Written Tasks through ESA Lesson Planning: Their Impact on Speaking Skill of Iranian EFL Learners

Teaching English in Iran faces challenges due to the environmental and interactive situations with which the language learners are facing outside the language learning classes. Considering the teaching methodology in Iranian schools and the insist of the governmental and private language institutes on CLT and TBLT, prerequisite conditions for effectiveness of such methodologies seem to be unavailable or not made available for the learners. CLT and TBLT methodologies mainly focus on speaking and oral activities in the classroom. In the domain of language learning and usage, speaking ability is considered as the most challenging among other three language abilities. Hence, an alternative approach for teaching and learning language seems to be needed. There are also criticisms on the mentioned methodologies; an important one among them is the increased amount of errors in learners’ oral utterances. On the other hand, critical thinking and figurative thinking abilities’ importance for using the language and the speaking ability is being focused and these thinking abilities are considered to have direct correlation with learners’ speaking abilities. Writing activities in different pedagogical areas are used to improve learners’ critical thinking, however utilizing such approach for learning language is a matter that is not studied. This research studies a teaching approach with a focus on written language and hoped to help learners figure out and understand language elements clearly, and use them to excel their speaking proficiency. This approach includes written tasks defined to help learners “see” the language elements and argue about them. The session plan is, to guide students learn the language via the written tasks and use what is learned orally in a similar context, based on Harmer’s ESA approach and TBLT methodology. In the end of the research, speaking achievement of the learners will be assessed to evaluate the teaching approach’s efficiency.