ENHANCING READING AND WRITING SKILLS AMONG STUDENTS THROUGH TBLT METHOD

International Journal of Mechanical and Production Engineering Research and Development (IJMPERD) ISSN (P): 2249–6890; ISSN (E): 2249–8001 Vol. 10, Issue 3, Jun 2020, 3081-3088 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

ENHANCING READING AND WRITING SKILLS AMONG STUDENTS THROUGH TBLT METHOD ANUP DENZIL VEIGAS1 & Dr DAVID WILSON2 1

Research Scholar, Karunya Unviersity Coimbatore, India 2

Professor, Karunya University, Coimbatore, India

ABSTRACT English is a language that has acclaimed global standard. It serves the need and purpose of various sections. If we consider the English language in the Indian classroom context there is always a double edged challenge among the learners. One group of learners who have a wide experience in dealing with the language at different levels of experience and the other group who are from a regional medium and the ones who lack fluency and art of mastery over the language. A study conducted among two colleges under a specific university, one which is a semi urban and another rural college showed the performance difference between the common and elite group of students, the major concern rests on the language tutor on adapting a specific teaching learning tool to incorporate these two set of learners who are divided in their linguistic calibre. The following paper shows the result achieved through task based language teaching atmosphere.

KEYWORDS: Language, Mastery, Experience & Classroom

Received: Jun 06, 2020; Accepted: Jun 26, 2020; Published: Jul 11, 2020; Paper Id.: IJMPERDJUN2020292

Original Article

learning method to put these differences aside and utilize various activities for happy language learning in a classroom

INTRODUCTION Task based language teaching saw its emergence in the 20th century as a step towards language teaching. In a classroom context we have a structured syllabus, textbook, teaching material but reliability cannot be entrusted on only these because classroom situation and the type of learners matter more than the teaching content. The teacher finds the challenge in teaching when there is this blend of learners who are well versed in the language on one side and weak learners on the other side, the basic difficulty occurs when the teacher has to decide the method for teaching both these groups. Some of the challenges the instructor must keep in mind would be (i) the need of each learner and how to satisfy this need (ii) what type of method best suits for teaching prose, poetry or grammar (iii) how to make the content easy especially to the weak learners and what method to use for teaching, learning and testing (iv) emphasising on LSRW skills which are not only needed to the present day but even to their future (v) how to develop the confidence among the weak learners especially towards the subject.

For solving these problems one method that can be used among many other teaching learning methods and also can be termed as important and effective is the TBLT method. In short this method indulges the group of learners to take up tasks given by the instructor in groups or as individual learners, and also enables them to generate their own tasks within small groups. Tasks can be generated by taking concepts from the syllabus itself and preferably in the target language. This experience of learning develops confidence and makes the learners to develop, design and execute new tasks that are helpful to build their morale in the whole learning process. Ayers

www.tjprc.org

SCOPUS Indexed Journal

editor@tjprc.org

3082

Anup Denzil Veigas & Dr David Wilson

refers it as: “Standardized texts can’t measure initiative, creativity, imagination, conceptual thinking, curiosity, effort, irony, judgement, commitment, nuance, goodwill, ethical reflection or a host of other valuable dispositions and attributes.

What they can measure and count are isolated skills, specific facts and functions, the least interesting and least significant aspects of learning”.

It is found that when it comes to language learning one section of students who find learning extremely difficult are the ones who have come from the regional medium or the ones who have strong mother tongue influence. These students always like to hide behind their weakness and later on they struggle heavily when they lose good career opportunities, these students are considerable in number in each classroom and the number increases when we move towards the rural colleges, these students must be the subjects of improvement hence in order to develop confidence the tutor could indulge them into tasks to determine their performance. Breen refers to tasks as: “any structural learning endeavour which has a particular objective, appropriate content, a specified working procedure and a range of outcomes for those who undertake the task”. When it comes to learning students become more serious at the last minute as put forth

by Paul &Elder “ In a class that consists mainly of lectures with periodic quizzes and examinations, students can often get a passing grade by ‘cramming’ the night before quizzes and tests” (2009, p.288). The process of education has its own complexity as referred by Williams & Burden “an intricate interplay between the learning process itself, the teacher’s intentions and actions, the individual personalities of the learners, their culture and background, the learning environment and a host of other variables. The successful educator must be one who understands the complexities of the teaching – learning process and can draw upon this knowledge to act in ways which empower learners both within and beyond the classroom situation”.(1997:5)

