Implementation of tasks, TBLT and mediation during the main study

The implementation of teaching and interviews of observers and learners were organised during the first term of the academic year of 2012, from July to September. Two groups of leaners were purposively selected based on recommendations from the course co-ordinator of Eng.3 and the willingness of learners to participate. I introduced my project to the groups and asked them to give me their decision on the next day. The accountancy and humanities groups

(henceforth, AC, HM) decided to participate, but they asked me to arrange classes outside their normal schedule. These resulted in some lessons being taught in the evening, from 5pm to 7pm. In the first few lessons, some of the learners were shy and hid from the VDO recorder, but after having been assured of the confidentiality and anonymity of the recordings, they were more cooperative. As I was aware of the importance of providing equal support to all learners, I paid attention to all students, especially during mediation. All groups were recorded through VDO and MP3 to prevent the sense that some groups were watched more closely than others, and this actually made them relaxed.

The teaching lasted for 12 periods (50 minutes/period) per group, 24 periods in total. Out of six lessons, three main tasks were taught, with an additional session of feedback and pause practice, and practice took place wherein the scripts of company profile, products and trends developed in previous lessons were compiled into a complete presentation in the final periods, as shown in Figure 2 below.

GIVING A PRESENTATION ON A COMPANY ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼

Figure 2 Lessons and learning tasks (Lesson 4: periods 7-8)

Task 2 Describing Company Products e.g.

- its use and purposes - features & specifications - accessories

- facilities and services

(Lesson 1: periods 1-2) Developing Presentation Skills

e.g.

- Effective/ineffective presentations - Opening/introduction,

- Gestures and body language

(Lesson 2: periods 3-4) Task 1 Describing Company Profiles

e.g.

- establishment, headquarters, location - no. of employees

- no. of branches & subsidiaries

- no

- no. of branches & subsidiaries_{Feedback and Pause Practice} (Lesson 3: periods 5-6) e.g.

- feedback on presentation scripts - practise pausing during a presentation

(Lesson 5: periods 9-10) Task 3 Describing Trends

(Business Situations) e.g. - turnover

- no. of customers - profitability

(Lesson 6: periods 11-12) Giving a full presentation

e.g.

- group giving a presentation on company profile, products and trends

All lessons (see lesson plans, Appendix K) that required some adjustment will now be described briefly. More details on grammar and vocabulary teaching can be found in the Language Focus section (5.4). The introductory Lesson 1 was not organised as TBLT. As its main purpose was to develop learners’ presentation skills, it began with class brainstorming and a discussion about effective/ineffective presentations, based on YouTube clips and presentation VDO. Unit 2 of Get Ready for Business, containing listening and gap-fill exercises (drills), was used to draw learners’ attention to language used for presentation introductions and to help them practise writing introductions. Because of the limited time available, although all groups were able to produce short introductions based on the drill patterns, only a few groups could be asked to give a presentation. The time was also insufficient to freely create introductions about ‘a job I want to do after graduation’, as included in the lesson plan.

The second lesson, on ‘Describing Company Profiles,’ was the first task-based implementation following Willis’ framework (Willis, 1996). A considerable amount of time was devoted to pre-task discussion of ideas about the concept of company profiles, in which quizzes about Nike and listening to various company profiles were used to elicit concepts and language. Students found concepts and several words unfamiliar, e.g. ‘turnover’, ‘subsidiary’, and ‘affiliated companies’. In the main task, learners divided into groups studying reading materials from different companies to develop a short company profile. Although a lot of mediation was given, I observed that both AC and HM groups experienced great difficulties in producing scripts. Three activities, the group exchange of ideas about their companies’ profiles, feedback after presentations, and post-task language focus, could not be achieved

because of the shortage of time. However, in the last five minutes, I provided my own pre-designed summary language handout for students to use as reference for revising their scripts.

