Tài liệu Students' perception and challenges towards task based activities in an efl class a case study at ba ria vung tau university master of tesol

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING BA RIA-VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION AND CHALLENGES TOWARDS TASK-BASED ACTIVITIES IN AN EFL CLASS: A CASE STUDY AT BA RIA-VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY Candidate: Supervisor: HOANG THI MY HUONG LE LAN PHUONG, PhD. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching) October, 2021 CONTENTS CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................... 2 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... 4 ABBREVIATION.......................................................................................................................... 5 LIST OF FIGURES....................................................................................................................... 6 LIST OF TABLES......................................................................................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 7 Context .............................................................................................................................. 7 Purposes .......................................................................................................................... 10 Scope and Significance Of The Study ............................................................................ 10 Thesis Outline ................................................................................................................. 11 LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................... 13 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 13 Task-based Language Teaching ..................................................................................... 13 Tasks In TBLT ................................................................................................................ 16 Task-based Activities .............................................................................................. 18 2.3.1.1 Characteristics of Task-based Activities ............................................................. 18 2.3.1.2 Types of Task-based Activities ........................................................................... 22 2.3.1.3 Sequencing Task-based Activities ....................................................................... 25 Benefits and Challenges of Task-based Language Teaching .................................. 30 2.3.2.1 Advantages of Task-based Activities .................................................................. 30 2.3.2.2 Challenges of Task-based Activities ................................................................... 33 Perceptions of Task-based Activities.............................................................................. 36 Theoretical Framework of the Study .............................................................................. 37 Relevant Studies ............................................................................................................. 40 Summary ......................................................................................................................... 42 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ......................................................................... 43 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 43 Methodology and Research Design ................................................................................ 43 Methodology ........................................................................................................... 43 Research Design ...................................................................................................... 45 Participants and Sampling .............................................................................................. 46 Instruments ..................................................................................................................... 47 Questionnaire........................................................................................................... 47 Classroom observations ........................................................................................... 49 3.4.2.1 Video Recording .................................................................................................. 50 3.4.2.2 Teacher Peer Observation .................................................................................... 51 Procedure Of The Study ................................................................................................. 52 Data Analysis .................................................................................................................. 54 Trustworthiness............................................................................................................... 58 Ethics and Limitations .................................................................................................... 59 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .......................................................................... 61 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 61 Findings And Discusion ................................................................................................. 61 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 80 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 80 Implication ...................................................................................................................... 