 637.335 students taking the English exam in the National High School Exam and the average score was 3.91; the whole country had 542.666 national high school English tests in 2019 to score below average. The average score in English is 4. So why is teaching and learning English in our country inefficient despite being invested in it? Obviously, there are many reasons given, but one of them is that students' reading skill is not effective.
As we know, in an English test, the score for reading skill is quite high, about 40 percent, which seems to be a challenge for a large number of students. In particular, solving questions in the reading test requires students to have many skills related to each 1 other instead of just one skill. This is because the reading tests evaluate a student's general reading comprehension, vocabulary knowledge, and use of reading strategies. According to Alderson (2000), reading is not a natural process that is inherent like speaking and listening in the first language.
A person will not learn to read if he or she is not taught to read in any way (Grabe & Stoller, 2002). For students, reading is always a difficult skill among language skills. Most of them do not understand foreign language texts because of their failure to acquire reading skills. One of the main difficulties with reading comprehension is that students lack strategies that help them comprehend the texts.
Students who do not have the suitable skills to do reading exercises and often get bad grades can affect their learning attitude. In addition, teaching reading skill in classes is mainly based on traditional methods and seems to be quite monotonous. In the classroom, students only need to receive materials, listen to the teacher introduce the topic, and then do the required assignments. Sometimes, they discuss it with friends right next to them.
There is little significant interaction with the others. This situation repeats frequently during the lessons, which is also the reason why students have a negative attitude towards their learning. Therefore, it is important to take an appropriate approach to help more and more students achieve higher scores on the reading test as well as to have a more positive attitude towards learning. Among them, task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been considered an appropriate and effective method to promote students' reading skills.
In the development process, there are many popular English teaching methods such as Grammar-Translation Method, considered a traditional foreign language teaching method, which focuses heavily on the study and practice of grammatical structures. According to Richards & Rodgers (2001), “its aim was to know everything about anything more than the thing itself”. The purpose of employing the grammar translation approach was to show that students can learn a foreign language by translating it. Other methods, such as audiolingualism and the audiovisual method, emphasize the role of proficient practice of available structural patterns.
In the audio-lingual approach, students are taught how to use grammatical sentence patterns (Larsen-Freeman, 2000). Besides, we also mention other methods such as Situational Language Teaching (SLT)/The Oral Approach, the Natural Approach, and the traditional PPP (Presentation, Practice, and Performance) approach. Each method born afterward is considered an 2 attempt to inherit the achievements and overcome the disadvantages of the method that came before it. TBLT was born and operated based on constructivist learning theory and communicative language teaching (CLT) (Farrel & Jacob, 2010; Ellis, 2003).
TBLT has the main roles of communication, social negotiation, and interaction among learners in task execution situations. Through tasks, learners have the opportunity to communicate using the language (Douglas & Kim, 2014). Furthermore, when learners participate directly in the learning process by communicating and interacting naturally, they can use the target language more effectively. Hokmi (2005) stated that “assigning students real-world tasks conveys the value of reading for message and influences the reading comprehension positively”.
Willis (2007), “one of the prominent features of the task is involvement in real language use, in which there is an immediate problem to solve” and using this language is essential for learners to apply in real situations (p. In summary, there are many studies on the effects of applying TBLT in teaching languages in general and reading comprehension in particular. This paper focuses on applying TBLT in teaching reading comprehension skill to improve students’ results.2 Statement of the problem In Vietnam, English is one of the main subjects in high schools and is also a compulsory subject in the National High School Examination. The Ministry of Education in general and schools in particular have invested a lot in this subject.