The report of

Task-Based Learning

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 Work Arrangement

Introduction 109614016
Teaching Strategies 109614014
Environment & Material 9501024
Lesson Plan 9501022
Comment & Conclusion 109614033
Written report 109614016
Reference All Group Member

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 Contents
Work Arrangement...................................................................................... 2

I. Introduction........................................................................................... 5

What is the Task-based learning?..........................................................5

Origin of TBL............................................................................................. 5

Jane Willis................................................................................................. 6

Theory Basis of TBL..................................................................................6

Main principles of TBL..............................................................................7

Teacher role of TBL................................................................................... 8

II. Teaching Strategies............................................................................... 8

1. Pre-task (Introduction to the topic and task)...........................9

2. Task cycle (Task, planning and report)......................................9

Task....................................................................................................... 9

Planning.............................................................................................. 10

Report................................................................................................. 10

Optional post-task listening................................................................10

3. Language focus (Analysis and practice)..................................10

Analysis............................................................................................... 11

Practice............................................................................................... 11

III. Environment & Material..................................................................12

A. Environment: Team work.................................................................12

B. Material........................................................................................... 12

IV. Lesson Plan..................................................................................... 13

Pre-task activity: an introduction to topic and task................................13

Task cycle: Task > Planning > Report.....................................................14

Language Focus and Feedback...............................................................14

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C. Comment............................................................................................ 15

The Advantages of TBL...........................................................................15

The disadvantages of TBL......................................................................16

D. Conclusion........................................................................................... 18

E. Reference............................................................................................ 20

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 I. Introduction

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What is the Task-based learning?

Task-based learning, or TBL, is an approach that use task as

the basic teaching strategy. TBL is a teaching approach derived from

Communicative Language Teaching, or CLT.

Students are not learning language by studying language item

one by one, but by completing various kinds of interactive tasks.

While running a task, student will use language items he knows. He

will also try to use unfamiliar items or learn new items from other.

Through those tasks, student can improve not only himself, but

other students.

TBL also provides variety and a sense of security. A wide range

of topics, text, and task types can give students variety. Then

student will worry less about he cannot keep up with learning

progress during a task cycle because he knows he can explore it on

the later task cycle.

Origin of TBL

On 1970s, CLT is a popular teaching approach. It emphasizes

on learning language by expressing meaning and conveying

information. These two actions can make student have a motivation

to learn and a chance to interact. Soon, some researchers discover

that realistic and interactive activities can perform well. Those

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activities are called task. This term is become a conception of

new teaching strategy.

On 1980s, researcher turned their focus from communication

to task and began to develop curriculum. Therefore, TBL became

more widespread.

On 1996, Jane Willis wrote a book A Framework for Task-Based

Learning. She made TBL turn theory into practice.

Jane Willis

TBL is formed by many researchers, but Jane Willis is a key role

of developing TBL.

Jane Willis was a British teacher. She and her husband usually

travelled globe to teach English and train English teacher.

She wrote many book of TBL teaching strategy. A Framework

for Task-Based Learning is one of her important writings.

Although she was retired in 2004, she still had great concern on

TBL teaching and kept researching.

Theory Basis of TBL

In the viewpoint of linguistics, most of linguistic schools have a

common sense: Language is a complex interaction system. The

primacy objective of using language is to express meaning.

Therefore, the way to develop language ability is not just master

grammatical rules, but is foster an ability to interact with language.

Language ability has the following aspects:

1. A ability to understand knowledge of discourse structure and

know how to utilize

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 2. A ability to adjust vocabulary and sentence according to

speaking situation

3. A ability to perform proper speech acts

4. A ability to use vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation to

express meaning

In terms of these aspects, language ability cannot be formed

just through learning grammatical knowledge. Halliday (1975) said

Learning language is learning how to mean. Namely, the process

of knowing how to use language to express meaning is the process

of learning language. This statement becomes one of theory basis

of TBL.

Besides, in the viewpoint of sociolinguistics, language has to be

used in a specific culture environment. Language is not only to

express ideational meaning, but interpersonal meaning. Any

approach of language teaching that does not emphasize realistic

language situation is ineffective. Only realistic teaching forms and

contents can be an effective teaching approach. Hence, it is

another theory basis of TBL.

Main principles of TBL

There are eight principles of TBL. (Richards& Rodgers2001)

1. Teachers should emphasize on learning progress, not only the

learning result.

