ORAL-SKILLS DEVELOPMENT THROUGH MEANINGFUL TASK-COMPLETION IN THE LEARNING OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN SECONDARY EDUCATION AT ?INSTITUCIÓN EDUCATIVA BUENOS AIRES?

• Main Author: PAOLA ANDREA MÉNDEZ BARACALDO MARCELA BEATRIZ PÁEZ VELA LILIANA ANDREA VILLALOBOS SUÁREZ
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Spanish
• Subjects: Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades; Licenciatura en Educación Bilingüe con énfasis en la Enseñanza del Inglés; Medicina; Medicina Interna; Odontología
• ISSN: 0034-9887; 0717-6163

This study identified, designed, implemented and evaluated oral-related tasks for the meaningful learning of English as a foreign language; with the purpose of developing communicative competence of students from eighth grade in a public school located in the southwestern part of Bogotá in a neighborhood called "Buenos Aires" in "Ciudad Bolivar". The implementation of two tests showed the results of the teaching-learning process of this research. The pre-test indicated the level of students? English oral-skills at the beginning of the research and finally a post-test showed the level of oral-skills achieved by students at the end of the study. Likewise, after identifying the problem, the researchers designed and implemented oral tasks for the meaningful learning of English as a foreign language; and analyzed the techniques for data collection. The researchers identified that the visual material used for the development of oral skills through meaningful tasks facilitated the learning process of students, enabling them to improve their discourse competence in a foreign language. Consequently, the results of the data analysis allowed the researchers to identify whether the objectives and questions proposed at the beginning of the research were reached. Objectives This research project is based on the following objectives: to identify oral-related pedagogical tasks used by the English teacher at "Institución Educativa Buenos Aires" for the meaningful learning of English as a foreign language. The second purpose is to design oral-related tasks for the meaningful learning of English as a foreign language based on the findings from the "Institución Educativa Buenos Aires", and the last objective proposed is to evaluate the impact of the oral-related pedagogical tasks in light of the meaningful learning approach of English as a foreign language in the students from the 804 group at the "Institución Educativa Buenos Aires". This chapter outlines the purpose of the conducted research, describes what approaches have been used, how the data are collected and processed by the researchers for this research and details the population who take part in this project in order to achieve the objectives proposed at the beginning of the investigation. This project is based on qualitative, descriptive and collaborative action research; and the information is collected through primary observational techniques for data collection, primary non-observational techniques and secondary observational techniques for data collection; and the research is carried out with teenagers from eighth grade. As stated above, the researchers have decided to follow three type of research, which are the most appropriate to achieve the objectives posted in the early chapters of this project: Qualitative research According to Burns (1999) "The aim of qualitative approaches is to offer descriptions, interpretations and clarifications of naturalistic social contexts." (p. 22) Based on this statement, the researchers consider the naturalistic context, the place where facts are produced and do not try to control the variables. Consequently, observation, description and the gathering of data from a range of different resources are the main methodological tools. Therefore, the process of observation, emerging descriptions and insights of the researchers themselves become an important aspect of the research findings (Bailey, et al., 1998, cited in Burns, 1999). On this occasion, this type of research is also a useful approach concerned with discovering and describing the acquisition of English as a foreign language and the researchers will be conducted to examine the data in a qualitative way. This investigation will seek out specific information at the "Institución Educativa Buenos Aires" about: what are the oral-related pedagogical tasks implemented by the English teacher for the meaningful learning of English as a foreign language; what are the oral-related pedagogical tasks designed by the researchers for the meaningful learning of English as a foreign language; and what is the impact of the oral-related pedagogical tasks in light of meaningful learning of English as a foreign language approach on the students. Consequently, for this process, the researchers will analyze and describe: attitudes, behaviors and opinions of the teacher in the English area and the students from the 804 group. This group of students will allow researchers to make a comparison between two subgroups of learners from the same grade; the first students will take part in this project, the second group will not be part of this research. Hereby, in order to analyze and compare the impact of oral-related pedagogical tasks in light of the meaningful learning of English as a foreign language. This procedure will be developed through the collected data using tools like observations, video recordings, interviews, transcriptions, notes, diaries and tests. Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications The result of this research allowed us to see that the oral-related pedagogical tasks used by the English teacher at the "Institución Educativa Buenos Aires" to achieve meaningful learning, such as "Daily routines", "Bingo" and "Worksheets" were appropriate to develop the skills of writing, reading, listening and grammar, but these tasks were not suitable to develop oral production. The "Song" task only worked some aspects of communicative competence such as: pronunciation and new lexicon. Therefore, it was possible to conclude that the impact of the tasks implemented by the English teacher to achieve the meaningful learning of English as a foreign language, was not positive, because the results of the post-test showed that the students group who did not undergo the implementation and that served as a point of reference to compare and describe the progress or lack thereof; felt nervous, insecure and they were not able express their ideas nor interact orally with their classmates. The results of this investigation showed that the design and implementation of oral-related pedagogical tasks for the meaningful learning of English as a foreign language, ("Describing people", "Describing my city", "Talking about me", "Guess Who?" and "Creating stories") based on the three types of learning identified by (Ausubel, 1968) encouraged security, creativity and innovation for developing oral production in contrast to the tasks used by the English teacher, which were implemented in order to develop some skills of the foreign language, but which were not focused on the development of oral production in the English language. Therefore, the tasks designed by researchers had a positive impact on the development of students' oral production; because learners became aware about their own learning, identifying their weakness and strengths and were able to describe situations in real contexts and to achieve macro-features of discourse competence. A long list of new vocabulary written on a sheet of paper revealed that the students did not allow meaningful learning because they preferred distraction and showed lazy behavior. In fact, the use of visual material such as: flashcards and real models showed a meaningful impact to learners because they discovered knowledge by themselves and solved doubts about the acquisition of new lexicon which helped to improve syntax, semantic and phonological components. One of the more significant result to emerge from this study was that the design of oral tasks for the learning of English as a foreign language based on the theory of meaningful learning and founded on learning representations, allowed the students the retention and fixation of new contents developed in real contexts using as support real objects and visual material, achieving meaningful acquisition of foreign language. The results of this study indicate that the design of oral tasks should always be accompanied by a summative evaluation at the end of the process, because this allows determining the effectiveness of the activities, the level reached by the students and to evaluate their cognitive strengths and weaknesses. This project was undertaken to design oral tasks and evaluate the impact of these; the use of a post-test in light of meaningful learning classified and showed errors of communicative competence, about the leaning process of semantic, syntax, phonology and lexicon components. From this study the evidence suggests that teachers of English as a foreign language should develop oral tasks, different than the conventional ones, which reflect experiences and everyday situations that enable the development of communicative competence in a more significant way, facilitating students the use of foreign language in different contexts and based on their relationship with society. The findings of this study suggest that although students have a beginning level of English it is possible and necessary to develop and increase oral skills, because it helps learners become more comfortable with the use of foreign language and allow them to solve doubts about prior knowledge, facilitating the acquisition of new lexicon items. The class time during the week to achieve meaningful learning of a foreign language was very limited during this research. English should be used at schools in cultural events and flag-raising, developing and creating different significant activities and tasks for students, which enable them to acquire linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic tools in order to improve communicative competence. Therefore, what could teachers propose, in order for students to interact using English in different contexts, other than the English classrooms? The present study makes several noteworthy contributions to pedagogical practice because it provides new strategies and useful tools to the process which can enhance teachers' professional development. Consequently, what contributes could teachers design to improve the t