Investigating the effectiveness of the authentic task based practices to the foreign language teaching

The aim of the study was to examine the efficacy of the authentic task based practices in foreign language course of 5th grade at a secondary school. It is a mixed method study. In the quantitative part of research, Switching Replications Design which is one of the experimental methods was used. In the qualitative part of research, case study method was used. In this study, the effect of the curriculum based on authentic task based was analyzed whether a significant difference existed between the control group and experimental group in terms of the success levels. Besides, self-assessment and results of the teachers' evaluation and the opinions of the teachers related with the authentic tasks, were obtained. The research was carried out with 5th grade students of a secondary school and total 52 students as to be 26 in control group and 26 in experimental group have participated to the study. In the study, it was found that the authentic tasks had a positive effect on the success of the students and were more efficient in both stages in increasing the success level. When the absolute success levels of students' self assessments were examined, the students in experimental group considered themselves more successful than the students in control group. When the absolute success levels of teachers' evaluation were examined, the teacher considered the students in experimental group more successful than the students in control group. The opinions of the teachers in the study related with the authentic tasks were generally considered as positive however, they mentioned about some negativities that might be confronted during the implementation stage. As a result, findings showed that authentic task based approach applications had positive effects on the success of the students. Keywords: Authentic task based approach, Authentic learning, Foreign language Education