Task based instruction:
In these approaches rather than ‘learning to use English’ students ‘use English to learn it’
Contentbased
Instruction
Task-based Instruction Participatory approach
Historical Background
The task-based approach has gained popularity in the field of language teaching since the last
decade of the 20th century.
•The emergence of the TBA is connected to what became known as the Bangalore Communicational
Teaching Project (CTP), initiated in 1979 and completed in 1984. It was a school-based programme
in South India, implemented by N. S. Prabhu, to improve learner’s acquisition of English as L2 .
•Prabhu believed that students may learn more effectively when their minds are focused on the
task, rather than on the language they are using.
•It arose from dissatisfaction with the prevailing accuracy-oriented practices that were then in play,
which included the so-called Structural-Oral-Situational (SOS) syllabus.
WHAT IS A TASK?
•A task is an activity in which a person engages in order to attain an objective, and which
necessitates the use of language.
•Skehan (1998) writes that a task is:
An activity in which:
•meaning is primary
•there is some communication problem to solve
•there is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world activities
•task completion has some priority
•the assessment of the task is in terms of outcome.
•Tasks are meaningful, and in doing them, students need to communicate.
REAL WORLD TASKS AND PEDAGOGICAL TASKS
REAL WORLD TASKS
•Tasks in everyday life are to be found everywhere .
•Washing our face is a task, as is preparing breakfast, similarly, preparing a lesson, buying a
newspaper, etc.
•Real world tasks emphasize the use of the right strategies and rely on choosing the right actions to
achieve the desired goal. The nature of those actions is not necessarily linguistic.
•Language use may not be necessary at all for performing some tasks.
•They require a focus on what is being done, but not necessarily a focus on linguistic meaning.
PEDAGOGICAL TASKS
•The pedagogical task takes a real world task as a pretext for achieving different goals.
•The linguistic dimension of the task is what really matters in the classroom.( e.g. students may take
several minutes in understanding a message, finding unknown words in a dictionary, building correct
discourse)
•Sequencing of activities does matter in language teaching.
•The dichotomy of meaning vs form is specific to tasks when they are used in the classroom.
Task-based Language Teaching
•Task-based language teaching also known as Task-based instruction (TBI) is another example of the
‘strong version’ of the communicative approach, where language is acquired through use. In other
words, students acquire the language they need when they need it in order to accomplish the task
that has been set before them.
•TBLT seeks to develop students’ interlanguage through providing a task and then using language to
solve it .
•Task-based learning is based on the idea that you learn a language by using it, rather than
by
studying its different components in isolation. It focuses on improving the comprehension based
competence of language use .
•An important feature of TBL is that learners are free to choose whatever language forms to convey
what they mean , in order to fulfil the task goals.
•It is informed by a belief that if students are focused on the completion of a task,they are just as
likely to learn language as they are if they are focusing on language forms.
For example, in an early example of TBL, after a class performs some pre-task activities which involve
questions and vocabulary checking (e.g. What is this? It’s a timetable. What does ‘arrival’ mean? )
that they ask and answer to solve a problem, in this case finding train-timetable information:
e.g. When does the Multan express leave Multan/ arrive at Lahore junction?
the task, not the structure .
Students are given a task to perform and only when the task has been completed does the teacher
discuss the language that was used, making corrections and adjustments which the students’
performance of the task has shown to be desirable.
However, Willis makes clear that task-based methodology is, in fact, considerably more complicated
than this. She suggests three basic stages.
The Willis TBL Framework:
Example
•One of the examples that Jane Willis gives of such a procedure concerns a woman’s phobia about
spiders. The woman lived with her husband but could never be left alone because of her fear of
spiders. Part of the procedure goes like this:
Pre-task
•The teacher explains the woman’s situation and asks students in pairs to brainstorm three
consecutive steps they might take to help cure the woman of her phobia.
TYPES OF TASKS
Prabhu (1987) identifies three broad task types:
•Information-gap Task (find something out)
It involves the exchange of information among participants in order to complete a task.
•Opinion-gap Task (express what you think)
It requires the students to express their personal preferences, feelings, or attitudes in order to
complete the task.
•Reasoning-gap Task ( work something out)
It requires that students derive some new information by inferring it from information they have
already been given.
Theory of language:
Language is primarily a means of making meaning.
•The basic aim of second language teaching is to use the target language for social functional action
and situational communication.
•Unlike the form-based teaching approach, TBLT is a meaning-based teaching approach that enables
students to communicate in a meaningful way.
•Learners are free of language control, so language is a vehicle for attaining task goals, but the
emphasis is on meaning and communication, not on producing language forms correctly.
