Finding success with pedagogical innovation: A case from CSL teachers’ experiences with TBLT

Abstract

This study uncovers the under-explored influences that encourage teachers to incorporate task-based language teaching (TBLT) for teaching Chinese as a second language, and the process of teachers’ pedagogical attempts at a Chinese university. Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987) was adopted as the conceptual framework. As a qualitative study, the analysis drew on data from interviews and classroom observations with eight teachers, and complemented by interviews with two directors and 17 students. The study reveals that teachers’ pedagogical practice results from a process of negotiating the possible pedagogical tools to reach their teaching objectives in their context of teaching. In particular, teachers depart from the traditional teaching approach to incorporate tasks as a personal initiative in response to the perceived challenges in the effort to achieve their objectives. The study argues that compared to the constraints from the local education context, teacher beliefs and knowledge play a more critical role in shaping the extent to which teachers choose to adopt TBLT, as teacher beliefs and knowledge directly creates tension between TBLT as a tool and the desired objectives. The study proposes that the Problem-Solving Model (Havelock, 1969) for introducing pedagogical change gives teachers agency and ownership over TBLT, which may serve as a possible direction for realizing the pedagogical innovation.

The emerging understandings and practices of task-based language teaching (TBLT) by Thai EFL student teachers

“…In summary, the findings show that the STs had variable levels of understanding of task features ranging from vague to more accurate accounts of task features. This study supports the findings reported by Peng and Pyper (2019)…”

“…Moreover, the word outcome can be misinterpreted by the STs as any end-result of doing tasks or activities. Similarly, the often missing features of the gap and the outcome is also reported in Peng and Pyper's (2019) study. Many activities claimed as tasks by teachers in their study often failed to meet these criteria.…”

Exploring English Language Teaching in Ecuadorian Secondary Schools: Teachers’ Beliefs About the National Curriculum Reform

“…They also found that the less experienced teacher was more likely to be open to the reform and innovation than the other two more experienced teachers. Some other studies found that teachers tried their best to make the curriculum reform successful, such as those in studies of Nguyen et al (2018) and Peng and Pyper (2019). Nguyen et al (2018) found that Vietnamese EFL teachers in a selective school made considerable efforts to adapt or replace textbook tasks to make them more authentic and practical to their learners.…”

El impacto de los materiales complementarios en el aprendizaje del idioma inglés y la conceptualización cultural de los estudiantes

“…The passages can be used as tasks which can be deploy in the class. Peng and Pyper (2019) showed that the possible effects leading Chinese teachers to embody TBLT in the classrooms proved to be a success. These all become attractions for the learners to find out more about these linguistically information-coated materials deployed by the instructors in the classes the prominent of which are literary ones as Azizur ( 2019) has asserted that English language teaching material can be developed using a literary text.…”