CHAPTER ONEGENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research orientation
Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is being promoted in many countries aroundthe world as a very powerful language pedagogy, and there has been a growinginterest in task-based research in L2 acquisition to transform the power of TBLT tolanguage pedagogy. However, teachers in China are often uncertain about whatTBLT is, and unsure about how to implement TBLT in their classrooms. What’smore, very few empirical studies have been conducted to investigate TBLT fromteachers’ perspective.Therefore, the present study aims to investigate teachers’ understanding andimplementation of TBLT through questionnaire and classroom observation in anattempt to better the understanding of the status quo of TBLT, and also provide someimplications to the teaching of English in senior high school in China.
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1.2 Rationale and significance of the study
First，the point of view from teachers about a new teaching approach is of greatimportance.Branden, Bygate and Norris (2009) point out that task-based language teachingis being promoted in many countries around the world as a very powerful languagepedagogy nowadays. However, despite a growing interest in the power of TBLT totransform language pedagogy, introducing TBLT into language teaching andlearning program is not a straightforward or easy matter. Teachers are often notcertain about what TBLT is, unsure about how they are to realize TBLT in theirclassrooms, and unclear about whether, how, to what extent TBLT fits their existing beliefs and practices.Then Martin (2012) concludes that it is one thing for theorists, researchers, andcurriculum developers to promote and investigate TBLT for its potential power as abeneficial language pedagogy; it might be quite another for teachers to make it workat the grassroots level of the language classroom.According to Martin (2012), teachers’ perspectives provide an importantvantage point from which to consider the extent to which concepts such as TBLTand task are being understood and enacted in real-world contexts. They also help toidentify the areas of teachers’ thinking and practice that might be enhanced byTBLT.Second, a review of recent studies reveals that previous studies from teachers’perspective mainly focus on two areas: teachers’ understanding of TBLT (e.g. Andon& Eckerth 2009; Tu 2010; Cheng & Samuel 2011; East, 2012; Hu 2013, etc.) andthe contextual factors impeding teachers’ implementation of TBLT (e.g. Carless2004, 2007, 2009; Jeon & Hahn 2006; Zhang 2007; Yasemin 2008; Deng & Carless2009; Barnard & Nguyen 2010; Zhang & Hu 2010; Lin & Wu 2012, etc.), factorsdemonstrated including the grammar-driven national entrance examinations, largeclass size, textbooks, teachers’ language proficiency levels, etc. However, what islacking is further research to examine “what happens in the classroom” whenChinese EFL teachers implement TBLT (Zheng & Borg 2013). In addition, up untiltoday, there is no empirical study concerning about the relationship of teachers’understanding and practices in TBLT. Do they accord with each other? Are there anymismatches? If so, what are they? This research will fill the gap in literature bymaking a comparison between them.
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CHAPTER TWOLITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
In the first part of this chapter, a comprehensive review of related theoreticalbackground is provided, including definitions of task, task components，principles ofTBLT and task framework. Then a review of previous empirical studies abroad andat home from teachers’ perspective toward TBLT will be unfolded.
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2.2 Definitions of task
According to Pica (2008), TBLT is featured by tasks which engage language learnersin meaningful, goal-oriented communication to solve problems and reach decisions.Since tasks are the basic units in TBLT framework, the concept of task should beclarified explicitly.Our efforts to get the definition of a “task” in both research and pedagogicliteratures indicate that more than 20 definitions have been put forward byresearchers and linguists, to name just some typical and representative ones.Long (1985:89) first conceptualizes task as “a piece of work executed byoneself or by others freely or intend for some rewards.” Long’s tasks here are notstrictly restricted to the classroom tasks, which may contain the real-world tasksbeyond classroom. The examples he offers include negotiating with the salesperson,finding a destination to some place, booking a hotel and etc.Later, Nunan (1989:6) makes a distinction between “real-world tasks” and“pedagogical tasks”. According to him, real-world tasks are analogous to real-life,namely all sorts of things students may meet in everyday life and work out of class. While pedagogic tasks are those activities which usually do not occur outside theclass, for example, two students respectively have one part of the same picture, andcooperate to make the picture complete; students perform according to the teacher’sdescription and etc.Willis (1996) contends that tasks are activities in which the target language isused by the language learners for a communicative purpose in order to achieve anoutcome. She defines tasks from the perspective of communicative purpose andemphasizes that a task should have a non-linguistic outcome.
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CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY .........25
3.1 Introduction........25
3.2 Subjects ......25
3.3 Instruments........27
3.4 Data collection .........27
3.5 Data analysis .....28
3.6 Summary ....28
CHAPTER FOUR RESEARCH RESULTS ....29
4.1 Introduction.......29
4.2 Results for research question one ........29
4.3 Results for research question two ........33
4.4 Results for research question three ......46
4.5 Summary ....47
CHAPTER FIVE MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION....49
5.1 Introduction.......49
5.2 Major findings and discussion for research question one.......49
5.3 Major findings and discussion for research question two.......51
5.4 Major findings and discussion for research question three.....54
5.5 Summary ....55
CHAPTER FIVEMAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
5.1 Introduction
By quantitative study of questionnaire and both quantitative as well as qualitativestudy of classroom observation, we have got the overarching picture of teachers’understanding and implementation of TBLT. In this chapter, we will summarizewhat we have found in Chapter 4 and have a discussion of the results with regard toeach research question. The first research question is to investigate teachers’ understanding of TBLT inChinese EFL senior high school classrooms. Data collected from the questionnaireserve to answer this question.Teachers in senior high school in Zhuhai have a comparatively high level ofeducation background. 64.1% of the teachers have access to TBLT training, howeveronly 5.8% of the teachers claim to know TBLT very well and 21.4% of the teachershave basic knowledge of TBLT. When asked about key features of TBLT, aconsiderable amount of teachers cannot figure them out, with a percentage rate ofstudent-centeredness (93.2%), authenticity (80.6%), communication (62.1%), andmeaning and form (56.3%), which signifies that teachers’ understanding of TBLT issomewhat shallow and unsystematic.
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CONCLUSION
The aim of this study is to investigate teachers’ understanding and implementationof TBLT in EFL classrooms in senior high school in Zhuhai. The instrumentsemployed include a questionnaire and classroom observation. By quantitativeanalysis of the questionnaire and both quantitative and qualitative analysis of theclassroom observation transcripts, we obtain the following major findings of thestudy.Teachers’ understanding of TBLT is as follows: 1) 64.1% of the teachers admitthat they have received training of TBLT, however only 26.2% of them claim to befamiliar with TBLT and will implement it in their everyday class; 2) In figuring outthe key features of TBLT, the results are as follows, student-centeredness (93.2%),authenticity (80.6%), communication (62.1%), and meaning and form (56.3%). 3)72.8% of the teachers can get the overall process in implementing TBLT, but someof them do not know what to do exactly in the pre-task (2.8%), task (36.9%), andlanguage focus (17.4%) phase.
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Reference (omitted)
