Effects of CALL-mediated TBLT on motivation for L2 reading

Abstract

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been drawing researchers’ and practitioners’ interest since its early onset in the 1980s. In a task-based approach, students learn language by doing interesting, relevant, and hands-on pedagogic tasks that raise their interest and keep their involvement. The rich and still developing literature on TBLT is helping to evolve both its theoretical conceptualization and practical implementation in foreign and second language education. Likewise, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has developed as a field, with the use and integration of technology in the classroom continuing to increase and will continue to play a key role in this maturation process. The present study, hence, reports on an empirical study that investigated the effectiveness of CALL-mediated TBLT on the motivation of Iranian university non-English major EFL students. A significant effect was found for CALL-mediated TBLT (F = 267.932, p = .000, partial eta squared = .770), suggesting CALL-mediated TBLT had a positive effect on the motivation of the students in the experimental group on the posttest. Results of this study have both theoretical and practical implications and might shed light on the gap between the potentials and affordances of CALL-mediated TBLT.

Keywords

• task-based language teaching (tblt)
• computer-assisted language learning (call)
• call-mediated tblt
• motivation