International Journal of Education, Culture and Society

2017; 2(4): 126-131

http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ijecs
doi: 10.11648/j.ijecs.20170204.14
ISSN: 2575-3460 (Print); ISSN: 2575-3363 (Online)

Task-Based Language Teaching: An Insight into Teacher

Practice
Dao Thi Thanh Hao
International Education Centre, Hanoi University, Nguyen Trai, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi, Vietnam

Email address:
[email protected], [email protected]

To cite this article:

Dao Thi Thanh Hao. Task-Based Language Teaching: An Insight into Teacher Practice. International Journal of Education, Culture and
Society. Vol. 2, No. 4, 2017, pp. 126-131. doi: 10.11648/j.ijecs.20170204.14

Received: December 26, 2016; Accepted: January 6, 2017; Published: September 30, 2017

Abstract: The current case study is an attempt to get an insight into a teacher’s actual experiences of TBLT adoption at a
Vietnamese University to delineate the bridge from TBLT theory to TBLT practice in Vietnamese context. Observation and semi
–structured interview were employed to collect qualitative data. The findings from both instruments showed that the teacher
practice did not really reflect the core tenets of TBLT approach since there existed several worth-concerning reasons behind her
decision making in terms of group work culture, low-level students, and pressure from examination preparation.

Keywords: Task-Based Language Teaching, Teacher Practice, Vietnamese Context

1. Introduction
2. Literature Review
In the globalized context, English has become the golden
key to the integration door that allows Vietnam to catch up 2.1. Notion of Tasks and TBLT
with the socio-economic development in ASEAN region as Within a number of interpretations of TBLT related to
well as the whole world. Vietnamese Ministry of Education classroom practice, four outstanding features of the approach
and Training (MOET), therefore has implemented a number of are emphasized. First, TBLT is compatible with a
projects and policies to foster the quality of EFL teaching and learner-centered educational philosophy, which encourages
learning with the utmost goal that students can communicate minimal teacher input during the tasks [2-5]. Second, it
well in English. Task-based language teaching (TBLT) comprises particular components such as goal or specific
deriving from communicative language teaching (CLT) outcome in order to signify the successful completion of the
method appears to be an effective approach for achieving this task [5-7]. Third, it focuses on meanings rather than linguistic
objective. This approach is motivated and drawn on the idea forms to promote natural communicative competence among
that learners best learn when they are actively involved in learners [8-11]. Fourth, it enables learners to learn through
constructing their own knowledge through experiences and communication and engagement [12, 13].
problem solving [1]. In this light, learners are supposed to In TBLT, a task is viewed as a central unit of planning and
acquire the target language by completing different tasks teaching. Nunan [7] identified five essential characteristics of
through meaningful communication. Many Vietnamese tasks: (1) meaning is primary; (2) there is some
teachers of English have already applied TBLT in their own communication problem to solve; (3) there is some sort of
classrooms and obtained both expected and unexpected results. relationship to comparable real-world activities; (4) task
This is because there exist many factors hindering the efficacy completion has some priority; and (5) the assessment of the
of English teaching and learning and a considerable task is in terms of outcome.
divergence between teacher beliefs and their actual practice. There have been different types of task classified by various
This inspired the author to conduct the current research to educators and researchers. Due to the small scope of this paper,
exploring the actual TBLT practices of a teacher and the Willis and Willis [14]’s classification underpinned the
challenges she really faced when implementing this approach decision making of the teacher participant in the current study.
in her own classroom.
 International Journal of Education, Culture and Society 2017; 2(4): 126-131 127

