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Acknowledges

Table of Contents

Abstract

Presentation

Proposal

Problem

Throughout the multiple observations and practicum in different schools (subsidized and public), based on we, as students, our English teacher training program (from 2010 to 2013), we have realized that many teachers in different schools are still using a traditional and conventional methodology (Grammar Translation Method1), in which the development of two basic skills (Reading and Writing) are the target of this methodology and the other two basic skills (Listening and Speaking) are missing. Due to the focus of the Grammar Translation Method is not the oral production, students do not feel motivated by the teacher performances and this provides the information to comprehend why students are not able to understand some instructions in English, therefore, they are not capable to achieve the task of speaking in class. Also the teacher cannot create an appropriate environment to the real use of English in a real context. For that reason, students cannot develop the necessary competences and cannot achieve the standards that are established in the planes y programas de estudios 2 given by the Ministerio de Educacin; and those standards were measure in the SIMCE3 test (2012). For all the reasons mentioned before, we considered the application of an alternative methodology called Task Based Language Learning instead of the Classical methodology that is Grammar Translation Method. Having into consideration that Grammar Translation method (GTM) does not take the four basic skills (Speaking, reading, writing and listening instead just writing and reading) as part of the learning process; in this project we pretend to improve the speaking abilities of students throughout the application of Task-Based Language Learning (TBLL), where the focus is the development of the four basic skills,

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For further Reading check chapter 2 Planes y Programas, 2013, http://educrea.cl/planes-y-programas/ 3 Simce de Ingls: Mejoran resultados, pero 82% de estudiantes chilenos no sabe el idioma, 2013, http://www.emol.com/noticias/nacional/2013/06/06/602395/simce-de-ingles-mejoran-resultado-pero-82-deestudianteschilenos-no-sabe-el-idioma.html

however we are going to concentrate mainly in the oral production due to is the first attempt to communicate.

Justification.

Nowadays, English is a very important tool in terms of education, globalization and also to personal development. In Chile, according to a recently study, just the 2% of Chilean adults speak English with fluency4. For that reason, through this project we have decided to study how students can improve their speaking abilities. We believe that the oral production is more important over the other three abilities because speaking is the first attempt to communicate ideas, needs, thoughts and feelings in human beings since we are new-borns. Moreover, Ellis (2003) indicates that the main purpose of a learner studying English as a second language is to reach a personal aim to achieve success. Both parts are involved in this process: students and teachers. First, the teacher as a person that prepares and takes the teaching method and spares the knowledge and the necessary tools for learners, and second, students due to, they have to pay the necessary attention inside the classroom to catch the knowledge. Most of the time when pupils try to express some ideas or feelings in English, they feel unable to do it and most of the time they tend to translate literary what they want to say in English. So, when you listen to them, they have common mistakes of interference5 of the L1 grammar in the L2. In addition to that, we can say that students have problems with the productive skills, (Speaking and Writing), and that also brings problems in the receptive skills, (Reading and Listening), so they lose motivation and participation during the lesson. Due to students do not understand the instructions in English (so the teacher tends to translate it),
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Fluency: When a person is fluent, they can speak a language easily, well, and quickly. Cambridge dictionaries online,2013.

Interference is the transfer of elements of one language into the learning of another. Elements may include phonological, grammatical, lexical, and orthographical. (Skiba)

students are not used to listen to native speakers dialogues (speed, intonation, accents, etc) and also students do not understand what they are reading if they received the assignment to read an English text. Everything is changing and also education; as a consequence the methods for teaching should change too inside our classrooms. In our view, teachers must look for the most suitable way of teaching English based on students needs, in order to trigger students motivation and interaction and they can appreciate improvements and achieve their learning goals. In that way we can capture students attention, their abilities and the pa rticipation in class. We strongly believe that through the use of Task-Based Language Learning, students could reach some of all their goals in terms of English and improve their speaking abilities applying this alternative methodology instead of the traditional methodology previously mentioned.

Research Questions: The following questions came to our mind with our investigation because they are also related with what we want to answer with the whole project and how we can solve the problem that arises during the process. According to the learning process, what elements could engage students participation and compromise with the class? Are there any benefits and improvements in students in oral production applying Task- Based Language Learning?

General Objective In the following lines you will read the general object that is one established in this investigation where explains the main goal of this project: -To investigate the effectiveness of task-based language learning applied in students of thirds grades high school in three different schools: IDOP, Juanita Fernandez Solar, and King School in classes to improve their oral production.

Specific Objectives

-To explore and prove if there are or not benefits in students results applying task based language learning in their oral production. - To trigger teachers to take into account the use of methodologies such as taskbased language learning

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Hypotheses.

In this project we are making different researches (through observations and reading comprehension looking for information in books) according to this conventional methodology which is Task Based Language Learning we present a hypotheses in where support our investigations in schools. Also it is important to mention that this hypotheses will be based on students improvements, oral production mainly, but also in the four basic skills (Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking). Students will improve their oral production and participation in class through the use of task-based language learning.

