The Impact of TBLT on Mechanical Engineering Students’ Achievement and Reading Comprehension in an ESP Course

Abstract

While there is an expanding literature on the challenges and practicalities of implementing Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) in East Asian educational setting, there is a dearth of research with regard to its effectiveness in foreign language settings and West Asian classes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of TBLT on Iranian university students’ reading comprehension ability and English achievement in an English-for-Specific-Purposes (ESP) course. Two intact groups of university students majoring in Mechanical Engineering (Production and Manufacturing) participated in the experiment. The control group received instruction in grammar-translation method through presentation, practice and production procedure with focus on teaching reading, grammar, vocabulary and translation. The experimental group experienced strong version of TBLT through pre-task, task, and post-task procedure. The experiment lasted for one semester. Students’ reading comprehension ability and achievement in ESP were assessed at the end of the experience. The results revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in both assessed variables, confirming the fact that TBLT is an effective way of teaching English to Iranian ESP students.

Keywords

• tblt
• esp
• reading comprehension
• achievement
• mechanical engineering