The effects of Task Based Language Learning on grammatical and lexical achievements among student teachers

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of task-based language learning (TBLL) on  the grammatical and lexical achievements among student teachers. A series of TBLL lessons were used  as the treatment while a series of presentation-practice- production (PPP) lessons were used as the  control. The TBLL lessons were conducted using two different types of collaborative tasks namely,  the dictogloss task and jigsaw task. The research employs a quasi-experimental with a three-group  pre-test post-test design. The samples of the study consist of 63 student teachers from one of the  Malaysian teacher education institutes or Institut Pendidikan Guru Malaysia (IPGM). They comprise  of two treatment groups and one controlled groups. The instruments of the study consist of   pre-test, post-test, questionnaires and interview questions. The data were analysed using  descriptive statistics and a one-way ANOVA test in the statistical software for social sciences  (SPSS) version 17. Interviews were analysed qualitatively. The findings revealed that both of the  treatments groups had achieved significantly higher scores in the grammatical- and  lexical-achievements mean scores as compared to the controlled group. In terms of the comparison  between the groups exposed to the dictogloss tasks and the jigsaw tasks, the results have shown  that descriptively the group exposed to the dictogloss tasks achieved higher  grammatical-achievements mean score as compared to the group exposed to the jigsaw tasks.  Meanwhile, the group exposed to the jigsaw tasks achieved higher lexical-achievements mean score as  compared to the group exposed to dictogloss tasks. In addition, the participants were strongly  satisfied with the TBLL lessons in terms of learning grammar, learning lexis and the overall  activities in the lessons. The research concluded that the TBLL lessons using collaborative tasks,  dictogloss and jigsaw were able to enhance the student teachers’ grammatical and lexical  achievements relatively to the PPP lessons. In terms of the comparison between the dictogloss task  and jigsaw task, the dictogloss task was able to enhance the student teachers’ grammatical  achievements higher than the jigsaw task. Meanwhile, the jigsaw task was able to enhance the  student teachers’ lexis higher than the dictogloss task. Furthermore, the majority of the  participants have positive perceptions towards the use of TBLL lessons. The research implicates  that teacher educators as well as other English as second language (ESL) teaching practitioners  should implement the TBLL approach in their context as it has a lot of potential for improving students’ English language achievements.