Improving EFL Learners’ Oral Production through Reasoning-gap Tasks Enhanced with Critical Thinking Standards: Developing and Implementing a Critical TBLT Model, Pre-Task Plan, and Speaking Rubric

Abstract

This study aims to design and implement a speaking task model following the principles of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Critical Thinking (CT). The study mainly investigated to what extent the use of critical thinking standards had an impact on the students’ oral performance with respect to the linguistic trilogy of fluency, accuracy, and complexity. Experimental research design was conducted to examine the differences in research foci between the non-treatment and treatment groups. Data were drawn from 16 students of the English Language Teaching department and collected through the designed task rubric, speech samples, and semi-structured interview protocols. The findings indicated that adherence to relevant intellectual standards in reasoning-gap tasks had a positive effect on the oral performance of the speakers of the target language. Additionally, concerning two linguistic dimensions of accuracy (p=.00) and complexity (p=.00), MANOVA results showed a statistically significant difference between two main research groups. Based on the semi-structured interview findings, all participants in the treatment group reported positive views regarding their learning experiences and oral performance supported with critically enhanced reasoning-gap tasks. This study proposes language teachers a synthesized TBLT model enhanced with critical thinking standards. With this task model, suggested pre-task plan, and speaking rubric, they can boost their students’ intellectual agility and make them more intellectually and linguistically active in their oral performance.

The Effectiveness of Opinion Gaps, Reasoning, and Information Tasks in Improving Speaking Skills

“…This has proved to be effective in improving students' speaking ability. Students' opinions are the basis for changing the process of learning to speak because, through voicing their opinions, students have an opportunity to carry out intensive verbal interactions while at the same time training their spontaneous thinking (Dilber & Kömür, 2022;Yaprak & Kaya, 2020). This indicates that a wide range of opportunities for students to participate actively in communication can accelerate the improvement of students' speaking skills in the target language.…”

“…This task-based teaching method is widely used in first and second language learning in the classroom. Tasks are defined as a series of activities that encourage students to do something or carry out certain activities in order to achieve the goals of the learning process (Fallahi et al, 2015;Yaprak & Kaya, 2020). These students must be involved in this task interactively, which can help them to understand and apply the subject they are studying.…”

“…Teaching techniques using information gaps use incomplete information and encourage students to find this information through communication with friends so that students' speaking skills are trained. Information gaps can be in various contexts, for example, regarding student information, school information, environmental information and others (Fallahi et al, 2015;Yaprak & Kaya, 2020). Furthermore, the opinion gap can be in the form of a task asking for opinions, feelings, views, and preferences regarding social issues or certain topics.…”

“…This shows that speaking ability is a language skill that requires intensive practice. It is a language skill that must not only be learnt but must be used directly (Marashi & Mirghafari, 2019;Yaprak & Kaya, 2020). Teaching speaking skills in the field is still regarded as passive, for example, by memorising vocabulary, filling in exercises, or doing assignments without actively encouraging students to be directly involved in speaking activities.…”

“…From this study, it was found that the students' speaking ability increased significantly. From several previous studies (Aliakbari, 2014;Marashi & Mirghafari, 2019;Yaprak & Kaya, 2020), there is no research that compares the effectiveness of the three task-based language teaching tasks in the gaps of opinion, reasoning, and information on speaking ability.…”