Implementing task-supported teaching in primary EFL classes

This study was conducted in a state primary school, and the researcher worked with the 7th grade students. Task-supported teaching was implemented in the study. The study was completed in a whole academic year. Nine communicative tasks were implemented during the span of the study. The results of a task-supported teaching implementation were investigated. Besides, the researcher aimed to see the actual difficulties perceived on the issues of; class size, noise, class control, instructions/explanations, time available, materials/resources, covering the syllabus, pupils? attitude, pupils? ability, and pupils? use of the mother tongue in task-supported teaching context. Learner perspectives were also investigated in this study aiming to find out the differences in the perceptions of learners on the two types of tasks; enabling tasks and communicative tasks, in relation to the difficulty of task, stress felt during task, confidence in doing task, interest in doing task, and motivation to do task. Data collection occurred in five phases. In the first place, communicative tasks were designed by the researcher using a task plan taking the characteristics of an effective task into consideration. The researcher made use of the tasks and task types used and suggested in literature. Secondly, a reflection-paper was completed after each communicative task by the researcher. The researcher completed a difficulty checklist following each communicative task as a third step. This checklist was designed by Carless (1997). In the fourth phase, the participants completed a questionnaire following both enabling tasks in the coursebook and the communicative tasks designed by the researcher so as to gain an insight into the learner perspectives. In order to support the data derived from the questionnaire, the researcher interviewed with the participants in the last phase. The study revealed that the communicative tasks were accepted by the students depending on different reasons, provided a variety for English lessons and increased the students? motivation. The issues of classroom size and the materials/resources caused no difficulty throughout the study, whereas the time available, instructions and covering the syllabus appeared as the most problematic issues. When the other difficulties were graded from the most problematic ones to the least, such a sequence appeared; class control, the use of mother tongue, pupils? ability, pupils? attitude, and noise. It was also found out that both types of tasks (enabling and communicative) were welcomed by the participants, and no significant difference appeared in learner perceptions between the two types of tasks in terms of the difficulty of task, stress felt during task, confidence in doing task, interest in doing task, and motivation to do task.