University Lecturers’ Task-Based Language Teaching Beliefs and Practices

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the beliefs and practices of task-based language teaching (TBLT) among lecturers in English as a foreign language (EFL) at technical universities in Vietnam. A total of 136 lecturers completed the questionnaire and seven of whom participated in semi-structured interviews. Findings indicated that the lecturers had positive views toward the TBLT approach and showed a willingness to use it in their classrooms, although they also shared notable challenges related to the technique. The results also showed significant differences in understanding of TBLT among lecturers with different years of experience; however, years of experience and qualifications did not affect the lecturers’ views on or implementation of TBLT. The study offers several implications for better understanding and more effectively implementing TBLT approaches in the classroom.

1. Introduction

The National Foreign Language Project (2008–2020) and its extension (2017–2025) have had considerable impacts on English education at all levels in Vietnam [1]. Besides infrastructure investment, profound changes in perspectives in English language teaching such as teaching methodologies were introduced. The traditional grammar–translation method that long prevailed in most English classrooms has shifted gradually to communicative language teaching (CLT), more specifically, task-based language teaching (TBLT), because the Vietnamese government and its people are realizing the importance of communicative purposes in learning a foreign language [2].

Although Vietnamese education authorities have declared communication the aim of English teaching and learning and have made communicative teaching their propaganda campaign across all education levels from primary to tertiary by Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) [3], no researchers have comprehensively examined how these approaches have been implemented across the country. The national teaching curriculum changed, and teachers began attending professional development programs. Foreign textbooks were locally rewritten or adapted to actualize communicative learner-centered approaches, with individual, paired, and group work and teacher–student interaction built on a task-based framework [3]. However, all these preparations are only prerequisites; teachers’ beliefs are the primary drivers of how they implement curricula, and hence, realizing any curriculum changes requires considering and accounting for teachers’ beliefs and concerns [4,5].

Because teachers are the primary decision makers in implementing any curriculum changes, it can be necessary to explore whether they are prepared and willing to undertake radical changes such as shifting from traditional teaching approaches to methods geared toward improving communication. Professional development programs may provide teachers with knowledge to implement communicative teaching in their classroom, but changes can be difficult. Additionally, one important aspect that remained unchanged in the innovation is that language exams still test grammar and vocabulary and ignore speaking and listening skills [5]. Teachers might be reluctant to shift to communication-based approaches.

In Vietnam, technical universities play an important role in training high-quality labour force in response to the demand of industrialization in the era of internationalization. Hence, the commitments of technical universities are comprehensive cooperation, pioneering in creativity and innovation, standardizing the engineering programs, and strengthening training quality according to international practices and standards [6]. In terms of English teaching and learning, these technical universities commonly share the abovementioned characteristics of limited teaching time, large classes of students with diverse proficiency levels [7], and an intense teaching curriculum, and against this backdrop, English teachers at these universities must decide how they will teach their required course materials. Within the scope of this small study, we aimed to explore how these teachers understand TBLT, whether they are willing and ready to apply it and why or why not. We specifically aimed to identify differences in teachers’ TBLT beliefs and practices on the basis of their teaching qualifications and years of teaching experience

2. Theoretical Background

Task-based language instruction appeared in the 1980s and was implemented in teaching English primarily in Asian countries including Korea, Japan, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. As a subcategory of CLT, TBLT defines communication in a target language as the goal of language learning [8]. TBLT is also a response to the constraints of traditional approaches that teach so that learners will master certain forms [9]. TBLT is of great interest in linguistics because it emphasizes meaning, real-world language use, and communicative activities [9,10]. In terms of methodology, TBLT has its own learning framework, principles of syllabus design, and procedures of material development. Most teachers follow Willis’s [11] three phases of pre-task, task cycle, and post-task [11].

As indicated in the name, tasks are the core concept of the TBLT course and lesson development [12]. Researchers have defined tasks differently, but in language learning, a task has been defined as a language activity that requires students to pay attention to meaning and to how language is used in real life [9]. In terms of language use, Long [13] defined tasks as students’ real-world communicative uses of the target language outside the classroom that can have academic, occupational, or social survival purposes. From a pedagogical perspective, Nunan [14] described a task as a classroom activity in which students use their grammatical knowledge to express meaning in the target language as well as to understand each other, that is, to communicate in the target language. Researchers have established that course developers must consider various criteria in creating tasks such as a focus on meaning, reliance of learners in their own linguistic resources to communicate, and non-linguistic task outcomes [15].

Nunan [16] identified six elements of an effective task, namely, goals, input data, task types, teacher role, learner role, and settings, whereas Jeon and Hahn [17] arrived at five task components: goals, input data, classroom settings, activity types, and assessment. Common to the two research groups were task goals, input data, and settings. Goals vary broadly from general outcomes for the whole course to specific desired outcomes for each lesson. Input data refer to the teaching materials that will guide students in undertaking tasks in class. The classroom settings where students are to perform their tasks have important influences on both learners and teachers. Flexible settings that provide learners with pleasant atmospheres promote target language use and can help teachers control class activities [17].

Researchers beyond Nunan [16] and Jeon and Hahn [17] have also shown great focus on task types, with Prabhu [18] giving the earliest and most abstract task categorization: information gap, opinion gap, and reasoning gap tasks. As noted earlier, Willis [11] identified six task categories that can apply to nearly any topic, but for those of us who endorse TBLT, Nunan’s task-based framework [16] lends itself best to the classroom because of its detailed classification of tasks as real-world or pedagogical. Pedagogical tasks are subdivided into rehearsal and activation, and students undertake these tasks in the classroom to develop the skills they will need to complete the real-world tasks of using the target language in daily life [16,19]. Classifying tasks on the basis of different perspectives offers teachers various teaching methods to tailor to their learners’ interests and thereby promotes effective teaching and learning.