My observation of learners’ mistakes of both concepts and language in the scripts led to my decision to add a feedback and pause practice session (see 5.4.2 and 5.4.3 for more details). The latter aimed to improve learners’ presentation skills and delivery by recording a native English speaker giving a presentation as a model. It started with peer feedback on scripts (5.4.2), wherein groups checked other groups’ scripts and gave feedback. I adopted mediation and later corrective feedback techniques (5.4.3) to help improve mistakes. With no training in giving feedback and low language proficiency, the peer feedback was unsuccessful, but learners were satisfied with my feedback, which was given later. In lesson 4, on ‘Describing Company Products,’ a class discussion of concepts and relevant language from listening and reading exercises was used as a leading activity before groups studied materials about their company products and then developed a script about the chosen product. Learners’ lack of familiarity with new words and the structures of both product and service description consumed excessive amounts of time during script development. The group dealing with describing services was confused by structures and concepts that were different from describing products. Similarly to the situation in previous lessons, there was not enough time for language analysis after the task.

Observing learners’ struggles and the language problems they encountered in previous lessons led to my decision to adjust Lesson 5 on ‘Describing Trends.’ After a few pre-task activities on matching and drawing graphs, I helped learners summarise language they needed for script writing. I defined this activity as ‘a mini-

language focus’, conducted before group work. Mind-maps of verbs and nouns were drawn on the board, and later the class went through a language handout to point out additional vocabulary and structures. I found that it was not only the complexity of language that learners found difficult but also the concept of describing graph trends. Mediation was provided throughout but still it could not cover all difficulties. The planned activity of group member taking turns giving presentations and receiving feedback from peers had to be cancelled because of a lack of time. The final lesson gave all groups the opportunity to give a complete presentation wherein all sub- scripts (profile, products and trends) were put together. Because of time constraints, it was not possible to allow each individual to give a full presentation, so group members took turns (one member/one part) giving a full presentation. In this and other lessons, peer evaluation to each presenter on presentation skills through completion of a feedback form was encouraged. Overall, it was found that time constraints were a major issue; nevertheless, students seemed to enjoy the lessons.

As described above, in responding to learners’ needs in language support as identified from learner and observer feedback received after each lesson, Willis’ task-based framework was adjusted as were some materials and teaching techniques used during this main study. As a specific example, in a lesson about ‘Describing Trends’ wherein students needed to interpret information of the graph, a mini language focus was organised before the main task to introduce concepts and language for describing graphs and charts. This did not follow Willis’ framework in which the language focus phase is usually carried out after the main task.

As for mediation, I adopted procedures usually employed in the interactionist DA approach (see 2.2.3 and 5.4.1). Mediation was given to both groups and individuals,

but group mediation was more frequent and more appropriate for the practice of presentation because learners were assigned to work in groups in all sessions, according to the company they wanted to work for (e.g. IKEA, Starbucks, Samsung and Sony). Thus, most mediation was provided during group interactions with me. Even when I interacted with one learner (who dominated in the interaction), all learners were expected to pay attention. This follows the principles of group mediation (see 2.2.3). Most mediation procedures were employed during the task cycle of Willis’ framework where the groups were preparing their presentation scripts (before presenting to the class). At this stage, they needed to brainstorm ideas, related language (e.g. vocabulary, grammar, punctuation), and the structure of their presentations. To give mediation, I first observed the group’s reactions regarding as to whether they could tackle the task on their own. If they needed assistance, I gave mediation following the steps of the pre-planned mediation inventory (see 2.2.4 for more details):

1 The mediator encourages the learner(s) to firstly identify the problem. (if no response) The mediator indicates specific problematic area or segment e.g. ‘Is there anything wrong in this sentence?’ or repetition of

incorrect word or sentence.

2 The mediator indicates the nature of the problem

e.g. ‘There is something wrong with the tense making here’. 3 The mediator offers choices and asks learners to verbalise their

ideas/reasons

4 The mediator explains concepts or possible actions to tackle the problem to guide them to arrive at answer(s) or solutions themselves

5 The mediator explains correct answer(s) or solution(s).

In task-based lessons on business presentations, it is essential that knowledge of the content and presentation skills be developed alongside each other. Therefore, mediation of these two areas was required throughout the course.