2. The base units of TBL are interactive, meaningful, purposeful

activities or tasks, not a series of language item.

3. Students learn language through interactive activities.

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4. Those activities or missions not only can facilitate learning

progress, but can use in students daily life.

5. While running a task, student has a chance to input and output

the language.

6. TBL schemes should be ordered in terms of to their difficulty

7. The difficulty is depended on students background knowledge,

tasks complexity and the degree of requirement of a task.

8. A task should arouse ones learning motivation.

Teacher role of TBL

The teacher role is a facilitator, namely promoter. The teacher

has to set up tasks, ensure students understand, get on with them,
and end tasks in the right time. While teaching, teacher puts
emphasis on fluency and outcome, not accuracy. But teacher must
make students pronunciation at least understandable to other
students. Although students do tasks independently, the teacher
still has overall control and a power to stop anything if necessary.
After running a task, teacher plays as language guide. He has
to explain the overall objective to learner, how the components of
task can achieve and sum up what they have achieved during the
lesson.

II. Teaching Strategies

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Jane Willis broke task-based instruction into three sections:

The pre-task

The task cycle

The language focus

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1. Pre-task (Introduction to the topic and task)

This serves as an introduction to the topic and task. It may

involve brainstorming, introduction of useful words and phrases.

The teacher may also present a model of the task by presenting

picture, audio, or video demonstrating how native speakers did the

task.

2. Task cycle (Task, planning and report)

This cycle has three essential phases and one further optional

phase.

Task

Students do the task, in pairs or small groups. The teacher

monitors from a distance, encouraging students attempts to

communicate in target language, not correcting errors. The

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teachers role is typically limited to an observer or a counselor. It is

a more student-centered methodology. Since this situation has a

"private" feel, students feel free to experiment. Mistakes don't

matter. According to Willis, there are six main types of task:

1. Listing

2. Ordering and sorting

3. Comparing

4. Problem solving

5. Sharing personal experiences

6. Creative tasks

Planning

Having completed the task, students prepare to report to the

whole class (orally or in writing) how they did the task, what they

decided or discovered. Because the report stage is public, students

will naturally want to be accurate. Then, the teacher will help those

correct errors they make during this phase.

Report

Some groups present their reports to the class, or exchange

written reports, and compare results. The teacher may give written

or oral feedback.

Optional post-task listening

Learners may now hear a recording of others doing a similar

task and compare how they all did it. Or they may read a text

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similar in some way to the one they have written themselves, or

related in topic to the task they have done.

3. Language focus (Analysis and practice)

Analysis

Here the focus returns to the teacher who reviews what

happened in the task, in regards to language. It may include

language forms that students were using, problems that students

had, and perhaps forms that need to be covered more or were not

used enough.

Practice

The teacher conducts practice of new words, phrases, and

patterns occurring in the data, either during or after the Analysis.

Sometime after completing this sequence, learners may benefit

from doing a similar task with a different partner.

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 III. Environment & Material

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A. Environment: Team work

Task-based learning usually divided the students into groups,

there are at least two people in a group, so they can exchange the
information, and organize them. The task must be meaningful, not
just practice. Students are the center of the class, and teacher is a
helper and monitor. Students use language to approach the task,
and the task including code complexity, communicative stress and
cognitive complexity, those would affect the difficulty of the task.
In the class, teacher divides the class into three groups, so they
can talk over the strategy and they wont feel uncomfortable
because they can freely use their language.
B. Material

The material may be a book, video, magazine and Internet; the

lesson can be adjusted accordingly.
In the class, the teacher uses the fruit cards to teach students
vocabularies. And teacher tells them the rules, and then students
follow the rules to complete the task. Using the material to enhance
the interaction of student, the more they talk, the more they learn.

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 IV. Lesson Plan

Pre-task activity: an introduction to topic and task

Teacher: Good morning students, today, we will continue our

vocabulary lesson.
Do you remember what I taught yesterday? (Asking students)
Students: yes..
Teacher: Yes, now we have a task! Listening carefully
We have a lot of picture cards here (teacher takes the picture cards
and show them to students), and I made the same two cards of each
kind of fruit, they are a set, every set of cards has its own picture,
it means you have to find the same pairs, at first Ill show you all the
cards on the blackboard, then you have to memorize all the
pictures, before starting the task, all the class will be divided into
three groups.
And every groups has to talk over how to memorize them , to think
over your own strategy ,when the task starts, you flip the card , and
you get the same pairs , then you have to say ,for example , it is an
apple or they are apples ,it determined by the picture you flip ,
There are eight pairs totally, ok, the last rule is you have to finish
The task within five minutes Do you understand the rules?
Do you have any questions?
(If students dont understand the task, teacher has to explain to
them again)
Ok, lets review the vocabulary. Now repeat after me (Teacher will
point to the picture)