81 LIMITATION AND FUTURE STUDY ................................................................................. 83 Appendix A ................................................................................................................................. 84 Appendix B ................................................................................................................................. 88 Appendix C ................................................................................................................................. 91 References ................................................................................................................................. 92 3 ABSTRACT Language teachers have always been concerned with increasing students' motivation and performance because language can be acquired only by interactions among people. Bearing that in mind, EFL teachers must always plan what language teaching/learning processes should be for each lesson to gain the most of students’ interest and practice. These encompass deciding which activities their students might engage in, which are for cognitive processing, and for communicative purposes in real life. My choice of Task-based Language Teaching approach is for that reason, helping students with chances to learn, communicate, and interact with other friends in English. TBLT has been proved to solve certain problems such as poor learner motivation, or low attention in learning. However, in a language class, getting students to respond is not only a goal, but also a problem that teachers face. Therefore, this study is to explore EFL students’ perceptions of task-based activities they encounter in their classes and how they manage activities. By adopting a Case Study framework, forty-three Vietnamese fresh students from two English classes at BVU were handed over with a questionnaire, and their behaviour in class was video-recorded. The findings of the study indicate that most students liked participating in the pre-task, while over half of students were rather disappointed at their own task performances. Additionally, this study also suggests some focus in each phase of a task and some concerns to deal with While- and Post-tasks to increase students’ contributions to class assignments (whole class, small group and individual) for more effective learning in classroom and for practical use. Keywords: Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT), Communicative Activities, Task-based activities, Learner’s Perceptions. 4 ABBREVIATION • Task-based Language Teaching: TBLT • Communicative Language Teaching: CLT • English as a Foreign Language: EFL • English as a Second Language: ESL • First Language (Mother Tongue): L1 • Second Language: L2 • Ba Ria-Vung Tau University: BVU 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Framework of Learners' Perception of Task-based activities ....................................... 39 Figure 2. Percentages of enjoyment by task-activities .................................................................. 73 Figure 3. Percentages of learning English by task-activities ........................................................ 74 Figure 4. Percentages of Difficulties in Task-activities ................................................................ 75 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Perceptions of Task-activities (Week 12) ................................. 62 Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Perceptions of Task-activities (Week 3) ................................... 62 Table 3. Ranks of Task-based Activities (Week 12)....................................................................... 64 Table 4. Enjoyment, Learning, After School Correlation: Role-plays based on conversation samples (the top preferred) ........................................................................................................... 67 Table 5. Descriptive Statistics of Receptive activities (Week 12) .................................................. 68 Table 6. Percentages of enjoyment: the least preferred productive activities (Week 12) ............. 69 Table 7. Pearson Correlations of Speech Act ............................................................................... 72 6 INTRODUCTION CONTEXT In Vietnam, globalization has put pressure on the education system to develop a more professional labor force who are more competitive and international citizens (MOET, 2010; MOLISA, 2010). The government’s Higher Education Reform Agenda (HERA) adopted in 2005 pursues to evolve a modern system of higher education in the requirement of the country's industrialization and modernization, the incorporation into the transnational economy and the people's learning requirements (MOET, 2010). Accordingly, some goals to improve the country's education in a foreign language should be the output Level 1 (A1) for elementary school, Level 2 (A2) for lower secondary school; upper Level 3 (B1) for higher secondary school, non-English college and university, which are formally assessed upon the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFRL) for foreign languages (Nguyen, 2010). However, in fact, in secondary and high schools, the main teaching principles have been still the teacher-centered (Nguyen, 2008; Thanh et al., 2008), and in English-for-Specific-Purpose classes (ESP) is the focus on introducing terminology and translation (Le, 2017). Those issues reflect an ineffective picture of learning English in Vietnam, which is long-lasting, passive and very costly. As a solution, Task-based Language Teaching is projected to boost competence in language use for EFL students by inserting authentic communication into the classroom. The majority