Student Achievement in a Task-Based Spanish Classroom Deandrea M

Student Achievement in a Task-based Spanish Classroom DeAndrea M. Harris Southern Oregon University July 2012 Task-Based Instruction 2 Introduction I began teaching high school Spanish in 2008. Initially, I taught in a quasi-suburban high school on the outskirts of Dallas before moving to my current district. Like most new teachers, I was idealistic and ready to change the world. A year in, I began to suffer disillusionment, feeling rundown and overwhelmed by the general apathy that I received from my students in response to my carefully and painstakingly crafted lessons. They just didn’t seem to care. They viewed Spanish as impossible and impractical. “I suck at Spanish,” “When are we ever going to use this in real life?” and “Why don’t they just learn English?” were questions and statements I heard every day. Despite living in a state in which nearly one-third of the population speaks Spanish and fifteen percent of all students are classified as English Language Learners, my students could not see the day-to-day utility of learning Spanish as a second language. I’ve since moved on from that first school and first year of teaching. In fact, because of the economy, I’m on my third school in four years. Yet, despite the revolving faces and buildings, the question has always remained obstinately the same: When are we ever going to use this? And after, four years, I’ve begun to agree with the students. Not on the utility of Spanish; Spanish has kept me clothed, fed and sheltered. But rather, I can understand why the students fail to see the relevancy. Our curricula aren’t truly designed for students to understand that there are real-life, relevant applications to the material that is being taught. We neatly gather vocabulary and grammar into convenient bundles which we then call units. We teach. We practice. We test. The students can now say that they are making a bed using the present progressive tense correctly at least eighty-five percent of the time, so we move on. Then we as teachers find ourselves dismayed when the students can barely recall learning the lesson when asked to use the vocabulary or concept later on. I began to ponder whether the students’ achievement would change if they could be shown “when are we ever going to use this?” Task-Based Instruction 3 Initially, I was intending to focus on student self-efficacy, which in my mind was empowering the students in their own language learning experience, but after a single grading period, I realized that this did not adequately encompass the question I was actually trying to answer. In fact, I wasn’t even sure how to study or measure “self-efficacy.” As I was mulling over this new obstacle, a co-worker abruptly decided to take a medical retirement. As she was cleaning out her room, she “gifted” me a variety of books that she had collected over the decades. In that collection, I noticed a book called Buen Viaje . It was designed to help students learn Spanish through a thematic project, based on the premise that the students were travelling abroad to a Spanish-speaking country as youth ambassadors on behalf of the United States. After looking through the book, I noticed that it closely aligned to our curriculum albeit with some discrepancies. I decided to implement the project, wanting to know if student achievement would increase if information is taught using authentic tasks. Purpose Statement The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether or not task-based instruction can positively affect student achievement in my level 2 Spanish classes and to describe any changes, positive or negative, that might occur. The specific research question is: 1. Is there any change in student achievement when material is taught in the format of task-based instruction rather than in grammar- and vocabulary-themed units? If a discernible, positive response presents itself, this information will be of value to my vertical and horizontal alignment teaching teammates and could possibly be used to help guide curriculum planning for the next academic year. Task-Based Instruction 4 Literature Review Language teaching is an ever-evolving discipline that has seen many renaissances, revolutions and reincarnations that run a wide gamut. In a field that is ever-searching for the elusive one-size-fits-all method that will allow complete success for all language learners, there is a constant evaluation and adaption of new methodologies in an attempt to address the deficiencies of previous methodology. Beginning in the 18 th century with the Grammar-translation method, there have been numerous transformations of language teaching best practices. Over time, the isolated use of specific methodology has fallen out of favor, but such popularity is cyclical and there are still remnants of each previous methodology being used today rendering knowledge of prior methodology important (See Table 1). Type of Method Description of Method Example of Method Structural Methods Language is a system of structurally • Grammar-translation Method related elements used to code • Audio-lingual method meaning (Richardson, 2010) Functional Methods Language is