Impact of Task Based Language Teaching on Uplifting Writing Skills

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Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) is a very modern concept in the field of Applied Linguistics. Although many researches have been conducted on this topic in the West, yet in Pakistan this area needs due attention. In Pakistan, English has gained the status of second language as it has become official language of administration in many institutions. With the rise in English as second language, much research is being carried out in order to enhance language skills of young learners.

This research will be a way of incorporating TBLT for ESL students of randomly selected one public and one private university in federal capital of Pakistan and to see its impact on essay writing skills. By using mixed method research, the sample of 50 participants would be analyzed through pre-test and post-test technique during three weeks with the help of steps provided for essay writing by Langan (2001). This research will be a contrastive study between two different universities and it will be beneficial not only for English language teachers but also for the administrators, policy makers and students.

Keywords: TBLT, Task, ESL Learners, SLA, Essay

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Introduction

One big dilemma in Pakistan regarding English language teaching is that there are very few institutes which are teaching English as a language should be taught. And this difference of pedagogy has immense effects on the language skills of the learners. Hence TBLT is “an approach to language education in which students are given functional tasks that invite them to focus primarily on meaning exchange and to use language for real-world, non-linguistic purposes” (Van den Branden 2006).

In Pakistan, there are two types of school systems that are at work. One is public sector that includes governmental schools and the other is private sector that includes non-governmental schools. Governmental schools use the traditional teaching methodologies that usually include teacher-centered approaches and lecture method. Whereas, the private schools use quite modern teaching methodologies and learner centered approaches. As a result, the product coming from these schools is poles apart in the development of their language skills. The lot from private sector comes with well-developed language skills in contrast to public sector institutes. According to Willis (1996) TBLT is an approach which directly focuses on learners’ motivation rather than traditional teaching. TBLT is “a process that involves opportunities for learners to contribute in communication, where making meaning is primary” (Skehan, 1996, p. 38).

This study will be conducted with the undergraduate students enrolled in first semester from two randomly selected universities, one from public sector and other from private sector. The students would be given pre-tests and post-tests to analyze the data in their writing skills in general particularly essay writing skills by employing TBLT and results will be measured by scaling the learning.

Many empirical researches have been conducted about TBLT which deals with particular skills of language. One of those is done by Ahmed (2016), in which he discusses the effect of TBLT on writing skills of EFL learners in public sector Malaysian university. By using mixed method research (MMR), he also employs pre-test and post-test tools and finds quite improved proficiency of EFL learners in their writing skills with regard to L2 complexity, fluency and accuracy measures. The study is significant and makes a broad contribution in the field of TBLT because of MMR technique. The research is beneficial for current study because it is aimed at analyzing the effect of writing skills in Asian context. It also uses a mixed method approach with particular focus on developing writing skills in contrast to Tabrizi (2011) who focuses on speaking skills only.

Another relevant research is done by Kafipour (2018) who analyzed the effect of TBLT on analytic writing in EFL classrooms. His study investigated the writing competence of participants placed randomly into a control group and an experimental group. The students in experimental group performed well in terms of writing competence using TBLT techniques rather than traditional writing exercises.

Statement of Significance

The main contribution of this research will improve writing competence in terms of essay writing skills using TBLT, its techniques and approaches for ESL learners in Pakistan. “In SLA research, tasks have been widely used as vehicles to elicit language production, interaction, negotiation of meaning, processing of input and focus on form, all of which are believed to foster second language acquisition” (Van den Branden 2006: 3). The research will be beneficial not only for English language teachers but also to the administrators, policy makers and students. This study will describe that how the use of TBLT in ESL classrooms can uplift the essay writing skills of its learners by moving beyond the traditional lecture method to task based activities.

TBLT has gained considerable attention within applied linguistics in recent years. For example Shehadeh (2015: 14) reports that TBLT has significant effects on learners using tasks in real life situations, they can make far more rapid progress in correlating the meaning of words with forms of sentences and encourages the learners to perform better in order to achieve the goals of target language.

Statement of Purpose & Problem

TBLT is a very modern concept in the field of Applied Linguistics. Although many researches have been conducted on this topic in the West, yet in Pakistan this area needs due attention. In Pakistan, English has gained the status of second language as it has become official language of administration in many institutions. With the rise of English as second language, much research is being carried out in order to enhance listening, speaking, reading and writing skills of the young learners in Pakistan. As many higher education institutes are forward-looking in their vision so the faculty is trained keeping in mind the latest emerging trends in pedagogy.

Hence this study will be a way of incorporating TBLT for ESL students of one public and one private university in federal capital of Pakistan and to see its impact on the essay writing skills by analyzing the data using mixed method research. Using TBLT technique, this study will facilitate the learners’ writing competency in essays rather than using traditional language teaching methodologies based on Present-Practice-Production paradigm (Harmer, 2009). Learners would be engaged in three stages of tasks (Pre-task, Task, Post-task) and they will be able to write an essay through step-by-step process which is more systematic and organized pattern developed by Langan (2001).

