METHODOLOGY: TASK-BASED LEARNING TEACHING (TBLT)

Through history, different methodologies have been applied for the teaching of foreign languages. Currently, one of the most used is Task-Based Learning Teaching (TBLT). 

TBLT is a teaching approach that is based on the use of communicative and interactive tasks in order to plan an deliver instruction. Task-based language teaching is an extension of the characteristics of communicative language teaching and an attempt by its supporters to apply principles of L2 to teaching.

TBLT, in line with social- constructivist views on learning in general, regards language learning as an active process that can only be successful if the learner invests an intensive mental effort in performing tasks. It also regards learning as an interactive process that can be enhanced by interacting with other learners and/or the teacher.

The seven principles of TBLT are:

1. SCAFFOLDING

Lessons and materials should provide supporting frameworks within which the learning takes place. At the beginning of the learning process, learners should not be expected to produce language that has not been introduced either explicitly or implicitly.

2. TASK DEPENDENCY

Within a lesson, one task should grow out of, and build upon, the ones that have gone before. The task dependency principle is illustrated in the instructional sequence above which shows how each task exploits and builds on the one that has gone before.

3. RECYCLING

Recycling language maximizes opportunities for learning and activates the ‘organic’ learning principle.

4. ACTIVE LEARNING

Learners learn best by actively using the language they are learning.

5. INTEGRATION

Learners should be taught in ways that make clear the relationships between linguistic form, communicative function, and semantic meaning.

6. REPRODUCTION TO CREATION

Learners should be encouraged to move from reproductive to creative language use.

7. REFLECTION

Learners should be given opportunities to reflect on what they have learned and how well they are doing.

WHAT IS A TASK IN TBLT?

Nowadays, the most commonly used and widely accepted definition of a task is that of language activity in which there is a focus on meaning over form. This type of task is often referred to as a communicative task; it does not include, for example, translation tasks or grammar-based exercises. In spite of the increasing number of publications on TBLT, there is no consensus regarding the definition of the task. A task has been defined in many different ways:

“Task is a work plan, involves a primary focus on meaning, involves real-world processes of language use, can involve any of the four language skills, engages cognitive processes, has a clearly defined communicative outcome”  

Rod Ellis.

“A communicative task is a piece of classroom work that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is focused on mobilizing their grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning, and in which the intention is to convey meaning rather than to manipulate form. The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone as a communicative act in its own right with a beginning, a middle and an end”.

David Nunan.

Despite the multiplicity of definitions of a task, researchers agree that for a language teaching activity to be acknowledged as a task it must meet the following criteria:

- Tasks are things that people do and that they are goal-directed.

- A task should facilitate meaningful interaction and offer the learner sufficient opportunity to process meaningful input and produce meaningful output in order to facilitate language acquisition.

- The primary focus should be on meaning; that is, learners must be mainly concerned with processing the semantic and pragmatic meaning of utterances.

- Tasks should result in a kind of language use that resembles that in the outside world.

- There should be some kind of gap, i.e. a need to convey information or to express an opinion.

- There should be an emphasis on learner activity. Learners are asked to work to reach certain goals and to make functional use of language in order to do so.

- Learners should largely have to rely on their own resources (linguistic and non- linguistic) in order to complete the task.

- There is a clearly defined outcome other than the use of language. In this way, the language serves as the means for achieving the outcome, not as an end in its own right.

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