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What is Task-Based Language
Teaching?
“Task- Based Language Teaching (TBLT) refers to
an approach based
on the use of tasks as the core
unit of planning and instruction in
language teaching”
The primary focus of classroom activity is the task
and language is
the instrument that the students
use to complete it. The task is an
activity in which
students use language to achieve a specific
outcome.
Defining tasks
In order for us to understand TBL, we need to define
what a task is.Tasks can be real-life situations or
have a pedagogical purpose.
In both cases, a task should:
- provide opportunities for students to exchange
information with a focus on meaning, not a specific
form or pattern/structure;
-
have a clear purpose: learners should know the
outcome they are expected to produce when they
finish performing the task. The outcome
may vary.
It might be making a YouTube video tutorial, finding
a
solution for a problem or writing an email
requesting information;
- result in an outcome that can be shared with more
people;
- relate to real world activities.
Pre-Task
In the pre-task, the teacher will present what will
be expected of the students in the task phase.
Additionally, in the "weak" form of TBLL, the teacher
may prime the students with key vocabulary or
grammatical
constructs, although this can mean
that the activity is, in effect, more similar to the
more traditional present-practice-produce(PPP)
paradigm.
In "strong" task-based learning lessons, learners are
responsible for selecting the appropriate language
for any given context themselves.
Task
In this stage of the TBL lesson, learners perform
the task proposed. They
are supposed to perform
the task in small groups or pairs, and use their
existing knowledge of language to express
themselves in a spontaneous way.
As the focus is communication, the teacher is not
supposed to carry
out extensive error correction at
this stage, but should monitor and provide support.
When students finish performing the task, they need
to plan how they are
going to report it to the rest of
the class or to other groups. They may rehearse and
research the language necessary in order to share
the outcome of what they had done. Finally, students
report the outcome of the task to other students.
Planning
Students prepare a short oral or written report to tell
the class what
happened during their task. They then
practise what they are going to
say in their groups.
Meanwhile the teacher is available for the students
to ask for advice to clear up any language questions
they may have.
Report
The teacher then highlights relevant parts from the
text of the recording for the students to analyse. They
may ask students to notice
interesting features
within this text. The teacher can also highlight
the
language that the students used during the report
phase for analysis.
Finally, the teacher selects language areas to
practise based upon the
needs of the students and
what emerged from the task and report phases.
The students then do practice activities to increase
their confidence and make a note of useful language.
Post-task:
The
post-task stage is when students evaluate their
performance. This might
be done by comparing the
outcome of their task to that of a proficient
user of
the language.
It can also involve feedback provided by the teacher
and subsequent practice of language items that
emerged from the
task. It is important to stress that
form-focused language work should
be in response
to students’ production.
That means that the teacher will
not teach a
grammar lesson and expect that learners use that
specific
structure while performing the task, neither
should the teacher work on a pre-selected language
item in this phase of the lesson. This makes the role
of the teacher as a monitor extremely important in
TBL.
Task-based learning has some clear advantages
Unlike
a PPP approach, the students are free of
language control. In all three stages they must use
all their language resources rather than just
practicing one pre-selected item.
