The Effects of Task Based Techniques on the Development of Oral Competency in Low Proficient Learners

Abstract

Task based Language Teaching, one of the techniques come under Communicative Language Teaching, has been flourished by scholars like, David Nunan, M.P. Breen and Rod Ellis. Tasks which are meaning focused; make the ESL learners more self-directed and creative. The present research is an attempt to provide new evidence for the efficacy of task-based techniques in the development of oral competency among the ESL learners of tertiary level. The study attempted to answer the question as whether there is any statistically significant difference between the subjects' mean scores on the overall oral performance in English speaking test before and after the intervention programme of TBLT techniques in the ESL speaking classes. The study also aimed at evaluating whether there were any developments in the aspects of speaking skill like content, accuracy, fluency and pronunciation through the application of TBLT techniques in ESL teaching. Forty tertiary level ESL learners including nineteen males and twenty-one females from the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce were selected and divided into two groups – Experimental and Control group - for the study. A task-based language teaching program of ESL speaking was developed by the researcher for the experimental group whereas the control group was taught in the conventional method for one semester. Since mixed methodology was adopted by the researcher to analyze the data, she used the research tools like, observation, interviews, questionnaires and speaking tests for the collection of data. A set of independent sample ttests were conducted to find out the difference in the pre and post- tests. The results of the observation, interview and the questionnaire revealed positive effects towards implementing TBLT in ESL speaking classes and the independent sample t-tests revealed that the students of the experimental group, who were exposed to the task-based principles of teaching speaking, performed remarkably better than those of the control group in the final speaking post-test.