TBLT has been considered a powerful teaching approach because of its significant strengths. First, task-based approach (TBA) promotes communication and social interaction [17]. Students play the central role in lessons, learning by completing communicative tasks in pairs and groups to develop all language skills; task-based processes activate students’ needs and interests and encourage them to use their target languages [9,17,19,20]. Task-based materials expose learners to natural language learning in classroom contexts, and TBLT is an effective approach to teaching English in Vietnam and other Asian countries where students have limited access to and opportunities to use English in daily life [15,17]. TBA has advantages over traditional approaches that cannot improve students’ innovation in that such approaches motivate learners with immediate outcomes for their efforts. TBLT programs also present positive effects for second language learning outcomes in a wide range of contexts in the world including K-12 institutions and university settings (e.g., [21,22,23]).

Although TBLT has received considerable attention from researchers, few teachers have implemented these approaches in their classrooms for several reasons. For instance, TBLT requires creative and dynamic teachers [24] who have a deep understanding of its concepts. Separately, the availability of genuine task-based textbooks and other materials is a primary concern in TBLT. Although Nunan [16] gave a clear procedure for developing TBA materials, allocating sufficient task-based resources for a full course is challenging for educators. Assessment and evaluation are additional TBLT concerns. Educators must decide which performance aspects to assess, how to integrate information from performance on different tasks, and what inferences to draw about students’ language competence [25].

3. Literature Review

There is growing research interest in teachers’ beliefs in general [26,27], but there is only limited work on teachers’ beliefs regarding TBLT [28,29]. Indeed, a systematic search of materials published since 2015 identified little literature on teachers’ views on TBLT in different contexts, not to mention the context of Vietnam. The previous studies showed diverse findings on how EFL teachers perceived TBLT and its implementation in their contexts. For example, in Jeon and Hahn [17], Korean EFL teachers revealed a high level of understanding about TBLT but a negative viewpoint toward its implementation in classes because of the constraints such as conflicts with traditional methods, assessments, large class sizes, materials, and learners’ lack of TBLT training. One notable point was the survey instrument used in this study which was designed to investigate the EFL teachers’ understandings of concepts in TBLT and implementing TBLT in their classes and their reasons why they did or did not implement TBLT with both qualitative and quantitative data. Meanwhile, V. Nguyen, Le, and Barnard [30] indicated that Vietnamese EFL teachers did not have sufficient knowledge of TBLT, which led to the fact that they focused on forms or grammatical patterns rather than meaning. Moreover, the previous studies (e.g., [29,31,32,33]) pointed out the barriers or constraining factors that influence the implementation of TBLT such as class sizes, materials, trainings, curricula, students’ proficiency, examiniations. The limited literature on the perceptions of TBLT and the diversity in the findings presented above motivated us to explore what was happening in the context of tertiary education in Vietnam where the studies on TBLT were scarce. Notably, in this study, we look at some of the extant research on teachers’ perceptions of TBLT from 2015 onward due to the novelty and the contextual and temporal stability of beliefs [34].

Harris [35] used an online questionnaire to examine 78 teachers’ beliefs regarding TBLT in Japan and found that the teachers were well aware of TBLT’s important principles and rejected criticisms of the approach; these teachers shared that they were successfully implementing TBLT in their classrooms, but the study would have benefited from more qualitative data and a larger sample.

Dao [36] applied observations and semi-structured interviews in a qualitative study and found that the Vietnamese teacher in the case study was not implementing TBLT in the classroom because of sociocultural factors such as group work, language proficiency, and wash-back effects; however, the qualitative nature of that study made it difficult to provide conclusions on a broader context.

Pham and Nguyen [37] investigated teachers’ perceptions and implementation of TBLT and using questionnaires and interviews with 68 university English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Vietnam. The findings revealed that the participants held positive viewpoints on TBLT and its implementation but cited challenges that included students’ unfamiliarity with tasks, time limitations, and teachers’ proficiency. That study also would have benefited from a larger sample and a more elaborate discussion of the qualitative data.

Zhang and Luo [38] studied 35 teachers for Chinese as a second language, triangulating the data from their questionnaire and interview responses with classroom observations, and found that the teachers were confident in the effectiveness of TBLT but skeptical about its feasibility. Factors the authors identified that hindered implementing TBA in the classroom included different cultural backgrounds and values, teaching schedules, exams, and class sizes. Despite the triangulation, the study’s results would have been more valuable with a larger sample for the quantitative data.

Jones [39] conducted qualitative interviews with seven teachers to explore how they were applying TBLT in the classroom. The interview responses showed that the teachers did not have thorough knowledge about the TBLT framework, although they were aware of the approach in the literature. The author attributed this gap to a lack of connections between teachers and researchers.

Liu, Mishan, and Chambers [40], in their mixed-methods study, analyzed both qualitative data and quantitative questionnaire data from 66 Chinese EFL teachers who responded to a survey and found that most of the teachers had positive views of TBLT; the teachers highlighted several benefits of the approach. Liu et al. provided several important suggestions for more effectively applying TBLT in the classroom context including conducting more studies to better understand teachers’ beliefs, developing better teacher training, and reviewing and reprioritizing assessment systems. Although this study increased the research understanding of TBLT in the Chinese context, its major limitation is that with its small sample, its results cannot accurately be generalized.

