Task-Based Language Teaching: An Empirical Study of EFL Pronunciation Acquisition

초록

The present study examined Korean EFL college learners’ understanding of English consonantal contrasts in liquid [l, r] through TBLT class and student perceptions of the implementation of TBLT. In total, 31 intermediate-level students participated in the study. The findings of the study revealed a significant difference between the TBLT and non-TBLT groups in the post-test, indicating that the TBLT group showed significant improvement in learning the target sounds (t=2.498, p=0.041, p<.05). Moreover, the results of the Likert-scale questionnaire and interview demonstrated that most students considered the TBLT class interesting, motivated, and effective to learn confusing English consonantal contrasts. However, the interview findings reported important sociocultural gaps in implementing the westernized TBLT, involving the teacher’s implicit explanation and indirect feedback. Thus, to implement successful TBLT in the future Korean tertiary context, teachers’ active role as facilitators and input providers is encouraged. Simultaneously, it should be considered that the teacher’s initial input to the target consonantal features be reinforced in the pre-task stage to implement a successfully localized TBLT.

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