As to their literature, taxonomy of task types are described as and Barnard [33] investigated the implementation of
detailed in the table below. curricular innovation (consited TBLT practice) behind closed
classroom doors in high school. Their findings indicated that
Table 1. Taxonomy of task types in Willis and Willis (2007). there exists a wide gap between learning intention of
Task types Examples of specific tasks innovation designers and what is actually done by teachers,
Brainstorming which is due to the washback effects on examinations,
Fact-finding insufficient learning resources, time pressure, and lack of
Listing
Games based on listing: quizzes, memory, and
motivation. In her case study, Phuong [34] well-documented
guessing
Sequencing the real experiences of a teacher teaching writing skill under
Ordering and sorting Ranking ordering TBLT adoption. Her findings showed that the teacher’s
Classifying struggle related to both lesson preparation and teaching time
Comparing and Game finding similarities and differences Graphic due to their familiarity of PPP. For the sake of brevity, this
contrasting organiser study contributes another voice to the growth of research
Problem solving tasks Logic problem prediction
conducted by Vietnamese scholars regarding the gap between
Newspaper
Projects and creative
Posters
intended reform and real-life versions that are actually done in
tasks the classrooms.
Survey fantasy
Story telling
Sharing personal Anecdote
experience
Reminiscence
3. The Study
Matching Words and phrases to pictures 3.1. Participant
2.2. TBLT in Asian Context The participant in this case study was Cindy (pseudo name),
a college teacher with eight-year- teaching experience. She
In order to achieve the utmost goal of effectively
usually taught General English with the focus on four main
communicating in English, Asian educators and governments
skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) for students
over the past decades have shifted national policies and
of an offshore program in coordination with Hanoi University.
syllabuses towards various versions of communicative
Regarding speaking skill, every week, these students had two
language teaching including TBLT [15, 16]. However, many
speaking lessons with Vietnamese teacher (Cindy), and one
studies in different countries of the region have revealed a
lesson with an English teacher; each lesson lasted for one and
mismatch between the core features of TBLT and local
a half hour. There were 30 students at pre-intermediate level in
practicing such as those in Hong Kong (Carless [17], Carless
her class. All students were required to achieve 5.5 IELTS to
[18], Ruffell [19]), China (Yuan [20], Liu [21], Tong[22];
be eligible for the offshore program.
Yuying & Tao [23]), Korea (Yoon[24], Jeon & Hahn [25]),
Cindy twice participated in training workshop on
Japan (Nishino & Wantanabe [26]; (Romanko, 2012 [27]), and
communicative language teaching methods and TBLT
Thailand (Nonkukhetkhong, Baldauf & Moni [28]; Segovia &
approach so she was voluntary to join this study to know
Hardison [29], Tayjasanant & Barnard [30]). For example, in
whether what she learnt from the training courses was really
Thailand, teachers own varying interpretations of CLT and
reflected in her practices in her own classroom.
TBLT, which were not congruous with what they practiced in
their classrooms. Although teachers stated to use activities 3.2. Research Questions
like information gap, brainstorming or problem solving,
“grammar explanation, vocabulary explanation, translation The current paper attempts to answer the following research
and whole class drills and repetition” were commonly questions:
documented in their classes [28 p6-7]. In Hong Kong, a wide (1) To what extent did Cindy implement TBLT practice in
gap between learning intentions and practical realities was her actual classroom?
also captured due to the lack of teacher preparation and (2) What challenges did Cindy face when implementing
understanding about TBLT [19]. In China, since the TBLT practice?
government’s policy of promoting CLT among the teaching
3.3. Data Collection and Procedures
community in 1992, there has been much criticism about the
eventual adoption of the approach as “the high investment but The data used in this paper were drawn from observation
low output” [31 p4]. This results from the large-scale and semi-structured interview. Observation is frequently
non-communicative testing system, and a lack of qualified utilized by researchers to obtain comprehensive data in
teachers in schools [32]. Consequently, the application of CLT qualitative research especially when a composite of both oral
in general and TBLT in specific has endorsed to be and visual data become vital to the study. The teacher in this
counterproductive and a mere”matter of paying lip-service” study was observed over three weeks (six lessons overall).
[23]. In Vietnam, a growing body of research on TBLT has Camera use was applied to capture the performance of both
also been recorded over the past decade including those of teacher and students. This would ensure that no important
(Canh & Barnard [33]; Phuong [34]; Barnard & Nguyen [35]; information was missing, which enabled the researcher to
Nguyen, Newton & Crabbe [36]). To be more specific, Canh collect reliable findings.
128 Dao Thi Thanh Hao: Task-Based Language Teaching: An Insight into Teacher Practice