LITERATURE REVIEW Syllabus is always a major content of classroom teaching and learning it’s a formatted content which is ready to use. David Nuan (1988) divides the content of syllabus on the following parameters, he classifies them in various forms and at one segment divides it as the task based syllabus. This is one where creativity is at a challenge; let’s look at the various other divisions of syllabus types: 

Product-oriented syllabus



Analytic and synthetic syllabus



Grammatical syllabuses



Functional-notional syllabuses



Analytic syllabuses



Task-based syllabuses Learners mind is a hub of cognitive efficiency; this can be activated when the learners are executed with tasks in

the form of input, process, and action. Mind is a place that works and executes ideas; Williams & Burdens make their observation as: “Such factors as attention, perception and memory become the focus of the work of information processing theorists. Most usually, they construct models.....to try to account for the way in which the human mind works. In doing so,

Impact Factor (JCC): 8.8746

SCOPUS Indexed Journal

NAAS Rating: 3.11

Enhancing Reading and Writing Skills among Students Through TBLT Method

3083

they claim to be able to predict the kind of mental process that will be necessary for effective learning to take place and to identify precisely how and where any malfunctioning is occurring when a person is displaying learning difficulties”.

(1997:15).Challenges must be a common factor that supports the growth of any learner, through challenges the learner learns the art of tackling and facing tasks, Borich and Tombari have given their perspective on the concept of growth through challenges as follows: “ how they respond to the problem they encounter, react to what they see or hear, predict what might happen in future, comprehend what they read, understand the similarities and differences between different objects and ideas and create solution for problems that puzzle them” (1995).

Designing the required tasks to each unit or a concept is a skill approach. This design needs some cognition and thinking from the tutors side, this idea of task design can be summarised as; “At a more practical level, critical Pedagogists design appropriate curricula and classroom activities that facilitate pedagogical interactions between macro level factors such as linguistics, cultural, political and social dynamics and micro level lived experiences that teachers and students bring with them to the classroom through problem solving activities, they help students problematize familiar and taken for granted issues so that students can perceive and interpret them from a critical perspective”.(Kumaravadivelu, 2012:82).

Branden views the concept of tasks as “tasks can be used to elicit language production, interaction, negotiation of meaning, processing of input, and focus on form, all of which are believed to foster second language acquisition”. (2008) a task is a constructed activity that has a constructive plan as Ellis (2003:16) defines it as: “A task is a work plan that requires learners to process language pragmatically in order to achieve an outcome that can be evaluated in terms of whether the correct or appropriate propositional content has been conveyed. To this end, it requires them to give primary attention to meaning and to make use of their own linguistic resources although the design of the task may predispose them to choose particular forms. A task is intended to result in language use that bears a resemblance, direct or indirect, to the way language is used in the real world. Like other language activities, a task can engage productive or receptive, and oral or written skills and also various cognitive processes”.

Task based learning has a specific relation with LSRW skills, these can be defined as needs, Dickinson defines the concept of needs as: “Needs are those skills which a learner perceives as being relevant to him: wants are a subset of needs, those which a learner puts at a high priority given the time available: and the lack is the difference a learner perceives between his present competence in a particular skill and the competence he wishes to achieve (Dickinson 1991:88).

