RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS ON THE USEFULNESS OF TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING

Task-based language teaching stems from cognitive-interactional theories that advocate unintentional acquisition, as opposed to explicit teaching or intentional (conscious) language learning (Long, 2015). 17 first-year graduate students and 13 second- and third-year undergraduate students of German studies participated in this research. The first group (N=17) practiced task-based teaching as part of the course Development of speech fluency for twelve consecutive weeks, while the second group (N=13) did three cycles of speaking tasks lasting two weeks. At the end of the research, the respondents filled out an online questionnaire with the aim of determining the impact of task-based language teaching on individual variables - affective (motivation and speech anxiety) and cognitive (self-evaluation of speech performance). The questionnaire was composed of statements related to affective and cognitive variables in the first and repeated performance of the speaking task. The teacher monitored and corrected wrong or inappropriate language forms in the post- phase of the task. Statistical analysis revealed differences in the perception of repetition of the pedagogical task in the post-phase. The students estimate that in the repeated performance they control (self-monitor) their utterance significantly more than in the first performance, in other words, in the repeated performance they pay more attention to lexical appropriateness, grammatical accuracy, as well as to the elements of fluent speech (use of non-lexicalized fillers, silent pauses, etc.). Analyzing retrospective comments, one can notice very positive attitudes related to task-based teaching - improvement of speech performance in all aspects, that is, regarding the use of more complex expressions, more diverse lexis, greater grammatical accuracy and more fluent speech, but also affective variables (motivation, less fear of speaking).