Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching in the Teaching of English Morphology

It can be argued that  there are some important things that need to be taken into account concerning  the preliminary activities that have to be done before coming to the task activity.  Preparation to the learning activity has been well prepared. The activity of  introduction to topic, and ways to help students recall useful words and phrases and learn new ones  will  help them cope with the task. It also would be better to explore different ways of helping students to understand task instructions.

 

2). Task cycle 

 

       Through interview data on the task cycle it was revealed that in conducting the task activity the lecturer said that they  asked the students to carry out the tasks either individually or  in small groups. But nearly most of the lecturer preferred to  ask students  doing the tasks in small groups. The lecturers also involved all students actively in doing the task activity to explore the topic that being discussed. However,  interview data from students showed that  the design of task is not varied, the activity in doing task monotonously in one way activity. It was also found that  after  completing the task  they  are asked to come in front of the classroom to tell the class about their result of discussion. Moreover, this sequences of activity sometimes do not conducted properly in learning process.   After do the task, usually the students immediately come in front of the classroom and  present the findings.  Eventhough, some of the lecturers  take  a briefly time to setting up  such a planning before the report stage.

• In Task-Based Learning framework, the planning stage which comes after the task and before the report, forming the central part of the task cycle. It describes how to help learners plan their reports effectively and maximise their learning opportunities.The report stages, then, gives students a natural stimulus to upgrade and improve their language. It presents a very real linguistic challenge -- to communicate clearly and in accurate language appropriate to the circumstances.

3). Language focus.

      

       After students do the sequences of tasks, it is important to get students to identify and think  about particular features of language form and language use. The students also explained that this will help them to recognise the new features when they meet them again, both inside and outside class. This kind of activities will also lead them to a deeper understanding  the meanings and uses. However, some students argue that only some of them participated actively in this analysis activities, while the other stay passively due to their less motivation and confidence. It is not easy to draw students' attention in this sequences of activities. Although, this kind of activity will help them systematize their knowledge and broaden their understanding .

Willis (1996) suggested that before conducting  a range of analysis activities, it is important to examine how the language analysis should be handled. There have been some steps to be considered, those are ; setting up analysis activities, monitoring analysis activities, reviewing analysis activities. Moreover, Willis(1996) argue that this not only make sense in terms of motivation,  it also make sense in terms of language description. One of the biggest problem in the classroom  is finding a meaningful context to illustrate samples of the language. It is obviously important to expose learners to a well-balanced pedagogic corpus, so as to give students as wide a range of language types and topics as they are likely to need.  The aim of such activities is to draw students' attention  to the surface forms  realizing the meanings they have already become familiar with during the task cycle and so help them to systematize their knowledge and broaden their understanding.

The Advantages  and the Implementation Challenges of Task-Based Learning on English Morphology Class

As a pedagogical innovation that aims at solving the problems existing in the traditional language classrooms, task-based language teaching provides many benefits to English language teaching and Ellis (2009) list these benefits as follows:

• Task-based language teaching provides the opportunity for 'natural' learning within the classroom context
• It stresses meaning over form ; however, it can also emphasize learning form
• It offers learners a fertile input of target language
• It is intrinsically motivating
• It is consistent with a learner-focused educational philosophy but also gives permission for teacher input and guidance
• It contributes to the improvement of communicative fluency while not disregarding accuracy
• It can be deployed together with  a more traditional approach
• Task based learning is not just about getting learners to do one task and then another task and then another. For the task to promote constant learning and improvement, it should be seen as just one component in a larger framework. So a task-based lesson would probably involve not a single task, but a sequence of task. These tasks relate to one another. In order to promote language development, the teachers should provide a rich diet of activities which focus on meaning (Willis & Willis, 2007). At different stages in a task cycle there will be different kinds of opportunities for learners to focus on language. A focus on language occurs naturally when learners pause in their attempts to process language for  meaning and switch to thinking about the language itself.  This is true for students as they engaged such this activity in the classroom. However,  based on the  data collected from interview with students sometimes teachers direct learners' attention to specific forms. The teacher stops a learner and offer correction.  Meanwhile the lecturers, who are the respondents of this study said that they also encouraged students to use the language as much as possible, even this means that some of the language they produce is inaccurate. They even participated in the interaction by helping students to clarify what they want to say. Some of students explained that the teachers always engage them to work in pairs or groups. It is true that many task-based teachers like learners to work in pairs or group. This  is generally because this gives learners more opportunities to use the language for themselves. From the student's position, doing  a task in pairs or groups has a number of advantages.