Liu and Ren [32] used the qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with 12 EFL teachers at non-English-major universities in China to investigate their beliefs and practice of TBLT. The findings indicated misconceptions of aspects of TBLT and a lack of TBLT knowledge. Their implementation of TBLT was influenced by inadequate knowledge, TBLTmaterials, class sizes, and curricular factors such as time constraints and syllabi.

We extracted four salient points from the studies reviewed above. First, most study participants had positive perceptions of TBLT and its implementation but had doubts about its feasibility; teachers might have learned about or even experimented with TBLT but found constraints in applying the concept. Second, most current researchers used either questionnaires or interviews, occasionally both of them, possibly because of their convenience and the levels of detail they make available. Also, interviews “allow respondents to say what they think and to do so with greater richness and spontaneity” [41] (p. 167). Third, teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding TBLT are under-researched, as reflected in the limited number of studies, and research in Vietnam and Vietnamese higher education is no exception. Fourth, the authors of most of the previous studies were limited by small sample sizes for quantitative strands, possibly because researchers’ institutions had few language teachers and the researchers had few outside contacts from other institutions to broaden their samples. Additionally, language teachers are usually very busy [42] and likely to overlook small matters such as email links to surveys, so that without frequent reminders, they forget. The points aforementioned were important gaps that we would like to bridge; therefore, we used our literature findings and these four conclusions to design the study for both qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (survey) data collection to address the following research questions:

• To what extent do university EFL lecturers understand TBLT?

  (a)

  Do university EFL lecturers’ understandings of TBLT differ on the basis of their teaching qualifications?

  (b)

  Do university EFL lecturers’ understandings of TBLT differ on the basis of their years of experience?

• How do EFL lecturers implement TBLT in their daily teaching?

  (a)

  Do university EFL lecturers’ views on implementing TBLT in the classroom differ on the basis of their teaching qualifications?

  (b)

  Do university EFL lecturers’ views on implementing TBLT in the classroom differ on the basis of their years of experience?

• Why do university EFL lecturers choose to implement TBLT or avoid doing so?

4. Methodology

4.1. Participants

The intended participants for this study were EFL teachers at technical universities in Vietnam for non-native English-speaking students. Toward that research goal, we used purposive sampling to gather an initial sample, distributing our survey questionnaire to the technical universities in Vietnam and receiving 136 complete responses. As can be seen from

Table 1. Participant demographic information.

Participants (N = 136)
	Number	Percentage (%)
Gender
Male	17	12.5
Female	119	87.5
Number of teaching years
Less than 5 years	15	11.0
5 years to 9 years	20	14.7
10 years to 20 years	70	51.5
Over 20 years	31	22.8
Teaching qualifications
Doctoral degree	9	6.6
Master degree	108	79.4
Bachelor degree	19	14.0

below, respondents were 119 women and 17 men, and most had over 10 years of teaching experience. Nine teachers held doctor’s degrees, 18 had their bachelor’s degrees, and most, that is, 107, held a master’s qualification. For the subsequent interviews, we selected participants who had agreed at the end of the survey to take part in an interview; ultimately, we interviewed seven teachers from three institutions.

4.2. Instruments

For the survey for this study, we used Jeon and Hahn’s [17] scale for evaluating teachers’ understanding of TBLT and their application of its tenets in their teaching practice. The survey consists of five sections, the first of which contains demographic questions (age, gender, teaching experience); to these, we added questions on the survey respondents’ years of teaching experience and teaching qualifications. Section 2 and Section 3 ask about the teachers’ understanding and implementation of TBLT.

Specifically, Section 2 asks seven questions regarding what participants understand about TBLT (the concept of tasks and principles of task-based teaching and learning), and Section 3 asks eight questions about how or if teachers apply TBLT in classroom practice. The 15 items in Section 2 and Section 3 are rated on five-point Likert scales from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). Section 4 asks respondents two questions: why they have chosen or not chosen to implement TBLT in their classrooms; the survey lists 11 reasons, but participants can add their own if none applies. Section 5 of the survey is an interview consent form that asks participants to provide a contact number and an email address if they are willing to take part in a follow-up interview.

We next conducted semi-structured interviews with the survey respondents who agreed so that we could better understand why teachers choose or refuse to adopt TBLT and how they implement it in their daily teaching practices. In exploring different perspectives, we aimed to obtain rich data to supplement the survey results.

4.3. Data Collection

As discussed above, we collected the data for this study into two phases, namely, a survey and interviews. For the survey phase, we were conducting our study during the most serious phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we therefore used Google Forms to electronically distribute the survey to English teachers at 14 technical universities in Vietnam. The initial response was very slow; we received only 85 responses after the first 2 weeks. After 3 weeks, we sent another round of invitations to the targeted institutions and received more responses in the last week of data collection. After the full 4 weeks, we had received 136 complete responses, and among these, 40 participants provided their contact details and agreed to participate in an interview.

In the second phase of the study, we conducted the qualitative interviews via video call in early September 2021 at times that were convenient for both parties. However, because of time and resource constraints, we could only interview seven of the 40 willing participants, whom we selected randomly; for the data analysis, we anonymized the interviewees as T1–T7. To generate the most insightful data from participants regarding their perspectives on TBLT, we conducted the semi-structured interviews in Vietnamese; most interviews lasted from 30 to 40 min.

