Task-Based and Form Focused Techniques of Teaching Grammar (A Comparative Study)

Abstract

The present studywas conducted toexamine the “Effectiveness ofTask-Based and Form-Focused Techniques of Teaching Grammar”. Thestudy was set out with the objectives as follows: i) To determine theeffectiveness of task-based technique for teachinggrammar the simplepasttense. ii) Tocompare theeffectiveness of task-based techniquewith form-focused technique for teaching grammar. iii)To suggest some pedagogicalimplications. Thisstudy was conducted in Shree Prabhat VidyaNiketan SecondarySchool, Basantpur,Mahendranagar,Kanchanpur, Nepal. The students ofclass 8 th were taken as the sample of thestudy. Students were divided intotwo groups on the basis of pre-test. The researcher taught both the groups for a period of twenty classrunning days. Both the groups were taught thesimple past tensebyusingdifferent techniques. The control group was taught by applying form-focused technique whereas the experimental group was taught byapplyingtask-based technique. Separate lesson plans and teaching materials wereused for both groups. Experimental teaching was lasted for a period of 4 weeks (April toMay 2007). After the completion of experimental teaching, both groupswere examined through a post-test. The results of the both tests were compared to determine theeffectiveness of task-based technique for teaching thesimple past-tense. Itwas found that task-based technique was more effective than form-focusedtechnique for teaching the simple past tense. This thesis workconsistsof 4 chapters.Chapter one consists of introductory of related area of the study. It includes objectives, significance of the study.Chapter two provides the details of the methodology and the procedures followed by the researcher in the collection of primary as well assecondary data. Chapter three consists of analysis and interpretation of the data. Thedata were analyzed andinterpreted on the basis of the difference between theaverage score of each group inthe pre-test and the post-test. The last chapter, chapter 4 describes the findings andrecommendations derived from this research.