of TBLT research has been conducted in an ESL setting, but recently, it has gained increasing concerns from non-native English countries, especially after CLT deployment have been faced to resistance and unpredictable levels of success (Bax, 2003; Ellis, 1996; Li, 1998; Littlewood, 2007). One of the reasons is that many teachers ignore to mix the four language skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking) into their activities for teaching languages, possibly they have found it difficult (Caicedo, 2015). Some of many findings of effective TBLT can be referenced such as Speaking skills (Kasap, 2005; Albino, 2017; Murad & Smadi, 2009; Sae-Ong, 2010); and Writing skills (Ahmed & Bidin, 2016; Milarisa, 2019; Salimi & Fatollahnejad, 2012). However, in Vietnam, TBLT methodology, according to Barnard et al. (2010), is still an ambiguous notion for teachers 7 to act in the class. Studies by Minh (2007) and Le (2011) state that teachers think some units based on themes are hard for learners because these are not pertinent to the contexts of the local. That is, what EFL students want to be taught, and what EFL instructors want to teach are not close to their living environment and their authentic language use. It is one gap between learners’ needs and learning. Throughout the 1980s, in the subject of second language acquisition, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) was influential, because as Heath (1982) explains, that approach is to reflect “the practical dimensions of daily language use in the school setting” (p. 39). Actually, CLT has usually intermingled a Present-Practice-Produce model (PPP) technique which largely aimed at the target language's linguistic forms (Ellis, 2003). The reason of the switch is that production in PPP is not reached very often outside the classroom, i.e., learners often not communicate with native speakers effectively (Skehan et al., 1996). Moreover, Skehan explains that it is not always that students can learn all what is being taught in the exact order, but the production in PPP model of instruction is just to acquire a specific grammatical feature (Ellis, 2003), which is insufficient to develop L2 communication. In the same decade, TBLT appeared as a revolution in EFL teaching and learning field, and currently, it is a dominant pedagogical approach a large number of educational institutes all across the world (Nunan, 2004). A study conducted with participants from seven nations (Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, Mainland China and Hong Kong) on the influence of English as a global language on Asia-Pacific policies and behaviours suggests that TBLT is underlying the language teaching curriculum design (Nunan, 2003). TBLT is believed to be a successful strategy that nurtures an educational environment in which students are allowed to employ target language forms to attain communicative goals (Ellis, 2003; Skehan et al., 1996). The distinction of TBLT compared to traditional language teaching methods is that it favours functional communicative language use. It perceives the process of learning as a series of communicative activities that are associated with the curricular objectives (Brown, 2001). TBLT is built with communicative and interactive tasks that require learners to communicate and interact in real time (Bygate et al., 2013; Nunan, 2004). In performing 8 such tasks, grammar is taught to students implicitly, so the role of explicit grammar teaching is lowered, which is opposite the view of PPP method. Therefore, many second language acquisition researchers have added their studies to the tasks to develop pedagogical applications, such as Carless (2004), Wang (2008), Jeon & Hahn (2006), Tayjasanant & Barnard (2010). However, in Littlewood (2007)’s research of Task-based learning conducted in Asia, he finds a considerable misalignment between the CLT/TBLT concepts and local learning traditions. Since TBLT was first developed in Western settings, many concerns have appeared to question whether or not the communicative technique is applicable in different nations with different styles of learning. Specifically, these cultures are the form-oriented examination which emphasizes grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension (Shim et al., 2004), and “summative, norm-referenced, and knowledgebased orientation” of the important, formal exams (Chow et al., 2004, p. 159). This also implies that teachers and students tend not to concentrate on communicative facets of English (Butler et al., 2005); Gorsuch (2000); (Samimy et al., 2004), but just to face requirements of paper tests. In the efforts of bridging the gaps of learning Communicative English in Vietnam, there has been an increasing number of research of applying this communicative method in teaching, including Hoang (2014), Nguyen & Nguyen (2018), Bui (2019), Tran (2015), Le (2014), Nguyen (2010), or Cao (2018). Also, my study is aiming at the efficiency of TBLT in Vietnam by initially, discovering the learners’ perspectives of the practice of TBLT in the classroom. Whatever the teaching method is, a good teacher must first understand their learners in terms of how they feel and learn from lessons. Kumaravadivelu (1991) declares that both teachers and students perceive by themselves of what forms teaching and learning a language. That is, learners translate tasks and other classroom events from their personal viewpoints, which may be sharply different from reality. This is the gap between learning and teaching, which its consequences can be idle hours with boredom that students experience in class. Being teachers, they are expected to be not only able to decide and make