4.4. Data Analysis

We applied a convergent parallel design for this study [43] using both qualitative and quantitative data and analyzing them separately to combine the findings. We entered all quantitative data into SPSS version 24 for coding and then analyzed the data to produce descriptive and inferential statistics. Firstly, we checked the reliability of the survey’s scales (i.e., understanding of TBLT and views on implementing TBLT) to make sure that the scales were reliable enough to investigate the issues about TBLT. We emplyed several values for reliability including Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability, rho_A reliability index, and average variance extracted AVE (see more at [44,45,46]). Then the descriptive statistics were generated on the basis of frequency and percentages. Afterwards, we examined whether the data were normally distributed or not before we could decide on which statistical tests to investigate differences aming groups of participants (e.g., Analysis of variance ANOVA or its non-parametric counterpart Kruskal-Wallis test) (see more at [47,48]). The initial statistics did not indicate a normal distribution, as specified in skewness of −1.337 (Standard error SE = 0.208), Kurtosis of 0.956 (SE = 0.413), and Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests with p < 0.05 for the scale of understandings about TBLT. Similarly, the scale of implementing TBLT had skewness of −1.236 (SE = 0.208), Kurtosis of 1.028 (SE = 0.413), and Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests with p < 0.05. Therefore, Kruskal-Wallis tests would be employed.

Because we conducted all seven interviews in Vietnamese, we had the responses first transcribed and then translated into English following the back translation method [49]. We coded teachers’ identities into T1 to T7 to ensure anonymity and confidentiality and examined the data using thematic analysis, “a method for identifying, analyzing and reporting patterns (themes) within data” [50] (p. 79).

5. Results

5.1. Quantitative Results

5.1.1. To What Extent Do EFL Lecturers Understand TBLT?

The statistical findings indicated high reliability for the scale items that measured the university EFL teachers’ perceptions of TBLT (Cronbach’s α = 0.931, rho_A = 0.937, composite reliability, CR = 0.945, average variance extracted, AVE = 0.710).

Table 2. University EFL instructors understanding of TBLT.

Statement	M	Sd	SD & D (%)	U (%)	A & SA (%)
A task is directed at communicative goals.	3.70	1.21	17.7	15.4	66.9
A task involves a primary focus on meaning.	3.37	1.17	23.5	24.3	52.2
A task has a clearly defined outcome.	3.92	1.33	15.4	8.1	76.5
A task is any activity in which the target language is used by the learner.	3.76	1.89	16.2	16.9	66.9
TBLT is consistent with the principles of communicative language teaching.	3.63	1.14	18.4	14.7	66.9
TBLT is based on the student-centered instructional approach.	3.97	1.17	12.5	8.1	79.4
TBLT includes three stages: pre-task, task implementation, and post-task.	3.89	1.29	18.4	9.6	72.0

Note: M = Mean, Sd = Standard deviation, SD = strongly agree, D = disagree, U = undecided, A = agree, SA = strongly agree.

presents the survey Section 2 items for teachers’ understanding of TBLT and their statistical findings.

The statistics indicated that the teachers’ perceptions regarding TBLT in this study were in line with the current beliefs regarding TBLT. Specifically, approximately 80% recognized that students were at the center of the TBLT approach (M= 3.97, Sd = 1.17), and 76.5% of respondents recognized a clearly defined outcome as one quality of a task (M = 3.92; Sd = 1.33). Nearly three-quarters of the lecturers surveyed recognized the three TBLT stages of pre-task, task implementation, and post-task (M = 3.89; Sd = 1.29). Overall, two-thirds of the EFL teachers in this study recognized that a task should give learners chances to use the target language in a task, which is directed at communicative goals, and that TBLT aligns with the principles of CLT.

Table 3. Mean ranks for TBLT understanding by instructor qualifications.

	Qualification	N	Mean Rank
Understandings of tasks and TBLT	Bachelor’s degree	19	57.39
	Master’s degree	108	69.37
	Doctor’s degree	9	65.44
	Total	136

and

Table 4. Kruskal–Wallis test statistics for TBLT understanding by instructor qualifications.

	Understandings of Tasks and TBLT
Chi-square	1.503
df	2
Asymp. sig. (two-tailed)	0.472

present the mean ranks and Kruskal–Wallis test findings for the teachers’ perceptions of TBLT. In response to research question 1.1 on whether EFL lecturers’ understandings of TBLT differ on the basis of their teaching qualifications, the tables indicate that there were no significant differences in how the teachers understood tasks and TBLT according to their qualifications.

Table 5. Mean ranks for TBLT understanding by years of teaching experience.

	Years of Experience	N	Mean Rank
Understandings of tasks and TBLT	<5	15	43.10
	5–9	20	65.79
	10–20	70	69.38
	>20	31	78.29
	Total	136

and

Table 6. Kruskal–Wallis test statistics for TBLT understanding by years of teaching experience.

	Understandings of Tasks and TBLT
Chi-square	8.416
df	2
Asymp. sig. (two-tailed)	0.038

present the mean ranks and Kruskal–Wallis findings for research question 1.2 on significant differences in the EFL lecturers’ TBLT perceptions and understanding based on their years of teaching experience, and the finding was significant at H(2) = 8.416, p < 0.05, that teachers who had more years of experience rated TBLT more highly.

5.1.2. How Do EFL Lecturers Implement TBLT in Their Daily Teaching?

The statistical analysis revealed high scale reliability for the eight survey questions regarding the EFL teachers’ implementation of TBLT in their classrooms (Cronbach’s α = 0.923, rho_A = 0.937, CR = 0.940, AVE = 0.693). We excluded item 12 from these findings because it deteriorated the internal consistency.

Table 7. EFL teachers’ views on implementing TBLT in the classroom.