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Research approach Through our approach in this research, this project will be focus on an Apply Investigation, owing to our investigations on site which are the classes and the participation of teachers. The main idea is to suggest the use of this methodology among teachers as a way to achieve their learning goals also encourage the new perspective to old methodologies developed in classrooms. It is important to mention that this project is focus on make a difference not just in methodologies but in teachers minds. Moreover, this project is an Exploratory Investigation which is focus on; determine some perspective of the old methodologies according to our experiences and at the same time make a description of the new one which is the Task Based Language Learning. Therefore, those problems which are the difference in the teachers performances and so on will be developing with an appropriate and objective glance research. Finally, this research will manage two perspectives of study which are Qualitative and Quantitative hence a Mixed Investigation will be developed in this project. To make clear the main idea of this focus, first of all we are willing to make surveys on schools, make studies of the performances of students in classes also, we will do an intervention as a practitioners.

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Chapter II In the next lines we are going to discuss the main concepts related to this research. First of all, we are going to discuss about the Language itself. Then, we are going to discuss the importance of English in the world and in Chile as well. After that, we are going to discuss the most important aspects of Grammar Translation method and the role that students and teachers have inside the methodology. Also, we are going to discuss the centered teachers approach related to the grammar translation method. Next, we are going to talk about the oral production with a definition of speaking as the first attempt to communicative. As we talked about speaking, subsequently, we are going to connect the planes y programas of Ministerio de Educacin (MINEDUC) with the speaking process and the standard that the MINEUC establishes for students of the third year in high school. Then, we explain what are L1 and L2 and the interference between L1 in L2 learning processes. After that, we describe learners and the way they learn a second language process. Immediately after that, we are going to connect the students centered approach with the Task-Based Language learning method in which we describe its approach, Finally, we ARE Going explain and discuss the Scaffolding and Zone of Proximal Development theory stated by Lev Vygotsky. There are a lot of definitions of Language each one related to the branch of knowledge of the person who proposed the definition. In our project, we are going to understand Language as Henry Sweet (1900) stated:

Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech -sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts. According to the definition, joining words to express our feelings and emotions embrace the communication between people who share the same culture, age, sex and social status. Our first attempt to communicate with other human beings begins when we are babies is through oral sounds such as babbling
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and cooing.5 As we grow up, language became more complex as our ideas and concepts of life changed from concrete to abstract, i.e. feelings such as love, friendship and family are not understood by children, but are understood and internalize by young and adult people. English is growing around the world and day by day more people is speaking English, there are more possibilities for being exposed to this language thus it would be easier to learn it. There are a plethora of languages in the world, but probably one of the most important nowadays is English6, because it is the only language that actually links the whole world together. This language is learned by many people with every passing day due to its importance. For instance, Globalization is important because it has everything inside it; many things can be developed through English, such as economy, technology and social cultural economy, technology and social cultural, for that reason, as a country we can share and communicate with people all over the world. English is in everyday life; on internet, in video games, studies for medicine, instructive how to wash your cloth or how to fix something. In a nutshell, English is everywhere. Recently, English is playing an important role in daily life of Chilean people for the demand in terms of jobs. Today, people who do not know English may lose a lot of opportunities for high level positions offered. English is the key to the science world and medicine because many important articles about these topics are written in English. In the field of English education, is even more important because, it is there where students actually can learn it; even though all the efforts that people do to learn English they cannot achieve it. In a recent survey according to La Segunda7
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Babbling and cooing: The first recognizable sounds are cooing, such as /k/ and /g/, also recognized in high vowels sound such as /i/ and /u/. This stage longs up to third month. After this stage there is a following stage that is babbling and it is described as the sound production containing syllable-type sounds such as /mu/ and /da/. This last mentioned stage longs until tenth or eleventh month. The study of language, Yule George, 6 Most useful languages for conducting business around the world. Oct 2011 http://www.relocatemagazine.com/languagetraining/language-news-main/2949-bloomberg-names-most-useful-languages-for-conducting-business-around-the-world 7 Survey La segunda http://www.lasegunda.com/Noticias/Educacion/2012/01/711804/Estudio-revela-que-de-50-chilenosadultos-uno-habla-ingles

