Using Team-Based Learning in Teaching English to EFL Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Team Based Learning (TBL) is a method that has been introduced to provide students with both conceptual and procedural knowledge to foster critical and creative thinking skills while students work in high functioning teams. The study throws some light on the TBL approach in general and the researcher's pilot- experiment on using the TBL in teaching English to EFL (English as a Foreign Language) undergraduate students. The main aim of this pilot experiment is to assess the TBL's effects on student engagement, accountability, and satisfaction and to identify the problems faced in applying it and then, in the light of the findings, to propose suggestions about how to use the approach effectively. Forty (40) second-year undergraduate students of the Department of English/ Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Koya University were involved in this experiment and its evaluation. These students were taught through student learning teams for two successive academic years (2017-2018 & 2018-2019) in the subject of English Reading Comprehension. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from the students about their TBL experience using questionnaires. The results of the evaluation revealed that the vast majority of the students preferred TBL to the traditional individual learning and that the TBL has more positive effects on the students' engagement in class activities and assignments. The findings also indicate that despite the positive effects and the students' satisfaction with the approach, there are problems and obstacles on the way of its application in the classroom, but that with the proper use of the approach most of these problems can be overcome. What is important about this evaluation is that it is student-centered as it shows the real opinions of the students who lived the experience.