Statement	M	Sd	SD & D (%)	U (%)	A & SA (%)
8. I have interest in implementing TBLT in the classroom.	3.82	1.11	13.2	11.8	75.0
9. TBLT provides a relaxed atmosphere to promote the target language use.	3.72	1.06	12.5	25.0	62.5
10. TBLT activates learners’ needs and interests.	3.71	1.05	15.4	11.8	62.8
11. TBLT pursues the development of integrated skills in the classroom.	3.79	1.09	14.0	9.6	76.4
13. TBLT requires much preparation time compared to other approaches.	3.58	1.09	16.9	24.3	58.8
14. TBLT is proper for controlling classroom arrangements.	3.40	1.00	19.1	30.1	50.8
15. TBLT materials should be meaningful and purposeful based on the real-world context.	4.01	1.22	14.0	7.4	78.7

presents means, standard deviations, and details on the EFL teachers’ views on implementing TBLT in class.

The statistics show that most participants held positive views on implementing TBLT in their classes. Specifically, 78.7% of teachers concurred that materials in a TBLT approach should be meaning and purpose based on real contexts (M = 4.01; Sd = 1.22), and three-quarters of them were interested in implementing TBLT in their classrooms (M = 3.82; Sd = 1.11) because the approach developed integrated skills), created a pleasant atmosphere to encourage learners to use the target language, and activated learners’ needs and interests. However, over half of respondents (58.8%) believed that TBLT required more preparation time than other approaches, and roughly one-third were not certain that TBLT was suitable for controlling classrooms.

Table 8. Mean ranks for implementing TBLT in the classroom by teaching qualifications.

	Qualification	N	Mean Rank
Viewpoints on implementation of TBLT	Bachelor’s degree	19	66.03
	Master’s degree	108	68.85
	Doctor’s degree	9	54.44
	Total	136

and

Table 9. Kruskal–Wallis test statistics for implementing TBLT in the classroom by teaching qualifications.

	Views on Implementing TBLT
Chi-square	1.181
df	2
Asymp. sig. (two-tailed)	0.554

present mean ranks and Kruskal–Wallis test results for the EFL instructors’ views with respect to research question 2.1: Do EFL lecturers’ views on implementing TBLT differ on the basis of their teaching qualifications? The table findings show that instructor qualifications did not significantly affect teachers’ views on implementing TBLT in their classrooms.

Table 10. Mean ranks for views on implementing TBLT by years of experience.

	Years of Experience	N	Mean Rank
Views on implementing TBLT	<5	15	58.70
	5–9	20	62.58
	10–20	70	68.76
	>20	31	74.10
	Total	136

and

Table 11. Kruskal–Wallis test statistics for implementing TBLT in the classroom by years of experience.

	Views on Implementing TBLT
Chi-square	2.008
df	2
Asymp. sig. (two-tailed)	0.571

present the findings for research question 2.2 on whether university EFL instructors’ views on implementing TBLT in the classroom varied according to their years of experience. The table findings indicate that years of experience did not influence teachers’ views on implementing TBLT as it did affect how they understood the concept.

5.1.3. Why Do EFL Lecturers Choose to Implement TBLT or Avoid Doing So?

Here, we discuss teachers’ reasons for using TBLT or avoiding it in their teaching practices. Of the 136 Vietnamese university EFL instructors who completed the survey for this study, 119 (87.5%) were using TBLT in their teaching, and the remaining 17 were not.

Table 12. Reasons teachers implemented TBLT.

Reason	N (%)
TBLT improves learners’ interaction skills.	109 (91.6%)
TBLT creates a collaborative learning environment.	100 (84%)
TBLT promotes learners’ academic progress.	79 (66.4%)
TBLT is appropriate for small group work.	70 (58.8%)
TBLT encourages learners’ intrinsic motivation.	68 (57.1%)
TBLT helps check students’ understanding and outcome as well as the effectiveness of the teaching methods and teaching inputs.	1 (0.8%)
TBLT fosters more autonomy, creativity, and freshness among students.	1 (0.8%)
TBLT brings fairness and equal rights between learners and teachers.	1 (0.8%)
TBLT is useful and practical to purposed outcomes of a short course.	1 (0.8%)

and

Table 13. Reasons EFL teachers did not implement TBLT in the classroom.

Reason	N (%)
Large class size is an obstacle to using task-based methods.	14 (60.9%)
Students are not used to task-based learning.	10 (43.5%)
Materials in textbooks are not proper for using TBLT.	10 (43.5%)
I have difficulty assessing learner’s task-based performance.	10 (43.5%)
I have very little knowledge of task-based instruction.	5 (21.7%)
I have limited target language proficiency.	2 (8.7%)
Students tend to use their mother tongue to communicate with each other during discussions rather than using English.	1 (4.3%)
Students’ level of English especially speaking.	1 (4.3%)
I use TBLT to teach postgraduate students.	1 (4.3%)

list the reasons the teachers gave for using or not using TBLT approaches in their teaching. Table 12 shows that the most popular reason for using TBLT in the classroom was that it enhanced students’ interaction skills (91.6%), followed by its creating collaborative learning environments (84%). Almost no instructors recognize that the approach highlighted fairness, autonomy, creativity, and freshness. Table 13 shows that among the instructors who did not use TBLT in their teaching, the most, 60.9%, cited overly large classes as the primary impediment. Other challenges included unfamiliarity with the approach, improper materials, challenges with assessment.

5.2. Qualitative Findings

In this section, we discuss the qualitative findings we derived from conducting the semi-structured interviews to answer the research questions.

5.2.1. To What Extent Do EFL Lecturers Understand TBLT?

Table 14. Teachers’ perceptions of TBLT from qualitative data.