METHODOLOGY The present study focuses on the task based learning as an effective tool to enhance the reading and writing skill among the students. The secondary data for the study was gathered through electronic and print media that includes the newspapers, articles related to the following topic in magazines and journals. The primary data was collected through questionnaire and interview method. Researcher has conducted Task Based Learning Activities in two different colleges. The research took place at two Degree colleges in Mangaluru, one was an urban college and the other a rural college. The respondents included first year degree students a total of 150 students, who were divided into 90 boys and 60 girls. Their division was done based on the medium of instruction, mother tongue, urban and rural background etc. The selection was based on a heterogeneous background and a whole class itself was selected they were a mixed group of students some were academically weak but others were quite good in their performance. Before the beginning of the selection process the students were given the required input and they were advised to be frank and open to answer the questions. In order to develop confidence they were also given a chance to revise and look into the prescribed syllabus. The confidentiality of the www.tjprc.org

SCOPUS Indexed Journal

editor@tjprc.org

3084

Anup Denzil Veigas & Dr David Wilson

respondents response was assured and the students were provided with a pre-test and a post-test both had separate questionnaire and separate question papers were then administered to the participants. After introducing and administering the TBLT method of teaching, exam was conducted. Results showed that TBLT was an effective teaching learning outcome in language learning. The TBLT method consisted activities based on Prose, Poetry, Grammar and vocabulary this was taken from the prescribed texts. This was done due to the restriction of time and instruction from their management because about 20hours of their regular class hours was spent on these activities and also another reason was the students to know and understand the text that was already prescribed for them.

EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS Table 1: Population division on the basis of Gender, Area, Medium of Instruction and Native Language Gender Male-90 Female-60 Urban-58 Rural-32 Urban-45 Rural-15 Area Medium Eng-43 Kan-15 Eng-19 Kan-13 Eng-36 Kan-09 Eng-05 Kan-10 Native Language 14 05 10 06 10 04 03 04 Tulu 14 06 04 04 15 02 01 02 Konkani 06 02 01 04 01 01 Kannada 09 04 03 02 07 02 01 03 Byari Total 53 15 19 13 36 09 05 10

Tabel 1 Shows a comprehensive picture about the division of the selected learners a total of 150 based on their gender i.e. 90 male and 60 female participants. They were divided according to their background 58 male students were from the urban area with 43 studying in English medium and 15 studying in Kannada medium. The remaining 32 male students were from rural, semi – rural area of which 19 students studied in English medium and 15 students studied in Kannada medium. Among the females 45 were from urban area out of which 36 studied in English medium and 09 studied in Kannada medium. Remaining 15 were from rural, semi-rural area with 05 studying in English medium and 10 studying in Kannada medium.

The division of language of the male, urban English medium students was 14 had Tulu as their Mother tongue, 14 spoke Konkani, 06 spoke Kannada and 09 spoke Byari. Among the Urban Kannada medium students 05 spoke Tulu, 06 had Konkani, 04 had Byari and none had Kannada as their Mother Tongue. Among the Rural English medium male students 10 students spoke Tulu, 04 Konkani, 02 Kannada and 03 Byari as their Mother tongue. Similarly among the female students from urban English medium 10 spoke Tulu, 15 Konkani, 04 Kannada and 07 Byari as their Mother tongue and among the urban Kannada medium 04 had Tulu, 02 had Konkani, 01 had Kannada and 02 had Byari. Among the rural English medium students 03 had Tulu, 01 had Konkani, 01 had Byari as their mother tongue and none had Kannada as their Mother tongue. And among the rural Kannada medium students 04 had Tulu, 02 had Konkani, 01 had Kannada and 03 had Byari as their Mother tongue.

Task Based Language Teaching TBLT can be best defined as a method or a concept for teaching a language. Most important is that these activities reflect real life situations. When the learners are taken through activities, they are focused for achieving a goal through the language use. The major purpose of TBLT is to make a learner centric approach where the learner himself becomes the focus than the instructor. The instructor leads the learner in the path of learning by making them recognize their errors and

Impact Factor (JCC): 8.8746

SCOPUS Indexed Journal

NAAS Rating: 3.11

Enhancing Reading and Writing Skills among Students Through TBLT Method

3085

clarify their concerns. TBLT has three stages they are the pre task stage, during the task and post task stage.

