The Impacts of Post-task Activities on Iranian EFL Learners’ Reading Achievements

Abstract

As learners’ proficiency is more important than their abstract knowledge of the language rules, Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) is of crucial values today. Task-based instruction has three phases: pre-task, during-task, and post-task. Studies have demonstrated that all of them might play a significant role in language teaching. Moreover, recent studies have compared different tasks over time. However, it is still unclear how different phases of a task impact learners’ language ability. To better understand this issue, this particular study investigated the effect of post-task activities on EFL learners’ reading achievements. To conduct the study, 47 Iranian EFL learners in a private language institute in Esfahan, Iran were selected. The participants were assigned into three groups randomly (two experimental groups and one control group). Through ten sessions (five weeks), the participants learned how to focus on post-task activities such as reflection on the task and repeated performance in a task-based instruction. The required data were collected through pretest, posttest, and semi-structured interview. After the course, semi-structured interviews were also conducted with five students from experimental groups. The results of both quantitative and qualitative data indicated that post-task activities have a significant effect on learners’ language proficiency, their reading achievements, and their motivation to participate in classroom tasks. The implementation and discussions were also discussed.