Semi-structured interviews have been used by a massive In every Cindy’s lesson, she always set defined goals or
number of researchers to obtain qualitative data as interviews outcomes for her students to achieve.
are aimed at accumulating the data that is not directly Extract 3: (Topic “Food”, creative task)
observed. After the last observed lesson, the teacher was asked Cindy: The last task of today lesson is that you work in
to attend a semi-structured interview that lasted for about 20 to groups of three, inventing a new food with special recipe. You
25 minutes. The interview was conducted in Vietnamese so should use dictionary to look up new words when doing the
that the participant could easily express her views and task. In the next 5 minutes, each group will have to present
opinions without being hindered by the use of a second your food in front of the whole class.
language. All the arising important issues from observation Extract 4: (Topic “Food”, problem-solving task)
related to teacher belief towards TBLT and challenges in the Cindy: (gives handouts to each pair) Are you ready for the
implementation of TBLT were asked. The interview was then activity? Okay, now each pair will have 10 minutes to decide
transcribed, translated into English, and analyzed by the the seat arrangement in a restaurant for different customers
author to highlight outstanding themes. with different requests. After 10 minutes, one of person in
your team will present your report and of course explain the
3.4. Findings reasons for such decision. Do you get it?
3.4.1. Observation Data iii. TBLT focuses on meanings rather than linguistic forms
Observation notes of Cindy’s teaching revealed some gaps In TBLT, the instructed language learning should primarily
between her beliefs and her actual practices. These gaps are involve natural or naturalistic language use, based on
analyzed in accordance with four main features of TBLT that activities concerned with meaning rather than language. As
was aforementioned early somewhere in the paper. such, students may interact with each other or retrieve their
i. TBLT is compatible with a learner-centered educational existing knowledge to do the task without being interrupted to
philosophy promote fluency and natural speaking [7]. What Cindy did in
Despite some endeavor to design tasks that encourage her classroom seemed not to reflect the literature
learner-centeredness, Cindy’s classroom teaching remained aforementioned. She tried to correct mistakes the students had,
teacher-led with much teacher intervention and demonstration. lecturing about grammar, and using drills to support students.
This is well illustrated in the extracts as detailed below. Following extract proves this clearly.
Extract 1: (Topic “National festivals”, comparing task) Extract 5: (Topic “Health”, sharing personal experience
Cindy: Now I want you to work in pairs using these pictures task)
and cards. One will describe a picture but do not let your S: Smoking harmful to our health. It causes lung cancer, not
partner know what it is; another will listen and match the card good for body of smokers and body of other people. Smoking
of activity correspondingly to the picture. H, can you come also makes pollution environment. In the smoke have a lot of
here so that we can demonstrate the task for the whole class to bad chemicals so the air dirty because the smoke. Third,
understand? smoking waste of money. People have to pay many money to
(Cindy and her student demonstrate the describing and buy cigarettes and also the tax. For three reasons, we think
matching task) smoking should ban in public.
(The students work in pairs) (Teacher takes note on what student says)
S: Excuse me, I do not know how to say “drop flower Cindy: Very good. Please give him a big hand (claps her
lanterns on the river” (asks in Vietnamese) hands). But be careful with the grammatical mistakes related
Cindy: Oh, that is “drop flower lanterns on the river” to verbs. Many of your sentences miss a verb. For example,
(answers in English) you have to say “Smoking is harmful”, “It is not good for
Extract 2: (Topic “Daily routine”, act-finding task) health”, “Smoking is a waste of money”. You should pay
Cindy: You are going to listen to a singer who talks about attention to passive voice like “smoking should be banned”.
her daily routine. During your listening, please take note of (goes to the board and writes while saying) A passive voice
any routine verbs that she mentions. Here are some phrases sentence is formed like this: Subject- Be- PP. Ok, now can you
that you might not know: make an appointment, go to make a passive voice sentence following this form? ….
recording studio, and sign autographs. So try to recognize iv. TBLT enables learners to learn through communication
these words when the singer mentions them in the recording. and engagement
(Cindy writes the verb phrases on the board) Cindy attempted to design various tasks to encourage
Cindy: Well, “making appointment” means you arrange a students’ communication and cooperation by asking them to
meeting with someone in advance. Ok? So who can guess the work in pairs and in groups. However, she encountered
meaning of this phrase in Vietnamese? difficulties in putting them in mixed-ability groups since the
(Students ask each other, then some of them say some students seemed to be interested in working with their close
Vietnamese words that they think are the meaning of the friends, and felt reluctant to join the group of unfamiliar
phrase; Cindy confirms and students note down on their people. Hence, most of the time Cindy let students freely form
notebooks) groups themselves. This led to the fact that some weak
ii. TBLT comprises particular components such as goal or students who worked in one group hardly learnt anything from
specific outcome each other, while students in strong group finished the task
 International Journal of Education, Culture and Society 2017; 2(4): 126-131 129