The three stages of TBLT have shown in the following chart 1:

Figure 1: Stages of TBLT Sample Structure for Task Based Learning Activity on Reading and Writing Task: Select Content Words that Describe Personality Pre-task: A comprehension passage unseen by the students is given to the students. Then the students are asked to find words that describe personality, in this process the students read the passage and collect a number of words that describe personality. Match the words to describe any renowned personality.

During the Task: Make the learners work individually or in groups or pairs, with the words they have selected through the reading time, they start describing any renowned personality.

Post Task: Based on the pair or group work, the learners present their assignment and the others observe their presentation and assess the performance at the end of every presentation. The tutor makes the final observation.

Table 2: Pre Test Reading Comprehension Scoring Marks Male Female Total 0-1 6 2 8 2-3 15 10 25 4-5 24 22 46 6-7 30 20 50 8-10 15 6 21 Total 90 60 150 Source: Primary Data The present table 2 shows the marks scored by male and female students in a pre-test reading comprehension exercise with total marks of 10. The marks from 0-1 was scored by a total of 8 students 6 male and 2 female students these were the least number of marks that were scored, possibly the following students were from a weak background. 25 students scored between 2-3 marks, out of which 15 were male and 10 female students these students had problems in understanding certain terms. 46 students scored 4-5 marks with 24 male students and 22 female students these students had difficulty in vocabulary and conceptual questions. 50 students scored between 6-7 marks out of which 30 were male and 20 were female these students had problems in vocabulary related questions. 21 students scored in the range of 8-10 in which 15 were male and 6 were female. www.tjprc.org

SCOPUS Indexed Journal

editor@tjprc.org

3086

Anup Denzil Veigas & Dr David Wilson Table 3: Post Test Reading Comprehension Scoring Marks Male Female Total 0-1 2-3 12 4 16 4-5 20 17 37 6-7 31 13 44 8-10 27 26 53 Total 90 60 150 Source: Primary Data The present table 3 shows the marks scored by male and female students in a post test reading comprehension

exercise with total marks of 10. None of the students scored the marks from 0-1which shows activities help students to improve in reading comprehension. 16 students scored between 2-3 marks, out of which 12 were male and 4 female students these students had improved in their understanding of the subject content. 37 students scored 4-5 marks with 20 male students and 17 female students these students had improved in vocabulary and conceptual questions. 44 students scored between 6-7 marks out of which 31 were male and 13 were female these students had improved their scoring in many questions but had problems in vocabulary related questions. 53 students scored in the range of 8-10 in which 27 were male and 26 were female this group saw a huge hike in improvement of their performance.

Table 4: Pre Test Writing Exercise Scoring Marks Male Female Total 0-1 13 04 17 2-3 32 12 44 4-5 25 34 59 6-7 14 04 18 8-10 06 06 12 Total 90 60 150 Source: Primary Data The present table 4 shows the marks scored by male and female students in a pre test writing exercise with total marks of 10. A total of 17 students scored the marks from 0-1 out of which 13 were male and 4 were female students these students lacked the traits of effective writing skill. 44 students scored between 2-3 marks, out of which 32 were male and 12 female students these students had deviated from subject content and had writing errors generally in Grammar. 59 students scored 4-5 marks with 25 male students and 34 female students these students had written on the content but they had technical issues with writing. 18 students scored between 6-7 marks out of which 14 were male and 04 were female these students had knowledge about the subject but missed to apply appropriate content. 12 students scored in the range of 8-10 in which 06 were male and 06 were female these students had good language skill and were aware about the concepts.

Table 5: Post Test Writing Exercise Scoring Marks Male Female Total 0-1 2-3 17 10 27 4-5 34 15 49 6-7 27 12 39 8-10 12 23 35 Total 90 60 150 Source: Primary Data The present table 5 shows the marks scored by male and female students in a post test writing exercise with total marks of 10. This scoring analysis is done after the intervention teaching activity. No students scored between 0-1 mark as Impact Factor (JCC): 8.8746

SCOPUS Indexed Journal

NAAS Rating: 3.11

Enhancing Reading and Writing Skills among Students Through TBLT Method

3087

all of them put in a coordinated effort to improve on their writing. 27 students scored between 2-3 marks, out of which 17 were male and 10 female students these students had improved on the subject content and had writing errors generally in Grammar. 49 students scored 4-5 marks with 34 male students and 15 female students these students had improved on their written content and had lesser technical issues with writing. 39 students scored between 6-7 marks out of which 27 were male and 12 were female these students had knowledge about the subject and had worked on applying appropriate content.

