The Use of Task Based Activities to Improve Listening and Speaking Skills in EFL Context
The aim of this study was to improve EFL learners' English listening and speaking skills at a State University in Turkey, School of Foreign Languages, Department of Basic English B1 and B1+ groups through task based activities. The participants were 56 in total, studying in the academic year of 2014 2015 Spring Fall. The instruments used for collecting data were 16 lesson plans and the speaking and listening quiz results as post tests. The data were statistically analyzed by mean, max, and min values of the scores. Teaching process and the lesson plans were recorded by researcher then presented in essay form. After the implementation and the post tests, the participants' opinions about the task were collected as an interview. The results of the study showed that B1 groups did not get significant results from listening test and get nearly significant scores from speaking test while the listening and speaking results of B1+ groups through task based learning after the implementations were highly significant, which shows that their participation in the task based activities in the classroom reflected the results positively. Also the students' opinions about task based learning and teaching activities were respectively positive. As a result, it can be said that task based activities play a significant role in improving listening and speaking skills in EFL settings.