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newspaper, it was stated that from fifty Chilean people, just one speaks English with fluency. Managing English skills encourage speakers to communicate with foreigners comfortably, understand differences in culture and hold positive attitudes towards English. In general, we cannot deny the importance of English language as tool to communicate each other with people all over the world. A proper management of English language does not depend on the accent or how do we use it to express emotions, feelings or just to follow instructions, but it depends on the importance of the educational and cultural experienced that plays nowadays. But, even with the efforts done by people we believe that the bases for learning English in schools are weak and the methodologies developed by teachers do not cover students needs. Also, the use of English in classes is missing due to; some methodologies do not provide enough practice to improve their English level, as we could observed in our practicum one of those methodologies is The Grammar Translation Method. The Grammar Translation Method (GTM) of foreign language teaching is one of the most traditional methods use in Chilean classrooms. It was originally used to teach 'dead' languages (and literatures) such as Latin and Greek. 8 The focus of the GTM is developed writing and reading skills and it excluded both oral production and listening. Indeed, the emphasis of the methodology is in learning grammatical structures in the target language, embracing a lack of communication in the language being taught English. Also, this kind of methodology centered its attention to reinforce reading and writing skills, so students have a lack of participation in terms of a real English context. GTM is a teacher centered methodology, That is to say, the focus of this methodology is based on the instructor only and not in both class characters that would be instructor and learners. Also, GTM centered the attention on language form and structures for instance, what the teacher knows about the language. Sometimes students talk in a teacher centered class, but mostly they have to listen
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Richards, Jack C. and Theodore S. Rodgers (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching: A description and analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grammar Translation Method. http://myenglishpages.com/blog/grammartranslation-method/

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to what the teacher says and the teacher speaks the whole class, according to that, there is not information sharing between teacher and students. Instead of that, the teacher controls the whole class and the information that is shown to the students. As a result of this, students are able to deal with the new language but just in terms of translation, and not as a communicative tool. That is to say, they are capable to translate and might know all the grammar rules, but they cannot contextualize language. Finally, a teacher centered class is the one that is wholly controlled by the instructor, in this case, the teacher; even from the topic, passing through the evaluations (no self-assessments or pair- assessments), class focus and students work, up to the contents. GTM has effectiveness when students want to learn just grammar and reading/writing skills, but if students need to develop speaking skill, GTM is not the most suitable way to achieve it. Taking into consideration that speaking is the first attempt to communicate over the other skills (writing, reading and listening) as long as human beings express sounds over three months of age and it is the wise to make contact to other people to express ideas, thoughts, feelings and needs. According to Hymes (1972): Speaking refers to the capacity to communicate effectively within a particular speech community that wants to accomplish its purposes That is to say, human beings learn through the period of their life a particular speech inside of a specific culture (countries and also communities) hence the capacity to develop it, must be considered it according to the space where they live. Nevertheless, the continuous practice of this skill, which is speaking, will be improved with the attempt to perfect it in order to complete the purposes of a specific group. Yorkey stated: Speaking skill is a skill and like other skill, it must be practiced continuously

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According to Yorkey, speaking like other skills must be regularly put it in practice to improve it and cultivate it, in order to communicate to other people. It is important to mention that speaking like a productive skill 9 has the connection with all the skills but more with listening. Due to, if a person has a good management of listening skill, the production of speaking will be more suitable. In this project our research will be focused on speaking, which is oral production in students development in classes. All the experiences (like practicum and observations previously mentioned) , have shown us, that students behaviour in oral production in front of the class are primarily expression of fear, insecurity and lack of confidence. Despite of the importance of the four skills in our English Trainer Program inside of classes, our point of convergence it is oral production and how to improve it leaving behind all feelings which impede the students improvement in this area. In addition to the students performance, the Planes y Programas of Ministerio de Educacin of Chile (MINEDUC) presents a general standards for third levels of high school (which is our focus on this research) to reach a higher challenge in the future in oral production. According to Planes y Programas MINEDUC 2012: Students at this level should be able to ask questions, participate in oral interchanges, and have participation in a conversation. Moreover, sometimes it is a little difficult for students to learn a second language (L2) due to they always are thinking in their native language (L1)10. Furthermore, if we are exposed in our childhood to English language and we acquire that language, we become English native speakers. L1 can be acquired up to the end of the childhood process but during the puberty is more difficult, not impossible but harder than in childhood to acquired another language.
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The productive skills are speaking and writing, because learners doing these need to produce language. They are also known as active skills. Teaching English http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/knowledgedatabase/productive-skills
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L1 one's native language; the language learned by children and passed from one generation to the next. The free dictionary, 2013, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/first+language

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There exists another very important concept that is L2. L2 it is also an acronym, but in this case is for second language and is the process of acquiring or trying to learn another language apart from the first or native one after the childhood. E.g. Chilean students learn English at school. Having these terms clear, we must analyze the concept of interference. When learners begin the process of studying a new language, they still have problems in assimilating differences between both languages, L1 and L2. That is called interference. According to Dulay and Burt (1972): Interference results from the fact old habits (the first language) must be unlearned before new habits (the second language) can be mastered. That is to say, before learning L2 we should try to separate some grammatical rules from L1 or first grammatical rules, syntax, morphology, pronunciation might interfere with second ones. The following lines are to exemplify different sorts of interference that might be found in a Spanish native speaker trying to learn English as an L2:

Adjective-noun order: I like food Chinesse. You like food Mexican? Instead of I like Chinesse food. Do you like Mexican food?

