SKKN Using task-based learning activities to teach vocabulary and grammar for efl students at Nam Dan 1 High School

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Unit 8: New ways to learn – Getting Started: New learning activities (p86) 
Task 1: Learning Vocabulary
Pre Task:
All the students were asked to read through the whole text, without any burden of knowing or understanding any part of the text. Teacher then provided a set of words and asked students to match the one verbs with some nouns to make phrases. In this set, there are some phrases appearing in the reading text.
Task Cycle: 
Teacher provided one set of cards with some verbs including: upload, do, find, take and another set with: a file, an image, a video / the calculation, a project, a task/information, pleasure, fault/ a break, a look, notes. Students were asked to work in group to match the verbs with appropriate nouns to make suitable phrases. 
Post Task:
Students collaborated together to have the correct phrases and stuck them on board. The final work of student must be shown on board.
Upload: 	a file
	an image
	a video
Do: 	the calculation
	a project
	a task
Find:	information
	pleasure
	fault
Take: 	a look
	a break
	a note
Task 2: Learning Grammar – Relative clauses
Pre Task:
Students were asked to complete the sentences with one word from the conversation in the textbook.
I’m watching the video that my geography teacher uploaded on Eclass.
It gives me a chance to discuss with my classmates, who may have original ideas on the topic.
This way of studying, which gives us more control over our own learning, is quite useful.
Teacher then introduced the term of relative pronouns in relative clauses.
Task Cycle: 
1. It is the place _______ we went last summer.
2. John is the man _______ is waiting.
3. The car _______ in front of us is a Ford.
4. 10 a.m is _______ they’ll arrive.
5. I don’t know the reason _______ he’s coming.
6. I don’t know _______ the magician did this. 
Teachers provided some sentences with the missing in the relative pronoun. Students individually took a card with a relative pronoun/adverb from the given poster to stick on the missing place on board.
Post Task: 
Students were explained that they might not be under pressure of finding correct answer. What they needed was to choose a relative pronoun to fill basing on their background knowledge or intuition. The final product is a colorful poster with the sentence completed as follow.
Material: English 10 - Global Success
Unit 9: Protecting the environment – Getting Started: A presentation on the environment (p100) 
Task 1: Learning Vocabulary
Pre Task:
All the students were asked to read through the whole text, without any burden of knowing or understanding any part of the text. Teacher then provided a set of card with words which appearing in the conversation.
environmental
endangered
practical
global
main
ideas
big
causes
warming
actions
animals
issues
Task Cycle:
Teacher asked 2 groups of students with 6 students for each group. They stood in two line with the given cards. When the teacher counted the time, they quickly found out their partner to match their card with a meaningful phrase.
Post Task: 
Students then held the card with the partner to show the whole class their result. Their final answer should be included the phrases: big ideas, main causes, global warming, practical actions, endangered animals, environmental issues.
Task 2: Learning Grammar – Reported Speech
Pre Task:
Students were asked to complete the sentences with one word from the conversation in the textbook.
1. My teacher asked me to do some research on environmental protection.
2. She advised to start with small, practical actions to protect the environment.
3. She said I should present it the following week.
Teacher then introduced the term of reported speech.
Task Cycle: 
Teacher provided some common saying of some people who have different jobs.
“Let me see your hands”
“I'd like to keep you here overnight for observation”
“Hand in your paper, please”
“Can I take your order, sir?”
“Just a reminder, this is a completely full flight” 
“Thank you, sir. Have a nice day, and please visit us again” 
Group of jobs: doctor, teacher, waiter, air hostess, shop keeper, police officer. 
Teacher asked students to guess whose common saying this is.
Post Task: 
Teachers asked students to work in pairs and performed in front of the whole class when one student read aloud the common saying and the other complete the sentence in given structure. For example:
Student A: Let me see your hands
Student B: The police officer said “Let me see your hands”
Student A: I'd like to keep you here overnight for observation
Student B: The doctor said “I'd like to keep you here overnight for observation”
Student A: Hand in your paper, please
Student B: The teacher said “Hand in your paper, please”
Student A: Can I take your order, sir?
Student B: The waiter said “Can I take your order, sir?”
Student A: Just a reminder, this is a completely full flight 
Student B: The air hostess said “Just a reminder, this is a completely full flight” 
Student A: Thank you, sir. Have a nice day, and please visit us again 
Student A: The shopkeeper said “Thank you, sir. Have a nice day, and please visit us again” 
Material: English 10 - Global Success
Unit 10: Ecotourism – Getting Started: An eco-friendly fieldtrip to Phong Nha Cave (p110) 
Task 1: Learning Vocabulary
Pre Task:
All the students were asked to read through the whole text, without any burden of knowing or understanding any part of the text. Teacher then provided a set of actions when taking an ecotourism.
Disturb wildlife or its habitats
Explore the place 
Use non-wood fuel for all cooking, heating, lighting
Damage the environment 
Pick flowers or medicinal plants
Leave litter behind
Learn about the place 
Task Cycle:
Students were required to put each phrase into the correct column of Dos or Don’ts when taking an ecotourism.
Dos
Don’ts
Explore the place 
Disturb wildlife or its habitats
Use non-wood fuel for all cooking, heating, lighting
Damage the environment
Learn about the place
Pick flowers or medicinal plants

