Task-Based Learning

Task-Based Language Teaching

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is a communicative approach to language instruction which focuses on the successful completion of “tasks” as its primary goal. Other terms, often used interchangeably, are task-based learning (TBL), task-based language learning (TBLL) and task-based instruction (TBI).

Tasks are usually defined as:

• corresponding to a real-world activity; and • having a clear non-linguistic outcome; and • allowing for an authentic, meaningful use of language.

Examples of tasks include Write a thank-you letter, Order a pizza, Listen to a lecture, Read a news article, and Make a paper airplane. Each of these corresponds to something that is done in the real world. Most also happen to include a linguistic component, but note that this component is not the outcome. For instance, having spoken English is not the point of ordering a pizza; getting pizza is the point of ordering a pizza. Finally, each of these is meaning-focused and relatively unrestricted as to which language forms can be used. For example, a thank-you letter could contain a number of grammar mistakes, and it could even avoid using the past tense entirely, and still be received as an appropriate thank-you letter.

This brings us to another crucial aspect of TBLT tasks, which is that they must be assessed primarily according to their outcome. Whether a learner can order a pizza appropriately should be measured first by whether that pizza has—or, in a classroom situation, would have—arrived, and not by whether the learner has used certain target language items such as “Could I have extra cheese?” or “That will be $20”.

To put it the other way, grammar worksheets, vocabulary tests, scripted dialogs, etc. are never tasks in a TBLT sense. They may be useful components of instruction, but they are decidedly NOT “real-world” activities, they have no intended outcome besides language practice, and they strongly favor accuracy over meaning.

In short, a task-based approach organizes lessons in such a way that learners will focus on getting something done while using the language, rather than on the explicit practice of language forms, as in more traditional methods of instruction.

Challenges in TBLT

TBLT has grown out of communicative language teaching (CLT), which is the idea that learners learn a language best by using it to negotiate meaning. In theory, CLT is a largely uncontroversial idea for most teachers; these days, we all agree that some meaning-based activities are important at least some of the time. However, in practice, this is not always easy to do.

One important factor is facility. Looking at language as a collection of items to be taught is relatively easy to do, easy to teach, and easy to test. On the other hand, real-life authentic communication is messy, difficult to describe and assess, and nearly impossible to structure into a syllabus. As a result, in practice, there has been considerable resistance to trying to apply CLT in the classroom. The basic tenets of CLT, however, are sound. Languages ARE best learned when there is an opportunity for learners to focus on meaning rather than form, at least some of the time. The problem only exists in how to present these opportunities to learners.

“Making conversation” is oftentimes too vague. Not only do the learners themselves become confused as to what exactly they should talk about and why (e.g., Talk about your summer vacation. Go!), but from the teacher's perspective there is also little basis for assessment or indeed systematic instruction.

A task-based approach solves many of these problems.

TBLT provides a structured framework for both instruction and assessment. Using tasks as the basic building blocks of syllabus design allows teachers to both sequence lessons and to assess their outcomes, while at the same time creating reasonably authentic parameters within which learners can communicate with each other for a purpose.

Most importantly, it allows learners to focus on what it is that they are saying to each other, rather than on how they are saying it. A task may be short and self-contained (e.g., ordering a pizza by telephone) or it may be a longer and more complex project (e.g., organizing and publishing a student website), but they always involve a clear and practical outcome which can be assessed (e.g., the pizza arrives with the correct toppings, or the website is published and is recognizably a website).

In a task-based approach, specific language forms are never be the primary focus, because it is important that learners be allowed to make meaning in whichever way they see fit, at least at first. Teachers may assist or even correct learners when asked, of course, but should not not restrict the learners' choice of which forms to use by explicitly teaching, say, the present continuous before the task is attempted.

A post-task language feedback phase, on the other hand, is recognized by most task-based practitioners as useful. During this segment of the lesson, after the learners have attempted the task, the teacher may choose to go over the language used, correcting specific errors and/or highlighting particularly well-suited forms that learners did not use, but could have chosen to.