Task-Based Language Teaching

General Philosophy

• It refers to an approach based on the use of tasks as the core unit of planning and instruction in language teaching.

• It is presented as a logical development of Communicative Language Teaching.

TBLT draws on several principles thar formed part of the communicative language teaching movement from the 1980s.:

• Activities that involve real communication are essential for language learning;

• Activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning;

• Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process.

The key assumptions of task-based instruction are:

• Emphasis in communication and meaning;

• Language learned by interacting communicativele and purposefully;

• Activities and tasks can be achieved in real life and have a pedagogical purpose;

• Activities and tasks of a task-based syllabus are sequenced according to difficulty.

TBLT proposes the notion of ‘task’ as a central unit of planning and teaching, it means ‘task’ is an activity or goal that is carried out using language.

Task Analysis and Instructional Desing turned to team tasks. There are four categories of team performance function:

1. Orientation Functions;

2. Organizational Functions;

3. Adaptation Functions;

4. Motivational Functions.

•        Tasks provide both the input and the output.
• ·    Task activity and achievement are motivational.
• ·   Learning difficulty can be negotiated and finetuned for particular pedagogical purposes.

DESIGN

Objectives: Goals are to be determined by the specific need of particular learners.

The Syllabus

Conventional Syllabus

It specifies the content of a course among some categories.

Task –Based Syllabus

It specifies the tasks that should be carried out by learners within a program.

Different definitions of TASK

 Pica, Kanagy and Falodun (1993):

* Jigsaw tasks

* Information-gap tasks

* Problem-solving tasks

* Decision-making tasks

* Opinion exchange tasks

ROLES

Teacher’s Roles                                          Student’s Roles

Selector and sequencer of tasks                      Group participant

Preparing learners for tasks                            Monitor

Consciousness-Raising                                     Risk-Taker

                                                                               Innovator

PROCEDURE

* Pretask

* Task
* Planning
* Report
* Posttask

* Pretask

It is the introduction to the topic and the task. The teacher helps the students to understand the theme and objectives of the task.

* ACTIVITIES

Brainstorming ideas, mime, personal experience, read the text, think vocabulary, etc..Task

Is done by the students. The teacher walks monitoring  and encouraging them.

* Planning

In this stage the students prepares the next step (Report). They make a draft of what they want to say or write.

* Report

The teacher ask the students to report to the whole class what they did in the task.

* Posttask listening

The students listen to a recording of fluent speakers doing the same task, and compare the ways in which they did the task themselves.