This action research paper aims to investigate the effects of task based instruction on reading comprehension and new vocabulary learning in Turkish EFL setting. Participants of the study are preparatory school students in one of the private universities in İstanbul, Turkey. They were placed into classes according to results of English proficiency exam that they took at the beginning of the semester. Among already assigned 55 beginner classes, two beginner groups whose quizzes and midterm results are quite similar were chosen and they became experimental and control group for this study. In the first step, mean scores of reading part of the ELAT exam, which is a kind of final exam and administered twice in a semester, were taken. This was accepted as a pre-test. In the second step, in a 2-hour reading lesson, experimental group received task-based instruction while control group went on their traditional reading lesson. After the lessons, both groups were given comprehension and vocabulary questions. After 2-week interval, both groups received a recall-test to check the long term effect of task-based instruction on new words that were learned in the lesson. The findings of the study revealed that both groups showed an improvement with instruction however there is a significant difference between the mean scores of experimental group and control group in post-test in terms of comprehension. Experimental group was more successful in post-test. Moreover, results of recall test showed that task-based instruction has a positive effect on vocabulary learning, as well.
Keywords: Reading Comprehension, Task-Based Teaching, Vocabulary Knowledge
