BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC BÀ RỊA – VŨNG TÀU NGUYỄN THỊ MINH HẠNH THE IMPACT OF TASK-BASED INSTRUCTION ON IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL IN THE FRONT OFFICE PROGRAM AT VUNG TAU TOURISM VOCATIONAL COLLEGE LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu, tháng 5 năm 2024 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC BÀ RỊA – VŨNG TÀU NGUYỄN THỊ MINH HẠNH THE IMPACT OF TASK-BASED INSTRUCTION ON IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL IN THE FRONT OFFICE PROGRAM AT VUNG TAU TOURISM VOCATIONAL COLLEGE LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ Ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp dạy học bộ môn tiếng Anh Mã ngành: 8140111 CÁN BỘ HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. PHẠM HỮU ĐỨC Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu, tháng 5 năm 2024 BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE Ba Ria - Vung Tau, July 2023 MASTER’S THESIS REPORT Student name: NGUYEN THI MINH HANH Sex: Female Date of birth: 25/04/1977 Place of birth: Quang Ninh Major: Theory and Methodology of English Student code: 21110009 language teaching I. Thesis title: THE IMPACT OF TASK-BASED INSTRUCTION ON IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL IN THE FRONT OFFICE PROGRAM AT VUNG TAU TOURISM VOCATIONAL COLLEGE. Objectives and contents: This study explores the impacts of task-based instruction (TBI) on improving the Front Office students' speaking skill at Vung Tau tourism vocational college.
The research objectives are as follows: • To find out how the task-based instruction is utilized in Hotel Front Office speaking classes at VTVC. • To investigate to what extent task-based instruction improves Hotel Front Office students’ speaking skills at VTVC. This study was conducted at the Vung Tau Tourism Vocational College. The research focuses on the effectiveness of TBI in promoting the speaking skill of Front Office students at the Vung Tau Tourism Vocational College.
The study subjects included 30 sophomores in the experimental group and 28 sophomores in the control group studying Hotel Front Office program at VTVC. The students have compulsorily learned English for at least five years in secondary and high school, as well as one year at VTVC. They are supposed to be equal in English proficiency at i the below intermediate level. The researcher is also a teacher working at VTVC.
Quantitative and qualitative methods are applied to evaluate and examine this topic. Three research instruments including pre - and post-oral tests, survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews are used to collect data from the research subjects. III- Starting date: February 8th, 2021 IV- Completing date: July 20th, 2022 V- Academic supervisor: PHAM HUU DUC, Assoc. ACADEMIC SUPERVISOR SCHOOL HEAD (full name, signature) (full name, signature) Assoc.
Pham Huu Duc ii CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled: THE IMPACT OF TASK-BASED INSTRUCTION ON IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL IN THE FRONT OFFICE PROGRAM AT VUNG TAU TOURISM VOCATIONAL COLLEGE In terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Master’s programs issued by Higher Degree Committee of Postgraduate Institute, Ba Ria-Vung Tau University Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, July 2023. NGUYEN THI MINH HANH iii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Nguyen Thi Minh Hanh, being a candidate for the degree of 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 Librarian for the care, loan, and reproduction for theses. Ba Ria - Vung Tau, July 2023 Signature …………………… NGUYEN THI MINH HANH iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere thanks to those who have made great contributions to my thesis completion.
First and foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude to Assoc. Pham Huu Duc for his continuous support, invaluable feedback, and patience throughout the study. He provided me with constant guidance and encouragement which turned the demanding thesis writing into a smooth and fruitful process. In particular, I am very grateful to the school board of Vung Tau Tourism Vocational College who have given me encouragement, support of time, and permission to complete the MA course and implement this thesis there.
In addition, I would like to express my special thanks to my colleagues for all their help and motivation. My sincere thanks also go to the research participants in the Department of Hotel Management for their participation and patience during the study in the academic year of 2022-2023. Last but not least, I owe deeply thank to my beloved mother who passed way few months before my study completed and my husband for the countless assistance, greatest sympathy, and unconditional love who have provided me strong spiritual and material support. v ABSTRACT TBI is one of the most innovative new approaches and it genuinely benefits learners in various ways.
Through a thorough literature review, the previous research mainly focuses on researching TBI at primary, secondary, and some research on a university level. However, these research studies ignored the impacts of TBI implementation in improving the vocational learners’ speaking skills setting in Vietnam. For all these reasons, it is necessary to conduct this research to fill in the research gap mentioned. Control and experimental group data was collected from questionnaires, semi- structured interviews, and pre-and post-oral tests.
Oral tests were carried out to 30 students in the experimental group and 30 students in the control group, studying Hotel Front Office program at the Vung Tau Tourism College. Survey questionnaires with 12 items were delivered to the experimental group after each of 14 tasks. The interview was also conducted with 6 experimental group students. Data from the oral tests and questionnaires was computed quantitatively while data from interview was examined qualitatively.
