The Improvement of English Speaking Skill through Task- Based Instruction for

Secondary Students in the North East Region of Thailand

Piyada Sudathip*

Ong-Art Namwong**

Prapaporn Udomsiang***

Ekkamon Manasin****

Lecturers: TESOL Program, Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University

piyadasu@kku.ac.th, ongartna@kku.ac.th, prapapornud@gmail.com, choppergc080@gmail.com

Abstract

To learn English, Thai students have been focusing much more on English grammar as a fundamental matter in English classrooms. From the class observations of secondary-level students at the Demonstration School of Khon Kaen University, the students had been learning a lot of English, but still could not apply it for their communication. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of Task-based Instruction on students’ speaking skills. It is hypothesized that after receiving Task-based Instruction, 70% of the participants pass the criterion (get the scores on the test over 70%). The participants were 38 8th grade students at Demonstration School of Khon Kaen University, Thailand. The present study was pre-experimental research with a one-shot case study design. The research instruments included seven lesson plans using Task-based Instruction activities, scoring rubrics of student speaking performance, and an English speaking test. The research findings demonstrated that the average score of the students’ English speaking test was 16.39 or 81.97% of the total scores (S.D. = 2.35). The percentage of the students who passed the determined criterion was 81.58%. In conclusion, the students had higher scores on the English speaking test than the determining criterion. This can be claimed that Task-based Instruction is useful for improving secondary students’ English speaking skill.

 Keywords: English speaking skill, Task-based Instruction, English communication, elementary level.