TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES IN TASK BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING

Abstract

Recent pedagogical setting for EFL classroom context locally and globally is in a dire requirement for a new method enriched to stimulate and address students’ inquisitiveness in a conducive environment. Resemblance is the Nepalese contexts where secondary level EFL teachers are expected to possess a transformative role in relation to a midwife bridging the abysmal transition between the higher level of specialization and the foundation level. Pedagogy and its methods have perpetually been shifting and naturally, teachers as well as students for English language classroom should be equipped accordingly in order to survive such transition and provide an important impetus for quality deliverance of essence and norms of education. Higher level of education has become more meticulous demanding skilled and dexterous human resources, but the background where teachers and students are from is still the same that voice and revoice the traditions. Hence, the need is to change method or at least substitute with a more recent, more effective one for better competence in order to provide quality classroom where students themselves explore and learn under the facilitation of a facilitator. Task- based language teaching addressees the gap that exist in contemporary academia and enriches students and teachers for effective and meticulous language learning process. As argued above, this research is an attempt to assess strengths and weakness, opportunities and challenges in relation to task- based language teaching for EFL classrooms. Classrooms enriched with tasks, activities and engagements from the students and the teacher as a facilitator always result at effective classrooms. Designed activities and allotments of them in equal proportion to all students in terms of group basis each would certainly add a new dimension to language teaching method. This study followed a qualitative approach in interpretative paradigm and was guided by features entailed by subjective stance. It was built around the philosophical orientations of multiplicity of reality and subjective knowledge. The data for this study were gathered from different community schools inside Kathmandu. For this purpose, interview and observation were the tools employed for data collection in this study. The data collected were thematized under five different themes and analyzed using the six generic steps proposed by Creswell (2012), preparing and organizing the data, exploring and coding the data, describing finding and forming themes, representing and reporting findings, interpreting the meaning of the findings and validating accuracy of the findings. The study revealed that perceptions and practices of TBLT in the classroom need more efforts and orientation locally and globally to make English teachers realize its importance and significance. Multiple seminars, trainings and intellectual discussions become potential ways to empower secondary level English teachers in order to train them in the contextual setting of Nepalese context. Therefore, this study concluded that TBLT is one of the major and effective English language teaching methodologies, and secondary level English teachers require understanding its perceptions, practices and usefulness in relation to subjective knowledge and multiple realities.