Category	Sub-Category	Quotations
Learner-centered approach	Increase students’ communicativeness	“…more chance to practice communicative skills” “…more chance to speak, to discuss, and negotiate meanings, thus increase communicatice competence.”
	Form a helpful learning environment	“…TBLT helps create a friendly and supportive language learning environment for my students.”
Tasks	Nature of tasks	“…the tasks are real situations…” “ The tasks are applicable to real life. They also focus on form rather than meaning”
	Process with interrelated steps	“…a task-based lesson has three steps: pre-task, while-task, and post-task.” “…It [a task] is not like a normal exercise…”
	Roles for teachers and students	“Teacher will direct students to tasks, then students will have to do more than just listening to the teacher” “Before entering the main task, there is a pre-task step. At this step, I will prepare students with knowledge, for example, giving students instructions for the task. Then I will have to review the knowledge, for example, the grammar or vocabulary they will need to use to complete the task. After that, I will assign them to the group and they will communicate with each other to complete their given task.” “Teachers provide instructions and require them to organize group work and implement the task. Then students will have to present the output of their task, which we will review in the end.”

below presents the teachers’ perception of TBLT, focusing on this approach as a learner-centered one and more specifically, on the nature of tasks. We established from the interview data that most lecturers (n = 6) generally understood TBLT as a learner-centered approach that focused on students’ communicativeness. T3 described the concept as “Teacher will direct students to tasks, then students will have to do more than just listening to the teacher. Students have more chance to practice communicative skills” (T3). Teachers were aware of the nature of tasks as processes with interrelated steps and as “real,” “applicable to real life,” and “focus[ed] on meaning” (T7). Some teachers (n = 4) were able to clearly outline TBLT steps and stages including different roles for teachers and students:

As far as I understand, in a task-based lesson, I will give students a specific task. It’s not like they’re just doing a normal exercise, but a task-based lesson has three steps: pre-task, while-task, and post-task. Before entering the main task, there is a pre-task step. At this step, I will prepare students with knowledge, for example, giving students instructions for the task. Then I will have to review the knowledge, for example, the grammar or vocabulary they will need to use to complete the task. After that, I will assign them to the group and they will communicate with each other to complete their given task.

(T2)

Just as the interviewees recognized the nature of tasks and demonstrated understanding of the construct, five of the seven lecturers believed that TBLT increased students’ opportunities to communicate with their peers, strengthened their bonds, and formed a helpful English learning environment in the classroom:

I think that TBLT helps create a friendly and supportive language learning environment for my students. Students have more chance to speak, to discuss, and negotiate meaning, thus increase communicative competence.

(T6)

The remaining two lecturers were unsure about the concept but did demonstrate some general understanding. For instance, T3 gave the following rough description that under TBLT, the teachers “provide instructions and require them to organize group work and implement the task. Then students will have to present the output of their task, which we will review in the end.” This lecturer acknowledged that she had never formally learned anything about TBLT and had not carefully researched it, and she was not the only case; three other lecturers also reported never having formally learned about the concept. However, it was clear from the interview data that whether or not they had learned about the approach before, all seven EFL lecturers were applying TB approaches in some way in their daily language teaching.

5.2.2. How Do EFL Lecturers Implement TBLT in Their Daily Teaching?

Most teachers (n = 5) reported following necessary stages in TBLT, although some (n = 2) might skip or overlook small steps. Three lecturers affirmed the importance of giving clear instructions and providing sufficient input for the students in the pre-task stage: “I think that the teacher’s instructions must be extremely clear so that the students can follow easily” (T1). They added that the teacher’s inputs were especially important when students’ proficiency levels were low.

Three other lecturers were more concerned about giving detailed feedback to groups, and also discussed classroom spacing and time control. Six of the seven lecturers divided their classrooms into small groups of three to four to make tasks easier to complete, with a group presentation as the usual output. However, some teachers allowed their students to present their own written texts or products, which they reported as more effective for less proficient students:

In the last step, students will present their products, but I don’t always ask for an oral presentation. It will probably be in written form, because for those at a low level they may be afraid to speak. […]. So, the last step can end up with students submitting their products and the teacher will comment on them in the next session. Or if the task is easy enough, students can have an oral presentation in the end.

(T2)

5.2.3. Why Do University EFL Lecturers Choose to Implement TBLT or Avoid Doing So?

Expectedly, the university EFL lecturers in this study shared many contexts that were common to technical universities and as such shared similar thoughts as well on implementing TBLT in the classroom. All interviewed lecturers (N = 7) did report applying TBLT in some ways in their daily teaching practice as shown in

Table 15. Teachers’ reasons for implementing TBLT.

Category	Sub-Category	Quotations
First reason	An exciting and relaxing environment to improve students’ communicative competence	“I think in TBLT the classroom it is quite fun. Students have good interaction with each other and with the teacher. It’s like you have to put yourself in a situation. In this situation you need to use English.”
	Opportunities to exploit and utilize learnt vocabulary, grammar, and strutures	“It’s a pretty effective way for students to practise the input they’ve been provided so far in the previous lessons”
Second reason	A sense of achievement for both teachers and students	“In TBLT students have to produce an output for the task, so they feel that they have achieved something after the lesson. Then they will be more satisfied, compared to the fact that they only do the usual exercises.”

below. The first reason the EFL lecturers gave for applying TBLT was that they believed that it helped create exciting and relaxing atmospheres that increased students’ communicative competence. The teachers had found that TBLT provided students with more opportunities to exploit and utilize their learned vocabulary, grammar, and structures in their communications with each other and in their outputs for class: “our students engage more when the tasks are closely related to their professional background” (T6). Teachers found that through TB practice, students’ language skills and communicative competence improved gradually:

I think in TBLT the classroom it is quite fun. Students have good interaction with each other and with the teacher. It’s like you have to put yourself in a situation. In this situation you need to use English. It’s a pretty effective way for students to practice the input they’ve been provided so far in the previous lessons.

