Abstract
Bilingualism and/or multilingualism have long been praised as an invaluable asset, particularly in the today's contracted global era or village. Although bilingual behaviors had been harshly criticized as a deficit form of language use in early 1900s, bilingualism is getting more and more important in the current 21st century, especially in business. As Thailand and other nine economies will become fully united in December 2015, and English is dominantly regarded as the international language used among ASEAN villagers, non-native English instructors have tried to find numerous ways to provide their students with effective English curricula. Like many other non-native English instructors, the co-authors specifically looked into the student-centered pedagogical method to assist their students in their English acquisition. In the present paper, the two authors scrutinized the attitude of their students toward the task-based language learning (TBLL)-consisting of the pre-task, the task cycle, and the language focus- by Rod Ellis and other TBLL gurus. The two authors also investigated the students' attitude toward impromptu and prepared activities. A questionnaire with choices and open-ended questions were distributed to approximately 200 respondents taking the Intensive English Course for MBA students from November to December 2012 at a graduate school in Thailand. Based on the participants, the findings revealed that a majority of students enjoyed all the TBLL presentation activities. Significantly, there were some differences between impromptu and prepared presentations. Weak students mentioned that they still needed some time to familiarize themselves with the task and topic, to mention a few. On the contrary, students with high English proficiency saw no obstacles in giving their oral presentations spontaneously. For prerequisites, the students spoke for themselves that they needed to gain better preparations in the domains of grammar, vocabulary, confidence, extrovert, and creativity.
Author Information
Ketkanda Jaturongkachoke, The National Institute of Development Administration, Thailand
Supamit Chanseawrassamee, TOT Academy, Thailand
Paper Information
Conference: ACE2013
Stream: Education
This paper is part of the ACE2013 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Jaturongkachoke K., & Chanseawrassamee S. (2014) Task-based Language Learning: An Approach to Help Students to Become Balanced Thai-English Bilinguals ISSN: 2186-5892 – The Asian Conference on Education 2013 – Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/2186-5892.20130038
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/2186-5892.20130038
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