Auxiliary verbs (missing): I __ no like the hamburger. __ You like drink the coffee? instead of I do not like hamburgers. Do you like drinking coffee? Orthographic errors: The childrens enjoy legolan the Saturday. I need speac more inglish Instead of The children enjoy legoland on Saturdays. And I need to speak more English11.

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Every student has a different way to learn language and some are better than others, (Harmer, J, 1998) for that reason we have to describe them and explain the way they learn. First of all the age of the students is the most important factor to determine about how and what we are going to teach them, because depending on that, we are going to create the activities based on students n eeds. Adolescents in this stage are looking for their own identity and they are also looking for their classmates approval, friends and sometimes that is more important than paying attention to the teacher or in the class itself. In this stage is more difficult to engage students into the learning process, because the teacher has to identify what students want and what do they need to learn, so the teacher has to encourage students to integrate their experiences, feelings and thoughts in order to engage them into the learning process. As Penny UR stated (1996): Teenager students are overall the best language learners. That is to say, as younger a person is, it is going to be easier to learn a language. The way students learn is an important factor too. Wright, Tony,1987 , establishes four different learner styles: the first one is the enthusiast referring to the teacher and the goals in the learning students; the oracular is focusing on the teacher but also to achieve personal goals, the participator that is concentrated in the group goals and finally the rebel is focused on satisfaction or his goals. Keith Willing also proposed four styles of learners: converges are students who work independently and they believed in their own abilities; the conformists are students who learn the language by themselves but not the use of it; concrete learners they prefer to use the language to communicate instead of the language as a system; communicative learners are students who use the language, they take risks even though they made mistakes, they prefer the social interaction and they like the guidance of the teacher.

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We are always going to have different styles of students, different kind of learners and to recognize them that is one of the most important things in order to create the correct activity to teach them according to their needs. We as teachers have the duty to give to students the necessary tools to develop the activities also by their own. Therefore, students should not relay on a complete guidance from the teacher to develop the activities. A students centered class is where the teacher takes into consideration the needs, abilities, interests and learning styles of the students. In a students centered class, students do not depend on the teachers commands. Instead, students became active participants in their learning process and the teacher role is that of a facilitator rather than a dictator of knowledge in class. We, as teacher, are responsible for making students work independently in classes. The classes are dynamic, that is to say we changed role with students, from a teacher-led to a students centred and back again. Teacher and students interact in a way that students become an autonomous learner through time exposed to this approach. Why should we consider the application of this approach12? Due to some researches and many books written about it (for example The Student-Centered Classroom, written by Leo Jones), reach to the conclusion that this approach motivate students to learn more about English; students learn how to work by themselves, in pairs and in groups due to the teacher could assign different task that can be achieve in different ways and reinforce their abilities to prepare something by themselves and with other people. Also, students talk more in classes, share their ideas, learn more from each other and use English in a meaningful, realistic way (Leo Jones, 2007). An example of a methodology that includes students centered approach is Task-Based Language Learning (TBLL). TBLL can be defined as a methodology in which communicative and meaningful tasks play central role in language learning and in which the process of
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Richards and Rodgers (2001) An approach is a set of assumptions dealing with the nature of the language and the nature of language teaching and learning.

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using language appropriately carries more importance than the mere production of grammatically correct language forms (Willis, J. 1996). One of the most important parts from TBLL is task. Task is defined by Nunan (2004) as: A piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than on form. Task has four stages which are: Pre-task, Task Preparation, Task Realization and Post- Task. Pre-task: Teacher introduces the topic to prepare students to perform the final task. In this stage vocabulary, useful expressions and material to develop the task are presented. Also, students present a brainstorming13 about the task.

Task Preparation: Taking in consideration the brainstorming, in this stage students deal with their attitude to face the task, involve students ideas to prepare it and also connected the previous ideas to complete it.

Task Realization: In this stage students perform the task in pairs or in groups.

Post-Task: While the students are developing the task, the teacher should take notes about the students performance, for instance: vocabulary that is to say, students facing problems in any task. Students finish the task and receive feedback or evaluation from the teacher.