effective classroom practice (Freeman, 1991; Fuller et al., 1994; Richards et al., 1990), but also to embark on reliable research to enable such decisions (Ellis, 1993; Nunan, 1989; Ramani, 1987). Moreover, Nunan (1988, p.177) claims that “no curriculum can 9 claim to be truly learner-centred unless the learner’s subjective needs and perceptions relating to the processes of learning are taken into account”. That is why my study prioritizes to look at both learners’ feelings and how they learn to communicate in class. PURPOSES It is argued that only ESL contexts, where learners can speak the target language in their living community, are suitable for TBLT, so is not for other foreign teaching areas, but Ellis (2009) affirms that TBLT can be a means for achieving communicative opportunities inside the classroom in different environments. For more knowledge of TBLT, this study is aimed to investigate if 1st-year students feel enjoyable about the lessons, specifically, task-based activities in classroom boundary at BVU (affective learning). Then, this study attempts to identify if task activities can help students with learning (cognitive learning). Finally, it addresses some possible difficulties students face in joining these activities, from which teachers can offer necessary support to facilitate a productive classroom. There are two research questions: 1. What is the students’ perception of Task-based activities? 2. What are the students’ challenges in performing Task-based activities? SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY This thesis investigated how students thought and learnt with Task-based activities in communicative courses, especially for the 1st- year students who are not majored in English at BVU. It did not take into account the evaluation to whether the tasks were effective enough in developing language skills, as well as how progressive the learners are at the course completion. Basically, the outcomes of the study were to help me understand the levels of my students’ satisfaction and concentration on learning when participating in taskactivities. Next was what challenges they might deal in the English communicative course on task-activities, and from there, what they expected to have and do was also noted. My study expects to add into the extant literature on English as a foreign language in general and the TBLT approach in particular, a more practical knowledge and 10 understanding of influential TBLT inside classrooms. In details, the findings of this study bring a closer look into how students perform Task-based activities in communicative courses. This research would contribute to the revision of communicative courses at BVU and encourage a more thorough application of TBLT in all language areas (grammar, pronunciation, reading, vocabulary, listening, writing and speaking). Also, this thesis would assist other teachers in designing more tasks aligned with English learners’ specific learning needs. Furthermore, my research would provide program designers with additional evidence for the necessity of boosting in-depth screening and assessments of productive skills at the university level. THESIS OUTLINE Chapter 1 highlighted the practicality of TBLT, its tendency in Vietnam and the necessity of knowing learners’ subjective opinions about task-activities. It has displayed the study's rationale, contextualizing the planned research within the context. Aspects of the study's context are pointed, including the influence of globalization and politics linked to Vietnam's language teaching program and reformed higher education. Consequently, the study's objectives, significance, and scope have been shown as for teaching Communicative English in higher education in Vietnam, and the chances for improvements in both research and practice. In the coming chapters, the Literature Review - Chapter 2 - introduces an overview of TBLT with its definition, origin, expansion, advantage, and framework, and the necessity of Learners’ perceptions in lessons. Chapter 3 summarizes the study's approach. It includes the main characteristics from a theoretical standpoint as well as a description multi-methodology (quantitative and qualitative) in Case Study. Certain methods are explained together with the tools for producing data and the highlights of trustworthiness. Chapter 4 analyses and reviews the study's findings. Then, it summarizes the practical, theoretical, and pedagogical meanings which are useful to the field of TBLT. There are also the study's shortcomings and recommendations for future research. 11 Chapter 5 presents this study's recommendations and the limits and future research. The study conclusion is also a part of the chapter. 12 LITERATURE REVIEW INTRODUCTION While chapter 1 has mentioned background information and context, this chapter Section 2.2 - reviews the noteworthy information written by researchers in the discipline of Task-based Language Teaching approach. The next section 2.3 explains closely what activities are constituted to a task, shortly called task-activities. The section also discusses how feasible these task-activities are to be aligned with teaching curriculum, materials and teachers’ qualifications. Section 2.4 lies as part of the study “students’ perception” and 2.5 is the presentation of above contents in theoretical framework, linking the teaching and learning factors. Finally, other sections 2.6 and 2.7 are relative studies to the task-based activities, and a summary of featured research points. TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING Task-based Language Teaching approach with tasks as the core is a combination of various activities from Grammar