TBL Implementation To Develop Productive Skills In A Group Of Beginners Students At “Integrado Juan Atalaya” School

Abstract

This research report is the result of a small-scale study aimed to identify the main contributions and limitations of implementing Task-Based Learning (TBL) in a group of 9th graders students at “Integrado Juan Atalaya”School in Cucuta with a beginner English level and who needed to enhance their productive skills. Action research was the most appropriate methodology to address this problem by planning and implementing ten lessons following the TBL structure. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, teacher’s journal, observations, artifacts, and then, analyzed utilizing the inductive method. The findings show that TBL raises students’ language awareness which helps them to understand how English works and to gain confidence to express their ideas and communicate in real contexts. TBL also stimulates speaking and writing through collaborative work which encourages students to interact among themselves while completing the task. Moreover, TBL enhances students’ self-efficacy when getting support from their peers and teacher who made them discover and believe in their own capacities to accomplish the corresponding tasks. Some of the limitations identified were the need of using scaffolding strategies to help students cope with the language demands to develop the task, the lack of time to carry out all the stages of the lesson, and the possibility of having students who do not contribute too much to the group and their real English level is camouflaged.