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Brainstorming: intensive discussion to solve problems or generate ideas Based on the Random House Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2013. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/brainstorming )

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There are some advantages that we should take into consideration before applying this methodology. First, the approach of this methodology is studentcentered; the students are free to create what they want considering the class objective (pre-task); secondly the focus of TBLL is to develop, through the use of the four skills (mainly speaking), a real context or a real situation for each task i.e. the environment where students develop their daily life e.g. to buy in a supermarket, to ask for directions, to order food in a restaurant and so on. One of the most predominant theories behind TBLL is the Sociocultural theory originated by Lev Vygotsky14(1978). Inside Sociocultural theory there are two concepts that are really important for this work: Scaffolding and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Scaffolding, as a teaching strategy, can be defined as: Role of teachers and others in supporting the learners development and providing support structures to get to that next stage or level (Raymond, 2000). Rod Ellis in his book Task-based Language Learning and Teaching quotes Wood, Brunner and Ross (1976) whose identify six features of scaffolding: Captured the attention to do the task Explain the task and make it easy to understand Keeping students on track by reminding them of the goal Pointing out key things to do and/or showing students other ways of doing parts of the task Controlling frustration during problem solving Demonstrating an idealized way of doing the task

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1896-1934, Russian psychologist. His most productive years were at the Institute of Psychology in Moscow (1924-34), where he expanded his ideas on cognitive development, particularly the relationship between language and thinking. Biography,2013, http://www.answers.com/topic/lev-vygotsky

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So, scaffolding deals not only with cognitive aspects that the task demands but with the affective aspects and states of the person that is performing the task (emotions, feelings, frustration, etc). Also, we can say that scaffolds are temporary. That means, as the students learning and abilities increase, the teacher begins to reduce the support in the task until students become autonomous learners and more independent problem solver. So finally the student is able to complete the task by him/herself. As mentioned a second crucial concept taken from Vigotsky theory is the concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). According to Raymond, is the distance between what children can do by themselves and the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with competent assistance (Raymond, 2000). That is to say, the skills and abilities that students possess represent his or her actual level. Then, the skills and abilities that a student can perform when assisted by another person represent the potential level (Ellis Rod, 2003). Ergo, learnt skills and abilities are the main basis for learning new skills. When students mastered and the abilities are stable in their minds, a new zone can be created to make possible the acquisition of further skills and abilities. So task and activities must be structured in a way that represents a challenge for students current skills to create new zone of development in a dynamic way. The implication for ZPD in TBLL is perhaps that is not the task itself what creates the environment for a rich learning process, but rather the way students carry out the task. The task is only a tool for students and teachers to see where is appropriate to support the developing of the task in order to enable appropriate ZPD to be created (Ellis, 2003). Conclusion

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Chapter III In the following lines we are going to present the design strategy which gathers all the instruments that we are going to use to evaluate students speaking abilities and the sampling obtained of this research. In this research we are going to use some instruments to collect the data we need for this project in order to have an evidence of the process in classes and the development of the test that we will use to know the students level of the spoken English. First, we are going to use a diagnostic test to see the level that students have. Then we are going to apply four tasks, focused in the use of the grammar tense (present simple) to prepare students for the final test. And finally we are going to apply a final test to see if there are improvements in students speaking level. The students will be evaluated with speaking rubric which has scores, from 0 to 8 points the students will be classify as poor; from 9 up to 12 point will be classify as fair; from 13 up to 16 the students will be good and finally from 17 up to 20 the students will be classify in excellent. On the other hand, we are developing the classes using Task Based Language Learning to present four tasks that will be performance in order to improve their spoken language level. Finally, to collect to whole knowledge of students, we are going to give a final test, in order to evaluate if students improve their English or not.

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Design Strategy
To start, we are going to apply a diagnostic test where is going to be developed to ten pairs for each school that give us a total of thirty students and the diagnostic test will contain three different parts. The first part includes four questions that belong to the ice breaker in order to give a sort of confidence between teacher and students, the second part consists in looking at eight pictures (each student) and describe the routine of the person who is developing the activity and finally, the third part of the test the student has to tell something about her/his daily routine, in order to gain information and realize if they are able to speak in English based on, if they use the simple present, vocabulary related to daily routines like wake up, usually, etc, accuracy and fluency. Apart from that, we are going to record all the diagnostics tests which are going to be developed in each school (ten pairs for each school) in order to back up all the information and give us the detail of each performance in the test. In addition, we are going to use a speaking rubric to evaluate the performance of the students through different criteria and level of their spoken English. Concerning the selection of the sample, we are going to choose ten students from three different schools at random. We are going to put some piece of papers with a number written in a bag. The number of papers will be according the number of students in each school and course. After that, we are going to take a piece of paper out from the inside of the bag, there will be a number written in the paper, so we check the number in the list and the name of the student will be the chosen for the diagnostic. We will focus on a group of students chosen at random in the following schools: -IDOP -Juanita Fernandez Solar -Kings School

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IDOP: is a school located in the districted of La Cisterna. It is a subsidized school; it has scientific/humanistic studies. The social environment is very good; there exist a good relationship between students and teacher and vice versa, the school in general has a good education and the resources that it has can allow to do the classes in other ways. Juanita Fernandez Solar is a school located in the district of Recoleta. It is a public technical school that just receives women, supports young pregnancy and triggers students motivation to finish school and get a job. They have a critical social environment, due to the students come from difficult districts like; La Pincoya, El Salto, La Chimba, and La Quinta Bella. It is has been observed that sometimes it is difficult to make classes because the students are not quite interest in classes themselves. Kings School is a school located in the district of San Miguel. It is a subsidized school, it has scientific/humanistic studies and imparts protestant believes. The social environment is quite good. There is a good relationship between students students and students teacher. There are instances in which students, parents and teachers can talk about their worries and problems that they have inside the school.

