CC BY
4TASK BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING IN ENHANCING STUDENTS' MOTIVATION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
Malika Mirvokhidova
Teacher at TEAM University
English language teaching (ELT) methodology has a wide variety of teaching methods that have been crucial in developing the current field and meeting both teachers and learners' needs. Certainly, a particular teaching method may not suit all types of teaching and learning goals. In most cases, successful combination or sequencing of language teaching methods can yield positive outcomes. One of the commonly used methods applied in ELT is Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) that is considered as a vigorous version of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) by some educators. In fact, TBLT can bring true learning environment to the classrooms and boost students' motivation significantly.
CLT was a prevalent method in ELT in 1980s using Present-Practice-Produce (PPP) procedure, which was aimed to teach linguistic forms of the language (Izadpanah, 2010). The critics of PPP approach believe that "production" stage is not often achieved by learners, referring to some language acquisition research findings. It is said that students acquire language different from the stages indicated in PPP procedure. In addition, learners experience some stages while studying a certain grammar structure and PPP approach excludes these stages (Izadpanah, 2010). As Ritchie (2003) as cited by Sholeh et al. (2022) explains that learners cannot use language frameworks in real context being involved in learning grammar rules. In this manner, tasks can be implemented to develop important processes in second language learning, namely, negotiation, modification, rephrasing and experimentation (Richards and Rogers (2001) as cited by Izadpanah, 2010).
In fact, students' unwillingness to study has been the burning issue for many teacher educators. By considering those educators' experiences in dealing with the issue, we can discover valuable information to be implemented in ELT. Kubat (2018)
98
believes that students are divided into categories and these very categories are important to know and take into consideration while solving classroom learning related problems. According to Good and Power (1976) as cited by Kubat (2018) we can categorize students as successful, social, dependent, alienated and phantom learners. The type of successful students are those learners who keep studying, stay open for cooperation and succeed in academic terms of life. Social students tend to be less engaged in task completion but very active in socializing with their classmates. Dependent learners may be less sociable and stay apart from the groupmates and rely heavily on teacher's assistance, extra clarification and support. As for alienated students, they are those learners who miss classes and intend to stop their education due to no desire to study. Phantom students, however, can complete the tasks on a regular basis but avoid working in group work since they tend to be tranquil and introvert people. In fact, there are all types of students mentioned above in my groups. The students who ignore task completion I can label as social, dependent and phantom learners. Among my students, there were a number of people preferring speaking rather than writing or doing something else, requesting to work together with their friends in teamwork activities, etc. Certainly, some of the learners lacked independent skills and used to depend on teacher. I also could identify phantom students who would complete the task but never initiate to answer or show their answer because of avoiding being in the centre of attention. As we can see, my students' are different and accordingly their abilities and needs are dissimilar too.
Tomlinson (2010) as cited by Kubat (2018) says that when teachers use different methods to suit learners' abilities and needs, students' performance will boost. According to Basar (2002), as cited by Kubat (2018), teachers should be able to identify their learners' physical, psychological, economic, social and academic dissimilarities. In addition to this, students should be given meaningful activities. Celep (2004) as cited by Kubat (2018) writes that if students are assigned meaningful tasks, which target their interests and abilities, some of the classroom discipline problems can be decreased. Bahmanbijar et al. (2019) whereas, refer to a number of studies to explain how certain factors like "gender, age, students' willingness to talk
and course level" can impact on students' motivation in learning. Pedditzi et al. (2012) as cited by Bahmanbijar et al. (2019) highlight that atmosphere of studying, relationship between teacher and students; sense of belonging to university also has impact on students' level of motivation. Billings et al. (2009) as cited by Bahmanbijar et al. (2019) state that students' learning process plays an essential role in their acquisition of critical thinking skills.
To identify what kind of scenario I anticipate to observe in terms of my learners' task completion and what I was seeing in fact, I reflected on my classes and generated pieces of reflective writing. After reflecting on some of my classes, I found out that I would like to see my learners as fully engaged in the lessons, being able to remember previously learnt information, complete homework and classwork activities, initiate group discussions, question the provided information, share the views, respond back to others' ideas, contribute to teamwork, feel responsibility and so on. The image I had, in fact, was that most of the learners were passive during the classes, could not or did not want to remember previous lessons' information, did not complete the tasks, stayed silent in most of the time, felt reluctant to share their views, did not seem to be responsible, etc. The studies conducted on targeting and overcoming the reasons of students' lack of engagement in tasks demonstrate that every student is a particular individual and all students differ from each other regarding their physical, psychological characteristics, abilities, needs, learning styles and personality traits (Ari & Deniz, 2008; Goldberg & Baker, 1970; Moore, 2001; Shaughnessy, 1998 as cited by Kubat, 2018). Students' active participation is indeed very essential since it will lead to positive outcomes. According to the findings of some studies, learners who actively study in the lessons have better performance than passive students do in the class (Billings et al., 2009; Nunn, 1996; Tinto, 1997 as cited by Bahmanbijar et al., 2019). Moreover, active classroom engagement has essential impact on learners' success in education and future personal development (Tatar, 2005 as cited by Bahmanbijar et al., 2019).