a vehicle to express or • Oral approach/ situational accomplish a certain function Teaching (Richardson, 2010) • Directed Practice Interactive Methods Language is a tool for achieving • Direct Method communication or some other non- • Series Method linguistic goal rather than a set of • Communicative Language phonological, grammatical and Teaching lexical items to be studied for the • Language Immersion purpose of learning the language; • Silent Way requires participants to function as • Suggestopedia users rather than learners. (Nunan, • Natural Approach 2004; Ellis, Basturkmen & Loewen, • Total Physical Response 2001) • TPRS • Dogme Language Teaching Proprietary Methods that are tied to a • Pimsleur Method Methods particular company or school rather • Michael Thomas Method than employed in mainstream language teaching. Other Does not fall into any other • Learning by Teaching category/Not widespread in use Table 1. Language Teaching Methodology Task-Based Instruction 5 Currently gaining widespread popularity is Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) which emphasizes that language is for communication; it is a negotiation of meaning over an information gap which necessitates speaker interaction (Nakahama, Tyler & Lier, 2001). A more specific component of CLT is Task-Basked Language Learning also known as Task-Based Language Teaching or Task-Based Instruction (TBI). Task-Based Language Learning focuses on the successful completion of real-world or target tasks, referring to the use of the target language in the world beyond the classroom (Nunan, 2004), in order to create a real purpose for language and natural context for language study (Izadpanah, 2010). While one aspect of concern in the Task-Based Language Teaching classroom is whether form is overshadowed by meaning, there are methods to address this concern and maximize student learning through task planning (Long, 2000). In contrast is the often maligned “traditional” approach featuring classroom- confined pedagogical tasks (Nunan, 2004) in which the assumed goal is “a complete, in-depth mastery of the target language, and [it is also assumed] that the learner would be willing to study for some years before applying practically what had been learned” (Swarbrick, 2007). What are my intentions? Most importantly, I want to provide context and relevancy for the material my students are learning. In his paper on task-based needs analysis, Lambert reflected on the idea of TENOR ( Teaching English for No Obvious Reason ). First coined by West (1994), TENOR is an aimless environment which often results in unfocused instruction, lower than normal learner motivation and achievement, and students who have no clear idea of what they have learned and lack the ability to use it in any real life situation or for any functional purpose (West, 2010). I personally feel like this same scenario is prevalent in foreign language classrooms, particularly in lower level classes where students don’t have the motivating impetus of preparing for the Advanced Placement tests or any true ability to use what they Task-Based Instruction 6 have learned for real-life conversation. According Deci and Ryan’s (2000) investigation of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, this means students are often outwardly compliant to teacher requests but internally operate in a state of introjected regulation. The students superficially follow guidelines in order to attain a desired, tangible reward, such as grades, or to avoid a punishment, sanctions by adults). However, the students ultimately have failed to internalize, identify with or personally endorse the objective (e.g., learning a specific lexical or grammatical item). Until students identify with the objective, meaning that they recognize and accept the underlying value of the behavior, the capacity for high quality learning is greatly diminished (Ryan & Deci, 2000). This diminished capacity, caused by a lack of a clear and relevant objectives, could possibly be augmented through the use of TBI since “tasks provide the purposes that unify other possible units of analysis (e.g. vocabulary, structures, functions, etc.), as these aspects of performance are ultimately understood and evaluated in terms of their effectiveness in completing the task being performed” (West, 2010). That is to say, perhaps if students understood the purpose of the objective, motivation to complete the objective well would also increase. The concern in utilizing “traditional” classroom instruction is that it is typically lecture-based. This format is also known as Presentation, Practice, Production or PPP (de la Fuente, 2006), an antiquated style originating from the days before the development of mass production of textbooks. These lectures and presentations are designed to deliver as much information as possible as quickly as possible. While this method was once the most effective and efficient for rapid dissemination of information, it has also allowed the students to become passive classroom participants at best rather than being active and engaged in the learning process (Janagam, Suresh & Nagarathinam, 2011).

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