Leave litter behind

Post Task:
Students were asked to work in pair, each pair had to think one more idea to fill into each column. 
2.3. Finding and Discussion
Pre-test:
In order to get a comprehensive overview on the grammatical ability and the standard of vocabulary, a small test was conducted for the students taking some simple grammar and vocabulary section. The total marks allotted for the test was 50 as each question carried about one mark each. The section that was tested was based on tenses, gerund and infinitive, passive voice, comparison, relative pronouns, reported speech and conditional sentences and vocabulary through Reading Comprehension. This was a random test conducted under the supervision of the researcher and the students were made aware on the requirement and outcome of the study. The test was conducted in two classes with 45 students in each class: one class which used task-based learning activity (treatment class) and the other did not (control class). Confidentiality of the whole process was ascertained to the participants, the result of the performance has been tabulated and analyzed through the following table:
Marks
Control class
Treatment class
0-10
8 = 17.8%%
1 = 2.2%
10-20
18= 40%
7 = 15,6%
20-30
11= 24.4%
10 = 22.2%
30-40
6 = 13.3%
21=46.7%
40-50
2 = 4.4%
6 = 13.3%
Total
45 students
45 students
Table 2.1: Marks scored by respondents in the test
In the table 2.1 we can get a comprehensive difference of marks and the scoring improvement in control class and treatment. The table shows, in the range of 0-10 marks in the control class, 8 students had scored but there was one in this range in treatment class. In the range of 10-20 marks there were 18 students in the control class (40%) but in the treatment class it had reduced to 7 students. In the range of 20-30 marks in the control class there were 11 and in the treatment class it reduced to 10. Marks in the range of 30 - 40 were scored by 6 students in the control class but in the treatment class the number of students reached to 21 (46.7%) which is a substantial improvement. Finally, 6 students had been in the range of 40-50 in treatment class but there were only 2 students who scored in this range in control class. Through this one gets a clear idea on the benefits of TBL learning method and its outcome.
One of the major aims of this study was to determine if the application of task-based has any impact on vocabulary learning of ESP students. The reported findings show that there will be significant difference. That is the participants’ performance in the task-based class was remarkably better than that of traditional class. Apparently, the significant improvement regarding the vocabulary learning ability of the participants in the experimental group must have originated from the type of instruction they had been exposed to during the time that the experiment was conducted. Another factor that may affect learners’ performance is the nature of the task that may be stimulating. It is believed that assert that task activity and task achievement, as a characteristic for task-based instruction, are motivational. It is proved that it is easy to assume that success in any task is due simply to the fact that someone is motivated. Generally, TBL has the potential to bring about moderate to large vocabulary gains and structure master. It is not unlikely that the characteristics of tasks, authentic materials, learner-centered communication, negotiation of meaning, integration of new and existing knowledge, and a meaningful non-linguistic outcome can foster vocabulary and grammar acquisition in the same manner they foster the acquisition of other language features.
A survey had also delivered to teachers of English in some high schools to discover their feedback about the urgency and feasibility if this study. Below is the link of the survey conducted on google form and its result. 
Survey on the urgency and feasibility of the teaching experience : Using task- based learning activities to teach vocabulary and Grammar for EFL students at High schools. (google.com)
97,6% of teachers confirmed that they did use task-based learning activities to teach vocabulary and grammar in their class. 42.9% of teachers used it very frequently and 40.5% often used it.
It seems that most of the teachers know well about the advantages of using task-based learning activity in language class.
This explains the reason why 95.3% of them agreed about the necessity of that task-based learning activities in improving students’ outcome. Only 4,7% of them confirmed that this is less or not necessary to apply these activities. 
In term of feasibility, it got many positive feedbacks from teachers when 97.6% believed that these activities are feasible in teaching vocabulary and grammar. Only small number of them (2.4% disagreed with this idea)
PART 3: CONCLUSION
As it was observed those EFL learners who have been taught vocabulary and grammar through task-based language teaching outperformed those learners who have been taught vocabulary through traditional approach. The current study has provided further empirical evidence for the value of a task-based approach to second language learning. It shows that learner-learner interaction while performing tasks provided opportunities for the learners to talk about vocabularies and monitor the language they used. Task-based learning provides an authentic, purposeful, and intentional background for comprehending and using language, and it is encouraging for the EFL learners. But in traditional method the focus is on translation and memorization of new vocabularies and students are not concerned with the context in which these technical vocabularies are used. One of the features which can be referred to as a reason for the outperformance of the task-based learning class in comparison with the traditional class is the collaborative and interactive nature of the task-based approach where language use and language learning take place simultaneously.
The cooperative natures of planning and report stages help students get feedback from the members of a task group. Of course, the students in task-based learning receive feedback from the teacher. However, in the traditional group the
students work individually on the exercises, so they do not receive any feedback from their peers and the only authority for judging about accuracy of exercises is the teacher. Therefore, it can be claimed that the existence of such a feedback provides a more relaxing and less threatening condition for learning foreign language. With regard to language teaching methodology, the findings of this study emphasizes the role of task-based approach in teaching vocabulary and grammar. In fact, everything turns around tasks and task completion in this approach. The three stages of applying tasks can be used to teach vocabulary and grammar or other language skills and sub skills to EFL learners. The intention behind the following study was to improve the grammar and vocabulary skills among the learners and also to identify the weak learners and assure them of a better performance. The study found that students lack the mastery and proficiency of the English language and this in turn hampers their progress and language proficiency. 
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