35 students scored in the range of 8-10 in which 12 were male and 23 were female these students had good language skill and were creative and were furnished in their writing about the concepts.

CONCLUSIONS Writing and Reading are lifetime skills that have to be used all through a person’s existence in academic and professional scenario. TBLT also known as TBI (task based instruction) is considered to be one of the teaching learning methods that emerged in the 20th century, its emergence in India was popularised by N. S Prabhu there are even others who have worked upon this teaching learning methods. This method most accurately suits the Indian language classroom because of the differences that are present among the learners on the basis of region, culture, language and status. TBLT is not only unique but can also be termed as an easy method to generate interest in learners make them creative and put them to think by devising various activities. This can be more learner centric than teacher centric and also can be more focused and result oriented. Think, apply and solve are the three primary principals that govern the task activity outcome.

TBLT cannot be termed as a complete success but also has its own drawback especially when there are large classrooms and more weak learners the task implementation can become more laborious and time consuming. Guiding and selecting the type of task can be another challenge for the tutor or the learner as well. Lack of time, space, academic schedule and small classroom space, all these may contribute to more difficulties than success. However, the rate of success and result is directly linked to the instructor on how wisely and appropriately he or she modules the whole excercise.

REFERENCES 1.

Ayers, W. 1993.To teach: The Journey of a teacher. New York: Teachers College Press.

2.

Borich, G. Tombari. M (1995). Educational psychology: A contemporary approach. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers.

3.

B. Janaki, “Prospective Graduates’ Attitudes Towards English Language Learning in Bahrain”, International Journal of Linguisticsand Literature (IJLL), Vol. 7, Issue 2, pp.13-18

4.

Branden K. V. D (2008). Task Based Language Education: From Theory to Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

5.

Breen M.P.1987. Learner contribution to task design. NJ: Prentice Hall. 5formance is maximally effective for language development.

6.

Muhammad Aminu Mode, “A Preliminary Note on the Use of Language Laboratory for Effective Teaching /Learning of Foreign Language (English) in Nigeria”, BEST: International Journal of Humanities, Arts, Medicine and Sciences (BEST: IJHAMS), Vol. 3, Issue 12, pp. 49-56

7.

Dickinson L.1991. Self- instruction in language learning Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

8.

Deepika Nelson, Julia Devardhi & Mulu Berhanu, “Gender Perspective and Language Learning Strategy in the EFL

www.tjprc.org

SCOPUS Indexed Journal

editor@tjprc.org

3088

Anup Denzil Veigas & Dr David Wilson Classroom”, IMPACT: International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Literature (IMPACT: IJRHAL), Vol. 2, Issue 8, pp. 63-74

9.

Ellis, R (2003).Task – based Language Learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press

10. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012). Language Teacher Education for a Global Society. Routledge.

11. Nunan David, (1988): “Syllabus Design”, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

12. Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2009). Critical thinking, creativity, ethical reasoning: A unity of opposites. In Morality, ethics and gifted minds. Springer US. 13. Ashish Tamrakar & Vishnu Kumar Mishra, “Natural Language Query Processing Based on Fuzzy Logic”, International Journal of Computer Scienceand Engineering (IJCSE), Vol. 3, Issue 2, pp. 105-110 14. Task Based Learning, 16th December 2019, retrieved from https://www.languages.dk/archive/pools-m/manuals/TBL.pdf.

15. Williams M & Burden R.L (1997). Psychology for Language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Impact Factor (JCC): 8.8746

SCOPUS Indexed Journal

NAAS Rating: 3.11