Watermelon, Pineapple, Guava, Apple, Cherries, Strawberries,

Orange, Lemon,
And you have to use the phrase:
This is a --------
They are --------

Do we have grapes here? (Teacher ask them the question to make

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sure that students pay attention to the class)
Students: no.
(Teacher helps students to realize the task and how to prepare for it)
Task cycle: Task > Planning > Report

Teacher: Now I will give you 2 minutes. You have to talk to your
group mates, and think a good strategy to help you to get better
scores (Students have to discuss with their classmates, by using the
langue in English. Through the process, they have to learn how to
express their opinions and to cooperate with other group mates)
, remember, speak in English
(Students may make mistakes in speaking English, but teacher need
not correct their mistakes immediately)
(When the time is over)
Teacher: Are you ready now? Ok, we start the task from group B
(Group B will discuss with each other and start their task. When they
implement their task, teacher has to give them feedback, such as
compliments. After finishing the task, group B have to share their
opinions to other classmates, about how to use the strategy and
coordinate the job)
Thanks for the sharing, give group B a big hand
Language Focus and Feedback

Teacher: Group B, you do the good job, but teacher have to

remind you that
This is an orange not an orange and they are cherries not this is
cherry, and teacher lead them to analysis the vocabulary or
grammar and practice them again.

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 C. Comment

The Advantages of TBL

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1. A task-based lesson usually provides the learner with an active

role in participating and creating the activities, and consequently

increases their motivation for learning. A task-based lesson offers

more opportunities for the students to display their thinking

through their actions.

2. The teacher can also be more open to the needs of the students.

TBL allows students to use the knowledge they have learnt and

apply it productively in the task context. This practical

experience helps learners to appreciate why certain academic

questions are important and provide an experiential substrate for

the development of a further academic discourse.

3. The task usually requires the selection of some objects as an

outcome. This can provide a shared focus for which students can

work together. In the process, different participants, including

peer learners in the team and the tutor, can project different

views on the same situation and develop meaningful discussion

on the matter. The task will usually generate objects that are also

open to cross group evaluation. The students can present their

own products and evaluate others. Everyone can take part in

evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the work generated

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 within the classroom community. This will induce reflection as

well as the development of critical awareness in the students.

4. According to its advocates, is that during the task the learners

are allowed to use whatever language they want, freeing them to

focus entirely on the meaning of their message. This makes it

closer to a real-life communicative situation.

The disadvantages of TBL

Few people would question the pedagogical value of employing

tasks as a vehicle for promoting communication and authentic

language use in second language classrooms. This approach,

however, has its own drawbacks.

1. Task-Based Learning is an advanced teaching approach, firmly

based on the findings of current theory and research, can not be

continuous. The hypotheses frequently associated with TBL, to

the effect that second-language acquisition happens totally as a

result of noticing during communicative activity, and are

controlled by inflexible developmental sequences, are supported

neither by convincing theoretical argument nor by experimental

evidence, and are contradicted by common language-learning

experience.

2. TBL offers a different rationale for the use of tasks as well as

different criteria for the design and use of tasks. It depends on

tasks as a primary source of pedagogical input in teaching and

lacks of a systematic grammatical or the type of syllabus that

characterizes current versions of TBLT. Moreover, many aspects

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 of TBLT have not been justified, such as proposed schemes for

task types, task sequencing, and evaluation of task performance.

Therefore, according to Richards and Rogers the basic

assumption of Task-Based Language Teaching, that it provides for

a more effective basis for teaching than other language teaching

approaches, remains in the domain of ideology rather than fact.

3. While Task-Based Instruction may fruitfully develop learners

authority of what is known, it is significantly less effective for the

systematic teaching of new language. This is especially so where

time is limited and out-of-class exposure is unavailable, such as

in Turkey. This makes task-based programs inappropriate for most

of the worlds language learners.

4. Task-based learning holds some dangers if implemented

carelessly. Especially, it is likely to create pressure for instant

communication rather than inter language change and growth.