Sampling
We choose ten students at random per school from the three schools previously mentioned that give us a total of 30 students. These students are all in the third level of high school, they are between 15 to 17 years old. Particularly, in the Juanita Fernandez Solar school, the course that we are going to focus is composed by 26 women. In Kings school are 29 students; specifically 16 women and 13 men. Finally, IDOPs course it is composed by 44 students, where 19 are women and 25 men.

Instruments
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The instruments we are going to use are: Diagnostic Test, Recording, Tasks (to be developed in classes) and Final Test. First, we are going to evaluate the students level in spoken English in order to diagnose their management of it. The diagnostic test (see Annex 1) is composed of ten personal questions that students will have to answer according to their knowledge. All the answers will be recorded for a posterior analysis and with this, measure speaking. Each student will have two opportunities for answering the questions. The rules for it would be that if students use words such as Im sorry or repeat please? they will have an extra opportunity for giving an answer. In the other side, if they use Spanish expressions for asking they will not have other opportunity for that question. In the first part of the test we have the ice breaker. We will ask students about their personal information in order to break the ice between teacher and students and for them getting more confident. After that, in part two of the test, we will show some images for students to create a story connecting the different images to each other. Each image shows a character in his daily life and different routines that he has. This part of the test is for students to catch the general idea for the final part of the test. Finally, in the third part of the test, students will have to talk about their day life and how they develop the complete routine in order to tell as much as they know about this content, in this case, present simple, specifically, routines. Another instrument is the Recording, (see Annex 2) which is our backup of the diagnostic test for our posterior evaluation. This evaluation will be ranked by a speaking rubric (see Annex 3) Next instruments are the Tasks that are a set of activities to be developed in classes taking into consideration the Task Based Language Learning methodology. The following activities will be performed by the students in four classes. These activities are taken from the book: Cutting edge. A practical approach to task based learning Intermediate. By Sarah Cunningham and Peter Moor 1998.
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The activities are: Activity N1: Students government has decided to issue a set of stamps of famous people. Students will be in the committee which decides who to put on the stamps and why. Students must work in groups of three or four and take the decision for which characters must be in the stamps and tell why. This activity is for making students express their opinion and give reasons. (see Annex 4) Activity N2: Students must work in groups as the activity previously mention. Students must describe a routine and compared with a famou s characters routine. For instance: comparing Madonnas routine; she sings every day to improve her performance. Student: I sing in a band with some friends all weekends.(see Annex 5) Activity N3: Students are going to interview their classmate in order to complete a chart about what he/she does in his/her free time and what he/she does in his/her daily routine, creating questions like: do you work or study or both?, or how do you spend your free time?. Once they have the information about their partner they have to introduce them using the information given. Between these two activities we are going to ask a question to students in order to connect both. Let me tell you a story. At the university I have two best friends, a boy and a girl. They are in a relationship and I love them both, but once I saw cheating on my friend with another guy. I ask myself Should I tell him what happened or should I keep the secret? She did not see me at the party w here she cheated on him. What can I do? (see Annex 6) Activity N4: Students work in groups. Students will have to read four short texts where some problems are described. They will have to decide which of these four problems interest them the most, analyse it and find the possible solutions for it. They will receive some useful language for it. (see Annex 7) Moreover, the last instrument is the Final Test, which will be given in order to demonstrate whether the students improve or not their performance in spoken
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language. Although, the main idea is to encourage their management, either the results will be better at the end of the classes or students performance in this area will remain same or get worse results. (see Annex 8) The design of the final test will be divided into two parts; the first one will be an ice breaker with six questions. The first three questions will be asked to all the students and the other three questions will be divided in the entire group. The second and final part of the test, students will work in pairs and choose an image from a set of famous people images and then they will have to prepare a short presentation about the daily routine of the famous they chose. They will have five minutes to prepare the presentation. We decided to change the final test and make it similar to a task that was applied in classes because we were working with the TBLL in classes and we wanted to make them felt comfortable and familiarized with the test and also to evaluate the application of TBLL during classes. We took the activity number 2 (previously mentioned) which was to describe the daily routine of a famous person. After the application of tasks In Kings School We talked about how they felt performing the tasks and the final test. Most of them said that they felt more confident at the moment of speaking. Also they said they felt motivated to participate during the task and they enjoyed the practice of speaking skills due to, they not always practiced the speaking skills in classes. In IDOP School, students felt very comfortable at the moment of speaking they expressed what they want to say, sometimes some students made some mistakes but nothing to be worried about, they told me that it was better to do activities like this due to, they had the knowledge what they were doing and for. Students enjoy the activities in general and some of them start to work in activities, when before the application of the tasks they did not work. In Juanita Fernandez Solar, after, a brief conversation with students and the final test application, we talked about how they felt during the classes where the tasks were applied. Some students felt awkward with the new methodology and
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they felt that there was a change in the class rhythm. Others felt more confident in a sort of talking group that working individually when they had to speak English so they really liked how was the class going and they wanted to keep this new rhythm. Also, there were some students that did not wanted to share what they deeply thought, but they said that it was complicated to use one day one methodology and the other days another one, so they got confused with the application of TBLL, but they thought that it would be funnier just using TBLL in classes.