earlier and started to chat or do off-tasks. The phenomenon understood the vocabulary and structures and avoided
can be illustrated vividly through some extracts as follows. mistakes in their real test. If I did not show them carefully, they
Extract 6: would by no way recognize such things.
S1: Teacher, two of us want to work together. Can you put I think it was necessary to provide students with some
us in one pair, please? templates or common expressions to be used in the speaking
Cindy: Okay, so you can move to sit next to her if you want test so that they could earn high score. 5.5 IELTS is their
(sighs) important goal.
S2: Teacher, I am interested in working with her (points to iii. Team Work Culture
her friend), please let me work with her (talks in Vietnamese). Most of time, Cindy let her students freely choose partners
Cindy: All right. Now let’s start your work, class (claps her when they were required to perform teamwork. This resulted
hands to urge the class to stay focus on their task) in the fact that sometimes there were all weak students or all
(When the time for the task is up, Cindy asks each pair to strong students in one group. She explained for her easy-going
present their report) mind as this:
S3: I am sorry, teacher. Both of us do not know many new The students often feel reluctant to work in a group or a pair
words so we have very little to say (talks in Vietnamese) that they were not familiar. So they tend not to get involved in
the tasks. That is Vietnamese’s team work culture, you know. I
3.4.2. Interview Data just wanted them to have comfortable feeling to effectively
After the last lesson, an interview was implemented to implement the tasks so I let them choose the partners
explore the rationales for her practice and the challenges she themselves.
faced during TBLT adoption. Three important issues were
highlighted from her responses to the researcher. 3.5. Discussion
i. Low-level students
Cindy revealed the reason behind her use of Vietnamese The findings from Cindy’s story indicate the lack of
language and translation in her classroom practice was her congruence between the core features of TBLT and actual
students’ low-level English proficiency. In Cindy’s class, most practice of the teacher, which are consistent with the findings
of students were at pre-intermediate level, some of them were of other studies conducted in Asian context mentioned in early
even at elementary level. Although they had formal English literature.
education at school for at least seven years, the traditional On the tip of the iceberg, Cindy was somehow successful in
ways of teaching and learning English in their school played terms of following two main ethos of TBLT, i.e. promoting
the most emphasis on teaching grammar. Therefore, the students ‘communication as well as collaborative learning,
students’ English proficiency primarily limited in grammar and setting the defined outcomes for them to reach. She
knowledge. The following quotes illustrate such obstacle. encouraged pair work and group work among students, and set
I had to translate words into Vietnamese; otherwise, most of a finishing line as a learning motivation for them to complete
my students could not understand and thus could not acquire the tasks. However, when deeply digging into the first issue,
much knowledge from the lesson. Cindy’s intention of putting students into pairs or groups
When I asked and my students just smiled without saying failed since they were not willing to work with someone
anything, at that time I knew that they were unable to whose strengths or weaknesses they did not know. The
understand what I meant. What else should I do but using their phenomenon was in line with the finding of Nguyen [37] in
mother tongue? that Vietnamese students had a strong desire to work with
I understood that I should not provide much input for the friends they were allowed to select rather than with ones the
students when applying TBLT, but without my frequent teacher randomly assigned to their group. As regard the
support, they could not finish the tasks because you know, second issue, Cindy’s students seemed to rush through the
their English was limited. tasks without using much of target language spoken. They
ii. Exam pressure appeared much similar to what Seedhouse described in that
The students in this study had to take the IELTS the student were “so concentrated on completing the task that
examination included four main skills (listening, reading, linguistic forms are treated as a vehicle of minor importance”
writing, and speaking). In the speaking test, the examinees are [38 p154]. Consequently, “the pedagogical and interactional
required to talk about a topic given and show their focus is on the accomplishment of the task rather than on the
communicative competence by answering some follow-up language use” [38 p50]. This likely resulted in the learners’
questions. Therefore, TBLT approach seemed to be a perfect inaccurate target language, or pidgin language, which
fit for their exam preparation. However, the problem Cindy hampered their communicative competence development.
frankly stated as follows raised some concerns in her actual On the other hand, Cindy’s TBLT implementation was
practice of TBLT. unsuccessful regarding the issues of student-centered
I agree that my practice was sometimes grammar-focused philosophy and the emphasis on meaning rather than forms.
and teacher-controlled in terms of analyzing the grammatical This is due to her suffering from examination pressure and the
structures and frequently correcting mistakes for my students. students’ low-level of English proficiency. For these two
However, I needed to ensure that my students really factors, Cindy’s lessons tended to be teacher-led with
considerable grammar translation, vocabulary translation,
130 Dao Thi Thanh Hao: Task-Based Language Teaching: An Insight into Teacher Practice

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