4.1 Presentation, analysis and discussion of findings that address the first objective
4.1.9 Teachers recommending TBLT to others
From the teachers’ experiences of using TBLT the researcher wanted to ascertain if the teachers would recommend the strategy to their colleagues. The researcher had asked the question: Would you recommend TBLT to other teachers of English? Why?
The findings indicated that all the teachers would recommend TBLT to other teachers of English language giving quite a number of reasons for their answers. Some teachers were of the view that they would recommend the strategy to others since it promotes students’ involvement in the learning process and two teachers were going to recommend TBLT to others because it is a stress-free teaching strategy as the teacher does less (learners teach themselves) but the teacher still gets paid at the end of the month.
Some teachers believe that TBLT improves the students’ learning and that it helps to construct the learners’ own understanding and appreciation of their school work. TBLT according to one teacher emphasizes the importance of relevant skills. Some added that it is just an ideal teaching strategy. Some teachers believes that TBLT builds a good teacher-pupil relationship as they tend to ask more questions in a very relaxed atmosphere and that if TBLT is used well, it can produce good results. Some teachers shared that TBLT fosters the understanding of the target language and that it caters for all the learners.
Wang (2013) says there is proof that TBLT discourages teachers from explaining things or telling pupils something that they could have challenged them to explain or find out themselves. Findings in this research are that TBLT will be recommended to other teachers since it helps to construct the learners’
own understanding and appreciation of their school work at the same time promoting the learners’
involvement in the learning process which is important in teaching learners to be responsible not just for their own learning, but in general.
Willis and Willis (2009) believe that one of the problems that could have led other teachers to abandon TBLT is their failure to realize that language is more than a grammatical system. Most teachers who are aware of this and the fact that TBLT offers a more realistic alternative to the conventional grammar-based approaches to communicate effectively in a language for all kinds of purposes have all the reasons to recommend TBLT to those teachers who are sceptical about its effectiveness in English language teaching.
As alluded to earlier, focus group discussions were also used to gather data that address the first objective.
These were the finding:
School A
Ms Y:It is a fact that from your equals you learn easier.The other teachers did not want to say more they just nodded their heads.
School B
Ms K:The students are free to work alone like maybe when the teacher is with the other groups. Again teachers in this school did not say much when this question was posed. But looking at the response given by this one teacher one would agree that the teachers have all the reason to recommend TBLT to others since it creates such a conducive environment. Even if the learners are by themselves but there is work that is going on. The teacher will have obviously presented the task, and then it means they would be practicing it to produce it in a wider context.
School C
Ms. S: But then the environment in our area is what should be considered. You find that the community does not bother themselves about the learning of their children. When the learners have to talk in front of others you find that they just don’t know what to say because they have not been taught to stand and talk in front of people. If maybe the community could somehow encourage the students to speak, have things like a competition maybe on poetry in the community to help them, to encourage them to talk in front of other people. To this teacher teaching English language does not end in a school or classroom but it extends to the community. The community can be sensitized by teachers on the things it expects. As the policy implementers they should know better, understand and appreciate TBLT. Since their schools are in the rural areas in the Lubombo region which is rural Swaziland, challenges are bound to be faced by these teachers. So teachers understand that they cannot do all the work themselves.
Nishida (2012) attests that some task types might be more appropriate for particular learners than others.
So it is important for teachers to vary these so as to cater for the different learners in their classes. This contention tallies with the reason the teachers from the three schools in the Lubombo region in Swaziland gave as grounds to recommend TBLT to others that it caters for all the learners. It is not surprising then that Wang (2013) argues that information gap task is one type that teachers have found especially compatible with their teaching, and that it is to this type of task that teachers should turn to if they are serious about helping learners compete and/or participate in the global market. This supports that TBLT is an ideal teaching strategy since it develops the learners holistically, something that Wang (2013) states that as the learners compete and/participate in the global market it has to be economically, technologically, politically, culturally, socially and otherwise, as English is the main language for entertainment and sport in the world, something they are passionate about. So through all these spheres of life that the teachers will be exposing the learners to the understanding of the target language and it will be fostered. It is one reason the teachers gave as a motive they would recommend TBLT to others.
From the submissions of teachers in Wang (2013), there is proof that TBLT discourages teachers from explaining things or telling pupils something they could have challenged the pupils to explain or find out on their own. Findings in this research are that TBLT will be recommended to other teachers since it helps to construct the learners’ own understanding and appreciation of their school work at the same time promoting the learners’ involvement in the learning process which is important in teaching learners to be responsible not just for their own learning, but in general.
Even though most of the teachers prefer group discussion for TBLT, findings pointed out that none of the teachers used TBLT more than once in a week such that some use it once in two weeks, another once in three months. This was also echoed in the focus group discussions that from what the participants have observed over the years, teachers are not as frequently using TBLT since you find teachers doing the talking almost all the time.
From the findings, it is clear though that designing these tasks in not a difficult thing to do. During the focus group discussion all the teachers agreed that it is an easy thing to do since there are so many sources at the teacher’s disposal from which the teacher gets the tasks that are given to the learners. Skehan (2008) believes that teachers should follow a certain set of principles to guide their selection of options for designing these lessons. He says that teachers should ensure an appropriate level of task difficulty;
establish clear goals for each task-based lesson; develop clear goals for each task-based lesson; develop an appropriate orientation to performing the task in the learners; ensure that the learners assume an active role in task-based lessons; encourage the learners to take risks; ensure that learners are primarily focused on meaning when they perform a task; provide opportunities for focussing on form; and require the learners to evaluate their performance and progress.
It is important to ensure that a task is deployed at an appropriate level of difficulty and that it is not just a matter of course design. Teachers can vary the difficulty of a task methodologically, maybe by introducing a pre-task phase into a lesson. Teachers can also ensure that learners possess necessary strategies to engage in task-based interaction. This will be easy to do if teachers get to realise that it is not sufficient to engage learners with tasks on the basis that they will develop their inter-languages simply as a result of using the L2. Methodological options like strategic versus on-line planning can be selected to optimize different aspects of language use for example fluency versus accuracy. If they understand this, they will appreciate why they are being asked to perform tasks. They need to regard them seriously not just as ‘fun’. In this respect post-task options may play a crucial role as they demonstrate to the learners that tasks have a clear role to play in developing the L2 proficiency and their ability to monitor their own progress. This means that teachers have to make sure that the learners are provided with an opportunity to participate fully by playing an initiating as well as a responding role in classroom discourse. A key component of being ‘active’ is negotiating meaning when communicative problems arise. When the
learners perform these tasks they need to stretch their inter-language resources. This requires the learners to be prepared to experiment with language. Methodological choices that encourage the use of private speech when performing a task, that create opportunities for ‘pushed output’ and that help to create an appropriate level of challenge on an effective climate that is supporting of risk-taking will assist this.
As the main purpose of a task is to provide a context for processing language communicatively; thus when learners perform a task they must be primarily concerned with achieving an outcome, not with displaying language. This can only be achieved if the learners are encouraged to do the task. One way in which this can be achieved is by varying task-based lessons in terms of design options. Both Willis (2011) and Skehan (2008) emphasize the need to attend to form in a task-based lesson and make sure that it does not conflict with the learners primarily focussing on meaning when they perform a task. For the tasks that they will have performed, Skehan (2008) points out that learners need to be made accountable for how they perform a task and for their overall progress. A task-based lesson needs to engage and help to foster metacognitive awareness in the learners.
4.2 Presentation, analysis and discussion of data that address objective two: To learn of the