Just a little more than a half of the class group wanted to share their experiences with the TBLL application, the rest was not interested in chat about it and they just wanted to go back to reality, that is to say, the traditional methodology mode

Chapter IV Data Analysis

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The purpose of the following chapter is to analyze all the data information recompiled in all arrange. We will start with the diagnostic test applied in three different schools described in chapter three and tabular it with graphics the results obtained. Let us remember that it was used a diagnostic test composed by three parts; the first one was a set of four ice breaker questions where students have to answer according to their personal information, the second part was to create a short story with some pictures about daily routines, and finally, the third part was about to talk about their daily routine. (Students should follow some structures of simple present and vocabulary). IDOP School

Diagnostic test results


100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Poor Fair Good Excelent

Idop School

Graphic 1

As it is illustrated in the graphic 1 it was demonstrated that students speaking abilities at IDOP School were in the following way: the 10% of students achieve in fair level, where students have some pauses at the moment of expressing ideas and using grammar according to their level. The 30% of students achieve an excellent level, where they expressed their ideas thoughts and opinions. Finally, the 60% of students achieve a good level, where they did some pauses and mistakes in grammar.
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According to this the 80% of students in IDOP School achieve with good results; it is noticeable that students have a good level of English and that is due to the base in English subject is according to their level required by Ministerio de Educacin in Planes y Programas. Kings School

Dignostic test results


100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Poor Fair Good Excelent King's School

Graphic 2

According to the graphic 2 and results in Kings school; 40% of students have a Fair level of speaking according to the rubric (see Annex). That means, that students could understand most of the diagnostic test, can express their ideas with some mistakes; they made some long pauses when they were speaking, but they finally express what they wanted to say. The other 40% of students have a Good level of speaking according to the rubric. I.E students could express their ideas with fluency and accuracy; a few problems with their pronunciation; few pauses in the conversation and their answered most of the questions with full sentences.

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Only 20% of the students achieve an excellent level of speaking according to the rubric. These students performed with no mistakes; they talked with fluency and accuracy and they had no problems with their pronunciation. In addition to that, we could say that the 80% of the students have an acceptable level of English that is required by Ministerio de Educacin in Chile, established in the planes y programas Also we can say that in this class, students achieve the diagnostic test very successfully. They react with a very good English level. As it is shown in the graphic, they do not fail the diagnostic test. Juanita Fernandez solar School

Dignostic test results


100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Poor Fair Good Excelent

Juanita Fernandez Solar School

Graphic

According to the graphic 3 in Juanita Fernandez Solar School, the diagnosis test showed that not a single student could reach a final score over the 4 points. We think that this is caused by the English base that students had in this school and the nervousness of the moment (because they were not used to have oral tests in English). Also, their English level were not according to their grade, for in this class the teacher taught the same of the lower levels, justifying himself

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qualifying students as poor learners and ignorant people. According to our diagnosis, this sampling was not able to approve the test, but we still need to analyze the results of a second final test.

Diagnostic test results


100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Idop School King's School Juanita Fernandez Solar School

Poor Fair Good Excelent

Graphic 4

According to the graphic and the results of the three schools we can say that two of them have good results in general and that it is probably because students level at English subject was better than the other one where no one achieve the diagnostic test up to here. IDOP School has the best results and one of the important factors in our opinion it is that in this school have a lot of technology and resources to complement with the activities and works to develop in class, nowadays technology plays an important role in the learning process due to catch the attention of the students easily and that helps to the classes making them more interactive. Also this school gives the opportunity of working with personalized computers and activities for each of them. Kings school has the second position in terms of results in the diagnosti c test and as same as IDOP School has a lot of technologic recourses to use in classroom and apart from that the school itself it is concerned in the learning process of each student together with their parents.
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Finally, At Juanita Fernandez Solar school there are many dropouts and most of the students who attempt to the school, do it for many reasons, but the most well known are: because they were expulsed from other schools and their desire to learn is quite low, they want to finished school with a technical career or the help that the school offers for teenagers that experienced pregnancy. So for that reason students are not quite interest in learning process and even when teacher tries to help them. In conclusion the results from the three different schools depend on many factors. First, we have the resources that schools provide to students and have to implement in lessons. Second the interest that student have in the lesson And finally, the degree of use of GTM in the lessons, has a powerful impact in their speaking abilities as some of them cannot express their ideas with fluency and accuracy and others (like Juanita Fernandez Solar) they could not express anything at all. One always it is going to depend by the other. The teacher and his/her ability to attract the students interest and finally, the students and their responsibility with the learning process itself.