The T-tests proved there was not much discrepancy on mean scores between two groups before and even after the TBI treatment. However, learners' discourse management went far beyond the other three criteria within the experimental group and gained much progress compared to that of the control group. Besides, the experimental group learners expressed their satisfaction and interest in the tasks, especially the problem solving and real-world tasks in the treatment. Furthermore, they recognized that TBI tasks provided them more opportunities to practice speaking, promoted their accuracy, fluency, vocabulary and complex grammatical structures.
Importantly, students believed TBI tasks and pair-work activities were practical for their future career as Hotel Front Office staff. The research findings may inspire teachers to modify textbooks' activities in line with TBI to create a motivating learning environment where learners actively take part in oral language practice and improve their speaking abilities. Keywords: TBI, tasks, Hotel Front Office, tourism vocational college vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. Background of the study.
Statement of the problem. Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Definitions of the Terms. Organization of the study .7 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7 2. Task-based instruction .31 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 33 3. Research site and Participants.
Data collection procedures. Data analysis procedures .46 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 49 4. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 79 5. Summary of the main findings.
Recommendations for the further research .87 REFERENCES 90 APPENDICES 95 viii APPENDIX 1. SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE APPENDIX 2. BẢNG KHẢO SÁT (VIETNAMESE VERSION) APPENDIX 3. INFORMATION CONSENT FORM APPENDIX 4.
MẪU ĐỒNG Ý CUNG CẤP THÔNG TIN APPENDIX 5. QUESTIONS OF FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEW APPENDIX 6. PHỎNG VẤN HỌC SINH (VIETNAMESE VERSION) APPENDIX 7. ORAL TEST RESULTS OF THE CONTROL GROUP APPENDIX 8.
ORAL TEST RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUP APPENDIX 9. RESULTS OF TASKS AND TASK ITEMS APPENDIX 10. SAMPLE TRANSCRIPTION OF FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEW APPENDIX 11.LESSON PLAN APENDIX 12. ENGLISH SPEAKING TEST RUBIC ix LIST OF TABLES Table 2.
Distinguishing ‘Exercise’ and ‘Task’ (Skehan, 1998a) 18 Table 2. Types of tasks 19 Table 2. Variables within the task 21 Table 3. The participants of study 37 Table 3.
Raters and participants in pre-and post-oral test 41 Table 3. The schedule in the pre-and post-oral tests 41 Table 3. Tasks applied for the experimental group 42 Table 3.5: Reliability statistics of students’ questionnaire 47 Table 4. The students’ pre-test oral performance within the two groups 50 Table 4.
The students’ post-test oral performance for the two groups 51 Table 4. The four specific criteria in control group 52 Table 4. The four specific criteria experimental group 53 Table 4. The students’ oral performance within the control group before and after the treatment 55 Table 4.
The four criteria between two groups before the treatment56 Table 4. The four criteria between two groups after the treatment 57 Table 4. Rank order of tasks in terms of their mean values 58 Table 4. The values of 12 items in the questionnaire 59 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.
Conceptual framework of the study 31 Figure 3. The phrases of the research 34 Figure 3. The structure of Hotel Front Office 35 xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION This chapter provides the introduction to the current research, including background, statement of the problems, aims and objectives of the study, research questions, research scope and significance and some terms mentioned in the research.
Background of the study Language teachers strive to fulfill their mission of engaging and supporting learners in the learning process. Ellis believes that an important element in the language learning environment and “keeping a central place” in the learning process is instructional tasks (Ellis, 2003, p. Learners’ performance can be positively affected by the type of task used in the instruction. Thus, the tasks are designed to promote a language learning context so that learners can participate and be assisted in their efforts to communicate fluently and effectively.
The language learning context created in task-based instruction (TBI) offers opportunities where activities are used effectively and meaningfully. This is precise reason why TBI promotes the use of communicative language in the language classroom. Some scholars emphasize the significance of task-based approaches to communicative instruction, in which teachers and learners have more freedom in finding their own directions and directions to maximize effective communication (Prabhu, 1987; Nunan, 1989). Therefore, TBI can be defined as an approach in which learners are provided with a learning context, through communicative activities the learner is required to use the target language.
Thanks to this approach, the process of using language plays a more important role than just creating precise language forms. For this reason, TBI is considered a Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in terms of real and meaningful communication as the main feature of language learning (Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Willis, 1996). Task-based instruction (TBI) is considered a replacement to traditional language teaching methods since it aims to use functional communicative language (Brumfit, 1984; Ellis, 2003; Willis, 1996). In addition, TBI is seen as an effective approach that fosters a learning environment in which learners are free to select and 1 use the target language forms that they think are most likely to achieve their defined goals.
In addition, TBI is seen as an effective approach to fostering a learning environment in which learners are free to select and use the forms of the target language that are believed to be most likely to lead to the completion of identified communicative goals (Ellis, 2003; Willis, 1996). Improving learners’ communicative competence is one of the main goals in language education (Barnard & Nguyen, 2010), and appropriate teaching methods are needed to convey language knowledge to learners. and extract that knowledge for practical use. Researching teaching methods to achieve that goal, Harshbarger (2002) and Phuong (2016) argue that Presentation - Practice - Production (PPP) is no longer effective because this method limits opportunities, possibilities, and ability to use the target language to communicate and negotiate, which goes against the goal of the Ministry of Education and Training.