Task-based Language Teaching

TASK DEFINITIONS

Willis and Willis, 2007, p. 11

When we offer the learners formalized activities of the kind described above to facilitate their participation in meaningful activities, we are engaging in task-based language learning. Instead of relying on the learners' spontaneous interest and reaction, we are designing activities which will help promote interestt and interaction. It is activities of this kind which we call tasks.

Willis and Willis, 2007. p. 23

(Target tasks) closely reflect activities which learners may engage in the real world.

Nunan, 1989

A piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing, or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form.

Willis, 1996

... activities where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose (goal) in order to achieve an outcome.

Bachman and Palmer, 1996

... we define a language use task as an activity that involves individuals in using language for the purpose of achieving a particular goal or outcome in a particular situation

Skehan, 1998

A task is an activity in which

• Meaning is primary
• learners are not given other people's meanings to regurgitate
• there is some sort of relationship to comparable real world activities
• task completion has some sort of priority
• the assessment of the task is in terms of outcome

Ellis, 2003

A task

• constitutes a plan for learner activity
• involves a primary focus on meaning - learners are presented with an information, reasoning or opinion gap that learners must complete, and the task constrains what forms learners need to use, but leaves them to choose it.
• can involve any of the four language skills
• involves real-world processes of language use
• engages cognitive processes (e.g. selecting, classifying, reordering or evaluating information)
• has a clearly defined communicative outcome (the workplan states a non-linguistic outcome)

Unfocused tasks "may predispose learners to choose from a range of forms but they are not designed with the use of a specific form in mind"; focused tasks "aim to induce the learner to process, receptively or productively, some linguistic feature."

Design features of tasks

• Goal
• Input - the verbal or non-verbal information supplied by the task
• Conditions - the way in which the information is presented, or the way in which it is to be used
• Procedures
• Predicted outcomes:
• Product
• Process - the linguistic and cognitive processes the task is hypothesized to generate

TASK SEQUENCES

Willis and Willis, 2007

1. Facilitating task (Priming) - help learners focus on topic and engage knowledge and opinions; introduce vocabulary associated with the topic
2. Facilitating task (Preparation) - learners plan which language forms are useful for the target task
3. Target task - closely reflect activities which learners may engage in the real world.
4. Focus on form