Speakers may resort to use some communication strategies such

as paraphrase, repetition, word coinage, etc. Furthermore experts

argue task-based learning does not provide any basis for making

interpretations beyond the particular task/test context and it can-

not simulate all of the factors that define actual language use

situations. Moreover, the elicited performances may depend on

abilities or knowledge rather than language itself.

5. It should also be said that task-based interaction is a mainly

narrow and learners put great emphasis on communicating

meanings, but not necessarily worry about the exact form that

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they use. Learners become quite fluent, but their utterances are

not often accurate. In addition, they develop strategies to

complete the tasks quite quickly, cutting corners in their

language use and form. Therefore, the whole organization of the

interaction is equipped for establishing a tight and selected focus

on the achievement of the task. There are a large number of

different varieties of interaction in the world outside the L2

classroom, where there is certainly a lot more to communication

than performing tasks.

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 D. Conclusion

The problems and difficulties of learning a second language are

the major factors for scholars to develop new methods to be

employed in language pedagogy. When Prabhu developed Task-

based learning, he thought that if students minds engaged in a task

they may learn more effectively because the basic condition of

education is learner engagement.

No wonder TBL was seen as another device to handle learning

problems and has been the target of many researches during the

past two decades. Looking at the development of task-based

learning research, the initial priority was given to the definition of

tasks and the philosophy behind it. At present, the main concern of

leading researchers is the kinds of tasks and whether at which level

task-based learning is effective.

In sum, task-based learning has made a significant progress in

the last two decades and has remained a potentially fertile approach

for many ESL/EFL teachers despite the fact that some researchers

still question the effectiveness of TBL.

Nevertheless, the task-based model is an attractive and liberating

one, especially if you and your learners have been accustomed to a

Presentation Practice Production model.

Looking back into the past illustrates what is really new in the

TBA. The emphasis on the communicative learning or teaching of

languages is not new, but it offers at least a partially different way

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of being exposed to and practicing with the language. This leads us

to classify TBA within the conversational and/or natural approach.

But new methods are not to be taken as innately good and efficient

by their nature, or simply because they are new. It must be admitted

that the TBA faces most of the problems inherent in natural

methods, particularly when applied to adult learners of a second

language. The difference between real world tasks and pedagogical

tasks is at the very centre of the problem. The classroom

environment cannot be equated to the real world environment, or at

least not fully equated to it. In a parallel way, learning a language in

a natural environment particularly in the early stages of life

differs considerably from learning a language as an academic

subject.

The history of teaching languages offers a long list of methods

to teach and learn languages. Abstract constructs may be well

elaborated and their elements may also be logically intertwined, but

something more than that is needed for them to work in practice.

The TBA adds useful elements and contributes to the

communicative language teaching with valuable procedures. But it

would be nave to take it as the method language teachers and

learners have been waiting for.

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 E. Reference

Basquille, A. (n.d.). Task-based Learning. Retrieved from

http://www.lal.ie/TaskBasedLearning.pdf

Bowen, T. (n.d.). Teaching approaches: task-based learning.

Retrieved from Onestopenglish:

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?docid=146502

Campbell, R. N. (2000). Techniques and Principles in Language

Teaching. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Clandfield, L. (n.d.). Task-based grammar teaching - tips and

activities. Retrieved from Onestopenglish:

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?

catid=58110&docid=144974

Diane, L.-F. (1986). Techniques and principles in language teaching.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Larsen-Freeman, D. (2003). . (, Trans.) :

Oxford University Press.

Rooney, K. (n.d.). Redesigning Non-Task-Based Materials to Fit a

Task-Based Framework. Retrieved from

http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Rooney-Task-Based.html

Snchez, A. (2004). The Task-based Approach in Language Teaching.

International Journal of English Studies (4), pp. 39-71.

Task-based Language Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task-based_language_learning

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Task-Based Methodology. (n.d.). Retrieved from Youth Partnership:

http://www.youth-partnership.net/export/sites/default/youth-

partnership/documents/Publications/T_kits/2/2_task.pdf

Willis, J. (1996). A framework of Task-Based Learning. Harlow,

England: Longman.

Willis, J. (1998). Task-Based Learning: What Kind of Adventure?

Retrieved from Publications of the Japan Association for Language

Teaching: http://www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/files/98/jul/willis.html

Willis, J., & Willis, D. (n.d.). About us. Retrieved from Willis-ELT:

http://www.willis-elt.co.uk/

. (2004). . : .

. (2006).

. : .

. (2002). . : .

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