•Conversation is the central focus of language and the keystone of language acquisition.
•Specific language forms will never be considered, instead the learners are allowed to make meaning
in any way they like.
•Lexical units are central in language use and language learning.
Theory of learning
•Task-based language teaching has essentially developed from communicative language teaching
theory, where teaching process is done entirely through communicative tasks.
•Tasks provide both the input and output processing necessary for language acquisition.
•Task activity and achievement are motivational.
•The aim is to integrate all four skills and to move from fluency to accuracy.
THE SYLLABUS
Task-based syllabus is the type of Analytic syllabus.
Problem-posing type of education which emphasizes dialogues between learners and teachers and
between the learners themselves
Primarily concerned with ‘how’ materials are learned. (processes oriented)
Syllabus is organized in terms of the purposes for which people are learning language and the kinds
of language performance that are necessary to meet those purposes.
The syllabus is composed of tasks, not a sequence of linguistic items.
TYPES OF LEARNING AND TEACHING ACTIVITIES
LISTING •Students can hear/read other pairs’ lists and consolidate their own to see how many items
they get altogether
•Vote on the most comprehensive list
COMPARING
•Students can see how many have done the task the same way or have things in
common with the presenter
•Find out how many agree/disagree with the content of the report and why.
EXPERIENCE SHARING •Students can note points of interests and compare them later
•Students can narrate , describe, explore and explain attitudes, opinions, reactions.
PROBLEM SOLVING
•Students can compare strategies for solving the problem
•Justify/evaluate solutions
•Vote on the best/cheapest solution
ORDERING, SORTING Students can publicly justify their priorities to persuade each other.
CREATIVE TASKS
Students can say what they most enjoyed in other groups’ work. Write a
review, prepare their own scripts by doing social and historical research.
Teacher’s Role
•The teacher is generally a ‘facilitator’ always keeping the key conditions for learning in mind.
•At the end, when the focus turns to language form, the teacher acts as ‘Language guide’.
•
The Teacher should perform three main roles:
Learner’s Role
•Task-based language teaching is a learner-centred teaching approach. The learner should carry out
three major roles:
Advantages
•It gives the student a different way of understanding language as a tool instead of as a specific goal.
•It can bring teaching from abstract knowledge to real world application.
•The role of the task-planning-report cycle is to stimulate a natural desire in the learner to improve
upon that language.
•Tasks based on texts and recording of spoken language provides learners with a rich exposure to
spoken and written language in use. This provides an environment which aids natural acquisition.
•The language focus component enable learners to examine that exposure and systemise their
knowledge of language structure.
•The feeling of being an integral part of their group also motivates students to learn in a way that the
prospect of a final examination rarely manages to do.
•As the tasks are likely to be familiar to the students (e.g. visiting the doctor, planning a trip),
students are more likely to be engaged, which may further motivate them in learning language.
•It gives learners a chance to benefit from noticing how others express similar meanings. Research
shows they are more likely to provide corrective feedback to each other than adopt each other’s
errors.
•It gives learners experience of spontaneous interaction and they become far more independent
learners.
•Learners bring their own experiences to lessons and often come up with interesting and original
ideas.
•It helps learners gradually gain confidence as they find they can rely on cooperation with their
fellow students to achieve the goals of the tasks mainly through the use of the target language.
Disadvantages
 Fear of losing control of language--unpredictable questions come in mind: Is my language up
to it?
 There is a risk for learners to achieve fluency at the expense of accuracy.
 TBLT requires a higher level of creativity and initiative on the part of the task.
 Confusion about tasks and teaching: what counts as a task.
 Lack of time to do tasks in class and fit tasks into the course

There is a need for resources beyond the textbooks and related materials which are usually
found in language classrooms.
 Lack of time to design and prepare task
 Not suitable for beginners and low level students: they need grammar first, they don’t have
enough vocabulary.
CONCLUSION
•
Task-based language teaching challenges mainstream views about language teaching in that
it is based on the principle that language learning will progress most successfully if teaching aims
simply to create contexts in which the learner’s natural language learning capacity can be nurtured
rather than making a systematic attempt to teach the language bit by bit. For some methodologists,
TBLT can also be complemented by explicit instruction in grammar and vocabulary; for others
focusing on form is an unacceptable compromise. In any case, it is probably fair to say that TBLT is
the method that has support from SLA researchers.
•
Still, the question must always be asked if TBLT is appropriate for all teaching contexts.
While learners may well learn effectively using analytic syllabi, the adoption of such syllabi maybe
particularly difficult in situations where the success of language instruction is judged by
examinations containing grammar and vocabulary items and questions.