(T4)

In short, the teachers in the study agreed that implementing TBLT helped create comfortable environments for students to learn and speak English and practice their communicative skills with their peers and that TB practices also improved students’ teamwork skills.

The second reason EFL lecturers in this study gave for implementing TBLT in their classrooms was that they had found that the approach brought about a sense of achievement for both teachers and learners. Specifically, the fact that each task-based lesson had a specific intended outcome encouraged both teacher and students because they had succeeded in fulfilling a task, and teachers had the additional sense of having completed lesson objectives:

In TBLT students have to produce an output for the task, so they feel that they have achieved something after the lesson. Then they will be more satisfied, compared to the fact that they only do the usual exercises.

(T1)

5.2.4. What Challenges Are EFL Lecturers Facing in Implementing TBLT?

The university EFL instructors interviewed for this study identified similar challenges in applying TLBT in teaching practice: large class size, time constraints, students’ uneven proficiency levels, classroom management, and teachers’ own social backgrounds and knowledge of TBLT approaches as specified in

Table 16. Challenges EFL lecturers are facing in implementing TBLT.

Category	Sub-Category	Quotations
Challenges	Large class size	“It is very hard for me to manage my class effectively. I can’t give feedback to all groups equally.”
	Time constraints	“I think the biggest difficulty is the time constraint, […]. Doing task-based activities is quite time consuming, and I find it difficult to do a whole series of processes like that while the teaching time for my class is limited”
	Students’ uneven proficiency level	“It’s hard for me to conduct group work among my students with various levels. Good students tend to control over the tasks, while weaker students do not involve much.”
	Classroom management	“Sometimes after 20 min of doing groupwork, my students were still not ready for the outcome presentations, because they did not divide works appropriately in their groups.”
	Teachers’ background knowledge and language competency	“I myself don’t feel confident enough with this approach. I have never been taught about that, nor have I observed any lesson using TBLT or been mentored about this approach”

below.

a. Large class size

Four of the seven EFL lecturers stated that large class size had negatively affected their TBLT implementation. All reported customarily having approximately 40 students in their classes: “It is very hard for me to manage my class effectively. I can’t give feedback to all groups equally” (T2). Even with large classes divided into smaller groups, it was still difficult to monitor the whole class.

b. Time constraints

Limited teaching time was a significant issue for most EFL lecturers, especially related to implementing TBLT. Four lecturers said that they were usually heavy time constraints when they conducted TBLT lessons because they had to spend time on careful instruction and scaffolding during the pre-task stage, leave sufficient time for the actual task implementation phase, and leave time for providing feedback in the final stage:

I think the biggest difficulty is the time constraint, […]. Doing task-based activities is quite time consuming, and I find it difficult to do a whole series of processes like that while the teaching time for my class is limited.

(T5)

Teachers found the TBLT aspects of lessons particularly daunting when they also needed to consider their students’ actual language knowledge and proficiency.

c. Students’ uneven proficiency levels

Six of the seven interviewed EFL lecturers found it challenging to teach classes at different levels. T2 observed that differences in proficiency led to differing outputs and noted that lower-level students sometimes felt discouraged in their task performance. T3 and T5 had difficulties conducting TB lessons that fit all their students’ needs and expectations and spent large amounts of time on instruction and scaffolding activities.

d. Classroom management

Two young EFL lecturers reported having difficulties in managing group work not only because of class size but also because students lacked groupwork skills. One teacher observed unbalanced student participation whereby better students did more work than the others. The other teacher, T3, confessed that “sometimes after 20 min of doing group work, my students were still not ready for the outcome presentations, because they did not divide works appropriately in their groups.”

e. Teachers’ background knowledge and language competency

Two teachers believed that effectively applying TBLT in the classroom required wide social and professional background knowledge so that teachers can provide useful feedback to their students. One proposed that teachers themselves needed sufficient language competence to successfully implement TBLT, and the other admitted that lack of confidence made her reluctant to try to apply TBLT: “I myself don’t feel confident enough with this approach. I have never been taught about that, nor have I observed any lesson using TBLT or been mentored about this approach” (T2). In short, teachers’ lack of TBLT knowledge and hands-on experience are key obstacles to their implementing TBLT in their daily teaching.

6. Discussion and Implications

With this study, we explored the perceptions of task-based language teaching among a group of EFL lecturers at technical universities in Vietnam. The quantitative and qualitative study findings revealed that most of the teachers held positive views of TBLT and had at least a basic understanding of the approach. Teachers cited as strengths of TBLT that it encouraged students’ target language use, increased their language competence, improved their teamwork skills, and provided both teachers and students with immediate outcomes and feedback. Semi-structured interview findings were consistent with survey findings that large class size, time constraints, students’ uneven language proficiency, and teachers’ lack of social knowledge and language competence as considerable challenges to implementing task-based learning approaches. This study’s findings were also consistent with earlier results (e.g., [31,35,37,38,40]) but different from those of Dao [36] and Jones [39]. The alignment and differences can be explained by the fact that the teachers lacked trainings and professional development programs to be proficient in the understanding of TBLT and that the perceptions and performance of TBLT also depend on the context where language learning and teaching are taking place.

