The Development of Task-Based Instruction to Enhance English Speaking Skills of the Ninth-Grade Students

Abstract

The English speaking skills have been playing crucial roles in the Cambodian development context, yet the learning and teaching of the skills have faced many challenges caused by Cambodia’s typically large and mixed-ability classrooms, and the curriculum and coursebook being inappropriately applied. Moreover, as the long dominated-traditional teaching methods do not seem to produce a satisfactory communicative outcome. These indicate that an alternative pedagogical approach should be proposed. This research investigated the effects of Task-Based Instruction (TBI) on ninth-graders’ English speaking skills and their satisfaction toward the experience with this approach after the experiment. The pretest-posttest non-equivalent quasi-experimental group design was utilized with two Grade 9 classrooms consisting of 78 students, 50 of whom were female, divided into the control and experimental groups. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The quantitative data were obtained using the speaking tests. During the speaking test, students' speaking performances were rated using the speaking rubric. The qualitative data, on the other hand, were gathered using the student satisfaction questionnaire. Quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated that the TBI made significant contributions to the experimental group’s speaking skills in general as well as in all sub-skills either when comparing the pretest and posttest within the group or the posttests between groups. Analyses of the satisfaction questionnaire found that the experimental group was ‘satisfied’ with their experiences with the TBI. Students viewed the TBI as a teaching method of their preference because it provided them appropriate conditions for language learning, helped improve their speaking skills, increased their confidence in speaking, and motivation in learning English despite some difficulties with the language of instruction. Based on these findings, some recommendations for pedagogical implications and further research were presented.

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