to Oral supporting a real life topic. The term task is gradually used as an alternation for communicative activity (Skehan, 2003), and TBLT can be found as “an offset of CLT” (Kumaravadivelu, 2006, p. 66). The change came from Second Language Acquisition research, showing that learning a language is mostly defined by the learner's internal process, not simply watching or listening to it (Skehan, 1996). However, the access to a language may be manipulated by the teacher, i.e. activating acquisition processes requires a real context or simulation to ensure students engage in social functions such as giving requests, showing directions, and conveying ideas. Brewster et al. (2001) claimed that: “tasks are believed to foster a process of negotiation, modification, rephrasing and experimentation that are at the heart of second language learning” (p. 228). After that, Nunan (2004) affirmed real-life tasks must be included in pedagogical tasks widely from drilling to activation tasks in the class to create communicative opportunities in learning, such as conveying ideas, interaction, as well as presenting needs. Before that, Feez et al. (1998, p.17) summarized the key notions of TBLT instruction: 13 • The focus is on process rather than product. • Basic elements are purposeful activities and tasks that emphasize communication and meaning. • Learners learn language by interacting communicatively and purposeful while engaged in the activities and tasks. • Activities and tasks can be either those that learners might need to achieve in real life, or those that have a pedagogical purpose specific to the classroom. • The difficulty of a task depends on a range of factors including the previous experience of the learners, the complexity of the task, the language required to undertake the task, and the degree of support available. The two emerging features of tasks are authenticity and complexity. Hymes (1971) supposes that L2 learners are expected to be good at both the knowledge and the culture of a language to deal with others in diverse settings. Accordingly, communicative aptitude requires the components of grammar, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and linguistics. From there, the communicative competence is amended by Canale (1983) who posit that it covers strategic competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and grammatical competence which belong to two general systems - linguistics and communication: • Grammatical Competence: a primary component requiring vocabulary knowledge, pronunciation of words, sounds of letters and syllables, stress, intonation as well as grammar (Scarcella et al., 1992). It helps speakers first to use the language structures accurately and then fluency is facilitated as a result (Richards et al., 2002). • Discourse Competence: a link of a succession of sentences or utterances, or intersentential relationships, in a meaningful way (Savignon, 1976). Effective speakers gain a large range of discourse and structures to convey ideas or express emphasis, contrast and cause (Scarcella et al., 1992). Specifically, the cohesion and coherence rules should be utilized in each speech to lead the communication formally or informally (Richards et al., 2002). Students develop not only full linguistic abilities but also the knowledge of contextual and sociocultural patterns. 14 • Sociolinguistic Competence: the social environment where language is employed, including the participants’ roles, the information exchanged, and the interaction styles (Savignon, 1976). Brown et al. (1994) declares that second language learners need stylistic adaptability to obtain the adequate encoding and decoding of the speech. It is advised to distinguish appropriate comments, questions, and nonverbal response during interaction (Richards et al., 2002). • Strategic Competence: strategies to offset the lacks of knowledge (Savignon, 1976), be it linguistic, sociolinguistic, or discourse rules. For example, when second/ foreign language learners forget a particular word of a thing in the target language, they explain it by describing the features of the thing, thus utilizizng a type of communication strategies (Cahyono, 1989). Besides, strategic competence is “the way learners manipulate language in order to meet communicative goals” (Brown et al., 1994, p. 228), such as knowing when and how to start, continue and cease the conversation and how to fix communication failures (Richards et al., 2002). Despite to various levels of communicative competence, a task-based pedagogical design creates possibilities for the participants to speak and expand the English lexicon in varied topics (Boonkit, 2010). From 1987, Rivers already proved that communication drives essentially from interaction. Until Nunan (1989) and Richards et al. (2002), any tasks require more than one macro skill, so meaning-focused activities and all language skills in a classroom should be combined to activate EFL learners’ natural behaviour. Tasks introduce social events into class, making them into lessons, and in return, learners relate lessons to their reality. However, Breen (1987) highlights the frequent discrepancy between what the teacher plans for a task's outcome, and what the students actually obtain out of it, or rather, between what curriculum documents present and what actually occurs in the classroom. Breen (1989, p.205) states “all learners already critically evaluate the tasks they undertake”, which is agreed by other researchers Kumaravadivelu (1991), Barkhuizen (1998); Garrett & Shortall (2002). Accordingly, both teachers and learners decode tasks and other classroom events in different angles originating from their own