Several participants were able to define key concepts of TBLT even if they only knew it by name, but teachers who had been officially trained in TBA were clearly more confident in their understandings of tasks, task components, and procedures for conducting task-based activities in class. Professional development for language teaching can take many forms such as training courses and workshops including on methodology to provide teachers with language knowledge and competence, instructional skills, and confidence as well [51]. Participants in this study were qualified teachers with bachelor’s, master’s, and doctor’s degrees in linguistics and teaching methodology and linguistics but not necessarily in TBLT. This was why despite their deep knowledge and professional skills, the teachers’ qualifications did not have an influence on their TBLT practices.

Nevertheless, in contrast to qualifications, years of teaching experience had a significant influence on the teachers’ perceptions of TBA. Theoretically, more experienced teachers have both vast knowledge and useful teaching skills that can increase their teaching effectiveness, but performance also improves with experience [52], which can increase educators’ confidence in adopting new approaches such as TBLT in their classrooms. Meanwhile, whether or not a teacher can adopt a particular approach in class depends on so many factors in the teaching context such as students’ proficiency levels, class size, classroom setting, and the teacher’s interests, which is why general professional experiences also did not have a great impact on whether teachers in this study implemented TBLT in their daily teaching practices.

The positive feedback from many teachers indicates that they believed TBLT was appropriate to both language teaching and learning. They were interested in this instructional approach because of its considerable benefits such as developing integrated skills, creating a pleasant atmosphere, and activating students’ interests, and these obvious advantages of TBA gave teachers an adequate reason to implement it in their classes. Students’ improvement also convinced and encouraged teachers to choose TBLT. Students perform task-based assignments in pairs and groups, which maximizes their opportunities to interact in the target language and consequently sharpens their language skills.

Although most participants in this study were implementing TBLT in their classes, some were reluctant and even avoided it; reasons cited included large class sizes, inflexible settings, mixed student proficiency levels, inadequate teaching materials, and time constraints. This finding was in line with that of the previous research (e.g., [29,31,32,33]). Arguably, those studies were conducted in the Asian contexts, so it is not difficult to explicate the consistency in the findings about the constraints. Besides, in collectivist cultures, losing face and incurring personal damage are shameful and to be avoided [53]. Vietnam is such a collectivistic society and in fact earns a low score on the individualism index, and therefore, the teachers here might have only cited external reasons for not using TBA in class because they did not want to lose face.

Nevertheless, a few teachers did cite their own limitations as reasons for not choosing TBLT in their teaching practice, which aligned with ones from Jeon and Hahn [17]; those authors found that lack of task-based knowledge was an internal impediment to teachers’ implementation of TBLT in classroom practice.

Based on mentioned discussions, this study presents several implications. In terms of professional training, it is important to conduct teacher education programs which focus on TBLT backdground knowlegde including both strengths and weakenesses of this approach. That can help teachers to be ready and well-prepared instead of being reactive to emerging challenges in lessons [17]. It is also necessary to hold in-depth training workshops in which experienced teachers should share their vast knowledge and skills on TBLT relating to planning, implementing and assessing with novices. That could build up young teachers’ confidence to implement TBLT sucessfully in their teaching practice. Some teachers are reluctant to conduct TBLT due to indequate teaching materials, so more training on course book adaptation and class material development is essential to promote TBLT implementation.

At managerial level, administrators could provide teachers with broader external supports, such as reducing class sizes, improving classroom settings and providing for regular professional development to decrease the sociocultural barriers to EFL teachers’ implementing TBLT practices in their classrooms.

At individual level, teachers do need to pay attention to significant theoritical aspects including instruction input, teachers’ background knowledge and language competence, class management, and assessing and giving feedback on students’ performance in order to adopt TBA effectively. In practice, to deal with the obstacle of time constraint in task-based lessons, teachers should encourage students to prepare task related vocabulary before lessons. Moreover, teachers should be flexible rather than following all the phases of task cycles [54]. Finally, when working with mixed proficiency level class, teachers need to support weak students by providing clear instructions, giving them enough time to respond, repeating key terms and giving timely feedback [31].

7. Conclusions

For this research, we investigated the perceptions on theory and practice of TBLT among a group of EFL instructors of non-native English-speaking students at technical universities across Vietnam. A total of 136 lecturers completed a study questionnaire, and 7 participated in subsequent semi-structured interviews. Most of the participants provided positive feedback on TBA and showed a willingness to implement this approach in their teaching practice because of its salient benefits, although the teachers did identify several challenges they faced in TBLT practices in their language teaching.

However, there are two limitations worth noting in this study. First, our study sample was still quite small and limited to a narrow environment (technical universities in Vietnam), so it would not be accurate to generalize the findings of this research; we call on future researchers to expand these findings. Second, we limited the number of demographic variables we investigated, but other variables may have significant effects on teachers’ perceptions of TBLT.

Overall, despite the limitations, this study makes some contributions to enriching the knowledge in English teachers’ beliefs and practices related to TBLT. Specifically, in Vietnam, although curricula have recently been shifting toward communicative and task-based learning, there is still little research on how English teachers perceive TBLT and how they implement this approach in their teaching, and we hope to fill that gap in part with this study. Although Vietnamese teachers may be well aware of the importance of teaching English as a means of communication for students, they can lack the personal capacity to adopt or institutional support for adopting communicative approaches in their classrooms. Research on English teachers’ TBLT perceptions and beliefs could assist Vietnamese language teachers in general in better understanding TBLT and increase their confidence in incorporating it into their teaching, which in turn could actively support students in learning to communicate in the foreign languages they study. Finally, findings from this research could influence school administrators and curriculum designers to remove institutional limitations that constrain instructors from following the traditional teaching practices.