The questionnaire designed for exploring students' needs and views regarding the module related tasks showed the results that I did not anticipate. Initially, seeing my
100
students' unwillingness to learn I concluded that students did not like the tasks. However, the findings demonstrate that the majority 84% students are content with provided tasks. In addition, 62% learners claim that they regularly complete the tasks. On the one hand, 78% students say they do the activities since they find them necessary and useful. Whereas, 28% (not that much) complete the tasks because for them those tasks are interesting and enjoyable. As for the type of activity, 62% of students opt for group work activities saying that it makes them feel more responsible because of need for contributing in teamwork, lets them to build better relationship with each other, and creates opportunity to listen to each other, share views and learn mutually. According to Celep (2004) as cited by Kubat (2018), the needs and the way that students are structured are essential milestones that originate students' behaviour in the classroom. Many educators agree on the idea that different teaching methods, activities and assignments should be organized for the learners taking into account that they are not alike in terms of their physical, psychological, academic and some other traits (Good & Brophy, 2008; Borich, 2014; Tomlison, 2010; D'amico & Gallaway, 2008 as cited by Kubat, 2018).
Observation tool used for keeping record of my students' behaviour and my own one also gave some amount of valuable information. My observations show that most of the students were not active during the class when they were assigned writing tasks and tasks to be completed individually. In short, the observations demonstrate that students prefer speaking tasks to writing ones, look for working and learning in groups rather than on their own. As it was mentioned above, I tried to observe my behaviour too, to identify my actions whenever I face my students' ignorance. I noticed that I do not stay indifferent to my learners' lack of engagement but try to interfere and involve them in the task. Usually, I do it by asking them to work with other people and reminding them the task. Certainly, there are particular reasons that widely explain why students can be interested more in speaking rather than writing and desire to work in groups instead of individual format. For example, Moore (2001) as cited by Kubat (2018) highlights that some students are fast learners, whereas others are slower at learning. At the same time some learners can work independently and manage the task
101
by themselves, however, some students cannot continue working on the task without teacher's or students' assistance. The study conducted by Bahmanbijar et al. (2019) highlight such factors as "motivational factors, grading system, meaningful teaching, university major, peers influence, challenging assignment, environmental factor" as "underlying reasons for students' lack of participation in classroom activities".
In conclusion, as a teacher, I experienced some challenges related to classroom task completion in teaching my target learners. My students' ignorant and indifferent attitude towards doing the tasks during the lesson motivated me to conduct my research and find solutions to the problem. The same issue was the topic of many studies of some educators and researches. The results of their studies mainly conclude in using meaningful activities for maintaining students' interest and engagement. The findings of my exploratory and action level research also demonstrate the immense benefits of meaningful activities. In addition to this type of activity, group-work based activities are preferable and advisable to be applied. One more element in keeping the level of students' interest high is providing reasonable freedom to learners so that they can be able to show their abilities in terms of studies. Certainly, these very conclusions cannot be universal since the current research has its limitations. The field of motivating students and raising their interest in task completion requires more investigation and further research to bring more concrete and proven answers to the remaining unanswered questions.
References:
1. Bahmanbijar, B., Nazarieh, M., Toufan, N., Dehghani, M. R., & Beigzadeh, A. (2019). Identification of the reasons behind students' lack of participation in classroom activities using a Delphi technique. Future of Medical Education Journal, 9(2), 10-17.
2. Izadpanah, S., (2010) A study on task-based language teaching: from theory to practice. US-China Foreign Language 8(3).
3. Kubat, U. (2018). Identifying the individual differences among students during learning and teaching process by science teachers. International Journal of Research in Education and Science, 4(1), 30-38.
4. Sholeh, M., Salija, K., & Nur, S. (2021). Task-based learning in English as a Foreign language (EFL) classroom: what, how and why. Journal GEEJ 8(1)