viewpoints and 15 involvement. Therefore, learners’ perceptions about activities to complete tasks, the task's nature and requirements, and the situations in which the task is carried out also have an impact on learning results (Breen, 1987). Tasks cannot be effective itself if teachers ignore the learners’ attitudes or perceptions about intentional classroom activity. TASKS IN TBLT Skehan (1996) describes a task is “an activity in which meaning is primary, there is some sort of relationship to the real world, task completion has some priority, and the assessment of task performance is in terms of task outcome” (p.38). Accordingly, there are four underlying criteria of a task: meaning, real-world relationship, goal to be worked towards, and evaluated outcome, which has witnessed a variety of additional definitions of a task from latter researchers. Since then, Ellis (2009) proposes four criteria of a task: 1. The primary focus should be on ‘meaning’ (by which is meant that learners should be mainly concerned with processing the semantic and pragmatic meaning of utterances). 2. There should be some kind of ‘gap’ (i.e. a need to convey information, to express an opinion or to infer meaning). 3. Learners should largely have to rely on their own resources (linguistic and nonlinguistic) in order to complete the activity. 4. There is a clearly defined outcome other than the use of language (i.e. the language serves as the means for achieving the outcome, not as an end in its own right). (Ellis, 2009, p.223) • “Meaning” Nunan (2004) defines that “a pedagogical task is a piece of classroom work that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing, or interacting in the target language ... and in which the intention is to convey meaning rather than to manipulate form” (p. 4). Also, Bygate et al. (2013) affirmed that task could be merely identified as “an activity which requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective” (p. 11). Accordingly, a role-play where a group of entrepreneurs argue to solve a case is an instance of a task because it has an objective, but a case where students are instructed to drill a specified grammar item would not be a task. 16 • “Real world” Long et al. (1992) already mentioned that task is “the hundred and one things people do in everyday life, at work, at play, and in between (p. 89)”, including include painting a fence, dressing a child. To make it shorter, Richards et al. (2002, p. 7) ponder tasks as “an activity or action which is carried out as a result of a process to understand a language, for example, drawing a map, performing a command, buying tickets, paying the bills, and driving a car in a city”. Consequently, through learning tasks that are recognizable, authentic, and functional in class, learners can discover both spoken and written language. • “Outcome” Ellis (2009) emphasizes that a task holds a “primary focus on meaning, a ‘gap’, which motivates a need to exchange information or give an opinion, and a clearly defined outcome other than the use of language that is reached by the students using their own language resources” (p. 223). This task gap, according to Furuta et al. (2001) and Nunan (1999), activates and promotes L2 learning through discussions, cooperation, and adjustment processes. When students are motivated to use their available language resources right in the class, “tasks are believed to foster a process of negotiation, modification, rephrasing, and experimentation that are at the heart of second language learning” (Rodgers, 2001, p. 228). Moreover, the way an activity which has an outcome purpose that is not a linguistic focus is processed through a mixture of linguistic abilities during communicative tasks helps promote and integrate skills (Samuda et al., 2008). Similarly, Ellis (2003) also recognizes that a task can prompt the development of productive or receptive skills, oral and writing abilities, and then, various cognitive processes when a pedagogical task is intended to simulate and resemble the real world language. In summary, task is defined as communicative activities where the user's attention is drawn to the meaning, and sharing information to complete a request, rather than grammatical form or structures. Under task instructions, students can employ a variety of linguistic structures to accomplish specific outcomes, so they can process information in the most spontaneous way. 17 Task-based Activities 2.3.1.1 Characteristics of Task-based Activities Stern & Shavelson (1983, p.478) point out that some elements listed below should be considered in designing tasks: • Content: the subject matter to be taught. • Materials: the things that learners can observe/manipulate. • Activities: the things that learners and teachers will be doing during a lesson. • Goals: the teachers’ general aims for the task (these are much more general and vaguer than objectives). • Students: their abilities, needs and interests are important. • Social community: the class as a whole and its sense of ‘groupness’. a. Interest Karatas et al. (2015) concluded that the motivational factors such as attitude or interest in learning a new language may lead to the achievement or failure in the purpose of English lessons. When students got positive feelings of connection with their mentor, they also participated better and frequently and even felt satisfied and motivated with the classroom instruction (Frisby et al., 2010). Therefore, a task itself would be enjoyable because it reflects the interesting real world. Students’ choices to perform tasks and other products in agreement with their will and abilities encourage them to partake in the lessons (Wiggins et al., 