EXPLORING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON ENGLISH TASKS IN EFL CLASSROOM (A STUDY CONDUCTED IN SMPN 4 GORONTALO)

Abstract

One of instructional setting in EFL classroom is to provide the students in doing the task. Willis (1996, p.23) said that tasks are always activities where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose (goal) in order to achieve an outcome. It is clear that the task has some various activities including grammar, role play, practice activities, etc. and for reaching the goal of the task itself it needs a target language as a communicative to achieve it. The attractive tasks delivered to students can be assumed that the students will enjoy and happy to finish it well. This means that the success of producing the various English tasks is of course to give a valuable impression of learners. This paper presents the study of students’ perception on English task delivered by the English teacher in SMP N 4 Gorontalo during the 2015/2016 academic year. The questionnaire is the instrument used in this study, which refers to three indicators: pre-task, task cycle, and language focus as suggested by Willis’ theory. Then the data are analyzed qualitatively as suggested by Creswell (2009): raw data, organizing and preparing data for analysis, coding data, and interpreting the meaning of data. The findings of result indicate that the students have a positive perception in doing the task given by the English teacher in the EFL classroom, such as in task content, instruction, teacher’s corrective feedback. However, they still do hope the English teacher to provide much time for students in finishing the task