EFFECTS OF TASK-BASED INSTRUCTION AND NOTICING THE GAP ON ENGLISH SPEAKING ABILITY OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Abstract

The objectives of the study were to: (1) investigate the effects of task-based instruction and noticing the gap on students’ English speaking ability; and (2) explore students’ opinions toward the use of task-based instruction and noticing the gap on English speaking ability. The participants were 18 first-year students in the first semester of the academic year 2014 at Bangkok Institute of Theology, Christian University of Thailand for the quantitative method; and 6 out of the 18 students for the qualitative method. The data collection instruments were English speaking pre-test and post-test, transcriptions, stimulated recall, and interview questions. Wilcoxon signed ranks test was used for quantitative data analysis, and content analysis was used for qualitative data analysis. The results revealed that (1) the students’ English speaking ability post-test scores were higher than the pre-test scores at a significant level (p<0.05). The scores increased in the task that required short utterances more than those that required long utterances. The students noticed grammatical range and accuracy the most, then fluency and coherence, pronunciation, and lexical resource respectively. (2) The students felt positive toward the instruction e.g. they experienced a new way of learning and became confident in speaking English. However, some problems occurred regarding the students e.g. some of them could not correctly form the intended messages and lacked confidence to notice the gap alone.