Final test results


80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Poor Fair Good Excelent IDOP school

Graphic 5

As is illustrated in graphic 5 the 30% of students In IDOP School achieve a good level of English and the 70% of students achieve an excellent level of English, According to this results, we can realized that students who achieve Fair

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standards in the diagnostic test; they successfully improved their level of English trough the implementation of Task based language learning.

King's School
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Poor Fair Good Excelent

King's School

Graphic 6

As we can see in the graphic, most students improved their level of speaking after being exposed to the methodology. 20% of the students improved one level (from fair to good) and other 20% moved from good to excellent. As a result, we could say that 40% of the students get better results in the final test using tbll during classes. Also they increased the use of vocabulary and the fluency. Also there was a rising in the use of full sentences.

Final test results


90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Poor Fair Good Excelent

Juanita Fernandez Solar School

Graphic 7

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The twenty percent (20%) of the students were positioned as a poor result, because they could not go further from the minimum possible score. The other eighty percent (80%) reached the position of a fair result. That is to say that, there was an improvement after the application of the tasks in this school in the eighty percent of the students exposed to task based language learning.

Final test Results


100% 80% 60% King's School 40% 20% 0% Poor Fair Good Excelent Juanita Fernandez Solar School IDOP school

Graphic 8

As is illustrated in Graphic 8 all the students from the three different schools increase their English level after the application of Task Based Language Learning, so, According to this we can conclude that with the application of task and the change in the strategy of lessons plan, students improve their English level at speaking, they felt more motivated at the moment of expressing their ideas and thoughts and they applied the contents, vocabulary and grammar. Task based Language learning is more effective than the traditional teaching methodology which is GTM, we suggest to teachers to tried to apply this methodology due to there exist a improvement in the application of this.

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Conclusion

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Annex1

Diagnostic Test
1.- Ice Breaker (student A and B) 1.- What is your name? 2.- Where do you live? 3.- What is your favorite schools subject? 4.- What do you in your free time? Back-up prompts Do you like history, chemestry, maths?

2.- Look at the pictures and create a short history (student A) 2.- Look at the pictures and create a short story (student B) Anexx 1

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3.- Now, tell us about your daily routines

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Annex 2

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Annex 3

Poor 2pts Student used very little of the vocabulary learned in class to communicate his/her ideas. Poor use of grammar. Meaning is often unclear. Many errors. Most vocabulary words/idiomatic expressions weren't used adequately

Fair 3 pts Student used some of the vocabulary learned in class to communicate his/her ideas Adequate use of grammar. Meaning is sometimes unclear. Some errors are still present. Some vocabulary words/ idiomatic expressions weren't used adequately.

Good 4 pts Student used a great deal of the vocabulary learned in class to communicate his/her ideas Good use of grammar. Meaning is mostly clearly conveyed. A few errors are still present. The student may show some word order or noun verb agreement issues. Few vocabulary words/idiomatic expressions weren't used adequately. Student answered all questions, mostly in full sentences.

Excellent 5 pts Student used all the vocabulary learned in class to communicate his/her ideas

Vocabulary & Grammar

Accuracy

Excellent use of grammar. Meaning is very clear. Very few errors present. Ideas were expressed clearly. All vocabulary words and idiomatic expressions were used in the right context.

Task Completion

Student couldn't answer most of the questions in full or simple sentences.

Students answered most questions, some of them in full sentences.

Student answered all questions in full sentences.

Speaking Mechanics

Fluency was not up to the level, most sentences had long pauses/interruptions and conversation was not fluent at all.

Fluency was acceptable, although pauses in sentences were frequent and the conversation was not very fluent.

Fluency was decent. A few sentences had small pauses or fluency issues. Conversation was still fluent.

Fluency was smooth. Conversation was fluent and easygoing.

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Annex 4

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Annex 5

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Annex 6

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Annex 7

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Annex 8

Final Test
1.- Ice Breaker (student A and B) 1.- What is your name? 2.- Where do you live? 3.- What do you like to do? 4.- What do you do in the mornings? 5.- What do you do in the afternoons? 6.- What do you do in the evenings? Back-up prompts What do you do between 8am to 11am? What do you do between midday to 6pm? What do you do between 7pm to midnight?

References

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Appendix

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