Research Questions

This study will be able to find out the impact (if any) of TBLT on writing skills, particularly in essay writing, of the learners from selected universities in federal capital of Pakistan. In order to find out the feedback, there are following research questions:

1. How does TBLT affect learners’ motivation in terms of essay writing skills?
2. Is TBLT beneficial to bridge the gap between traditional language teaching methodologies and current demands for the language teaching?
3. What might be some of the drawbacks of using TBLT with less experienced teachers or those less proficient in the target language?
4. To what extent TBLT helps to improve pushed output and negotiation of meaning while learners are engaged in tasks?

Methodology

Participants

The study is going to be conducted with the undergraduate students who are enrolled in the first semester and those students would be selected from one public sector university and other from private sector university in federal capital of Pakistan. For the research purposes, a total number of 50 participants would be analyzed through TBLT techniques and English Language Teachers will help in implementing the study.

Materials

In this study, the researcher will use the framework by Nunan (2004). He presented the framework for TBLT where he talked about different tasks. The selected learners will participate in tasks for example real world or target tasks are the tasks where the learners are expected to actually perform whatever they have learnt and the pedagogical tasks involve the communicative tasks that are aimed at achieving the target of language use. The pedagogical tasks are further divided into rehearsal and activation tasks in the framework provided by Nunan (2004). Rehearsal tasks let the learners rehearse the real world targets in a different context (for example classroom) and activation tasks help in stimulating and integrating the language skills.

Current study will follow the mixed method research paradigm because it will see the results both in quantitative and qualitative perspective using pre-test and post-test technique. Mixed method research is considered to be more authentic, valid and verifiable as Creswell and Clark (2007: p.5) explained that mixed method research provides a better understanding of research problem rather than one single research approach does.

Procedure

In order to conduct the research, one public sector university and one private sector university would be selected randomly from federal capital of Pakistan. A total number of 50 participants enrolled in first semester of undergraduate programme for English Language and Literature from both universities will be engaged. Using pre-test concept, they will be allowed to write freely an essay on particular topic given by English Language Teacher. The students will be encouraged to activate related schemata and background knowledge about essay writing.

Within time duration of three weeks, the participants will give feedback by conducting pre-test and then the English Language Teachers will help to implement the TBLT techniques in classrooms of selected universities. They will focus on writing skills using different tasks-based activities to see its impact on writing competency because classroom task is “goal-oriented activity in which learners use language to achieve a real outcome” Willis (1996).

After taking post-test of the participants, their quantitative statistical data would be analyzed through SPSS. While qualitative data analysis will show the significant impact (if any) in their essay writing competency.

Definition of the Key Words

• TBLT: An approach to language education in which students are given functional tasks that invite them to focus primarily on meaning exchange and to use language for real world non-linguistic purposes (Van den Branden, 2006).
• Task: Task can be defined as “a holistic activity which engages language use in order to achieve non-linguistic outcome while meeting a linguistic challenge, with the overall aim of promoting language learning, through process or product or both” (Samuda and Bygate, 2008: p.69).
• ESL Learners: The teaching of English to people who speak a different language and who live in a country where English is the main language spoken. ESL is an abbreviation of “English as a Second Language.”
• SLA: Second Language Acquisition or SLA is the process of learning other languages in addition to the native language.
• Essay: “The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything” (Aldous Huxley)

References

1. Ahmed, R.Z., & Bidin, S. J. B. (2016) The effect of task based language teaching on writing skills of EFL Learners in Malaysia. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 6, 207-218. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojml.2016.63022
2. Creswell, J.W., & Clark, P. L. (2007) Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
3. Harmer, J. (2009). The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th ed.). Harlow: Longman.
4. Langan, J. (2001). John Langans College writing skills: The media edition users guide (5th ed.). Boston:McGraw-Hill.
5. Nunan, D. (2004). Task-Based Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667336
6. Kafipour, R. (2018). The effect of task-based language teaching on analytic writing in EFL classrooms. Teacher Education and Development. http://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2018.1496627
7. Samuda, V., & Bygate, M. (2008). Tasks in Second Language Learning. Basingstoke: Palgrave. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230596429
8. Skehan, P. (1996). Second Language Acquisition Research and Task Based Instruction. In J. Wllis, & D. Willis (Eds.), Challenge and Change in Language Teaching (pp. 17-30). Oxford: Heinemann.
9. Tabrizi, A.R.N. (2011). The effect of using task based activities on speaking proficiency of EFL learners. The Third Asian Conference on Education 2011 official proceedings. 333-345. http://iafor.org/ace proceedings.html
10. Van Den Branden, K. (2006). Training Teachers: Task based as well? In k. Van Den Branden (Ed.), Task based language education. From theory to practice(pp. 217-248). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.