JAM 8 - Task-Based Language Teaching

Have you ever opened a language textbook that provides activities that have no inherent purpose other than practicing the target language? For example a fill-in the gap conversation with a partner that requires conjugation of the verb to be. Or answering display questions to demonstrate understanding and knowledge of the correct answer like "What color is Merri's shirt or John's hat?"
We know from five decades of SLA research that such exercises do not promote or cause acquisition because they lack input and purpose.
Tasks are the quintessential communicative event in contemporary language teaching. The term "tasks" was coined in the 1980s and developed as a concept in reaction to shortcomings of previous L2 classroom practices.
The paradigm shifted from discrete, teacher-centered, and form-oriented language education to more holistic, learner-driven, and meaning-based activities.
Tasks involve the expression and interpretation of meaning, and they have a purpose that is not just language practice. They provide structure so students know how to start, proceed, and conclude. They are also context appropriate, so, in a language classroom, a role-play where one student is a doctor and one a patient would only be context appropriate if it is a medical language class, not a first-year language class.
Language practice is obviously important, but it should be reserved for outside the classroom.
Task-Based Language Teaching or TBLT is an approach to language education in which students are given functional tasks that invite them to focus primarily on meaning exchange and to use the target language for real-world, non-linguistic purposes.
The key tenets of TBLT include:
- A primary focus on meaning. Learners should be mainly concerned with processing the semantic and pragmatic meaning of utterances.
- Some kind of gap, so, a need to convey information, to express an opinion, or to infer meaning rather than simply practicing memorized language structures.
- Learners should largely have to rely on their own resources, both linguistic and non-linguistic, in order to complete the task. This involves active engagement: The task is not an action carried out on task participants, but rather something participants must carry out themselves.
- A clearly defined outcome other than the use of language. The language serves as the means for achieving the outcome, not as an end in its own right. (Ellis, 2009, p. 223)
While tasks are a crucial element in a communicative, proficiency-oriented classroom, a lesson or curriculum doesn't have to consist solely of tasks. It is important to balance various learning activities, just like you diversify the structure of your lesson plan and utilize different strategies for communication.
Examples of tasks include information gap activities, such as spot the difference, jigsaws, or text reconstructions, having students create a list of family birthdays and plan activities and gifts given a specific budget, interviewing their peers about what is in their refrigerator and analyzing what that says about people's personality, health, habits, and lifestyles, or writing reviews for restaurants in the local community and creating a web page to share them with the community.
We invite you to create a new task that fits into a specific part of a lesson you are planning for next semester.
See you at our next JAM.
Ellis, R. (2009). Task-based language teaching: Sorting out the misunderstandings. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 19(3): 221-246.