2005). According to Scarcella et al. (1992, p.90), tasks produce highly positive student attitudes and enthusiasm if they are thought to be intriguing and appropriate. Interest can be triggered through: • The challenge of performing the task itself: the task must be hard enough to demand an effort on the part of learners, but easy enough for it to be clear that success is within grasp. • The subject of the task should be familiar to the students and imaginative at the same time. Also, in his framework of evaluating a successful task, Ellis (1993, 2009) proposes a student-based principle to measure the extent of task usefulness and/or enjoyment in students’ perception. However, students’ positive or negative feelings to tasks themselves 18 do not prove directly for learning achievement, still, it is worth identifying such interest in and perceptions about the task for effective teaching procedures. b. Interaction Interaction has a positive role in learners’ L2 acquisition process. Vygotsky (1978) verifies that interaction with more proficient speakers helps build higher mental functions socially, which are then processed internally. Ellis (1999) has a similar perspective, arguing that interaction contributes to development of learning because the learner can infer what is said and manipulate the discourse strategies to enhance the linguistic knowledge in production. From a sociocultural standpoint, interaction is a chance for students to work together in linguistic challenges and meaning construction (Gánem-Gutiérrez et al., 2013; Swain, 2000). Once knowledge is internally captured, the activity learnt in social interaction can be performed independently, which underlies the spontaneous communication in practice. With tasks, learners are engaged in meaningful, goal-oriented language use because solving problems and reaching decisions require them to exchange information together for certain mutual outcomes. Communicative tasks in collaboration, in both a verbal and writing format can promote language learning (Ishikawa, 2019; Zhang, 2018). Also, learners create knowledge by means of collaborative dialogue “in which speakers are engaged in problem solving and knowledge building” (Swain, 2000, p. 102). Collaboration feature in tasks inspire students to collaborate as a result of anxiety reduction and comforts in expressing ideas (Frisby et al., 2010; Tatto et al., 2003). Interaction, classroom connectedness and participation is sparked in performing tasks, which is mainly the goal of teaching purposes. c. Authenticity Learning a language is not just to practice skills learners would apply outside the classroom, but also to study about different cultures. The term authenticity is to reflect the natural forms – both oral and written – in appropriate culture and situations (Rogers et al., 1988). Authentic texts give learners close access to the target language culture, making learning not just a duty but more enjoyable and therefore more inspiring (Bacon et al., 1990; King, 1990). Additionally, authentic materials can help students to strengthen the 19 direct connection between the outside world and the language classroom (Brinton, 2001). Emphatically, Nunan (1999) understands that only using in-classroom authentic resources is unrealistic for teachers, but “learners should be fed as rich a diet of authentic data as possible, because, ultimately, if they only encounter contrived dialogues and listening texts, their learning task would be made more difficult" (p.27). In contrast, to McGrath (2002), learners will be less well prepared for the real communications if they are exposed to fewer authentic samples of language, which is also suggested by Bahrani et al. (2013) that authentic materials embody the world outside the classroom setting and can aid learners to be familiar with the immediate linguistic relevance in reality. Since language is a tool of communication, authenticity helps learners convey the message, meeting exactly their needs. Koole (2009) believes that when students are aware of an essential purpose for doing tasks, learner motivation rises. From this perspective, a task is authentic because it has a clear connection to realworld requirements. Nunan (2004) determines that authentic input is a central characteristic of TBLT. Also, Ellis (2003) proposes a further distinction of authenticity: situational and interactional. A situational task mimics the real-world contexts like conversations between a customer and a waiter; and an interactional task, on the other hand, prompts language patterns that may be used for real communicative goals whether the task itself happens outside the classroom, such as an information gap task to find the missing points between two images. In the digital technology era, authentic samples can be easily exposed through the web pages where there are unlimited sources of real-life contents (Chinnery, 2014). There are other teaching and learning resources beside institutional resources and so, authenticity can now be easily retrieved by learners themselves (Stockwell, 2013). The feasibility and usefulness of task can motivate learners because they are intrinsically more exciting and inspiring than self-made or theoretical materials. d. Task Complexity In EFL, learners find it difficult when a language text is long, a number of vocabulary with a low frequency appear, the pace of spoken texts is fast, a few speakers exchange at once, metaphor and the discourse structures are added. Skehan (1996) has usefully identified task difficulty as complexity of the language, cognitive weight, and performance circumstances. According to Robinson (2001), the task complexity implies the cognitive 20