SLS680P:

1
SLS680P Task-based language teaching
Introducing TBLT
2
TBLT Recent Developments
International Conference on TBLT 2005
2nd International Conference on TBLT 2007
3rd International Conference on TBLT 2009
TBLT 2011???
3
TBLT Recent Developments
ICTBLT
NTERNATIONAL
Encourage Guide Develop Support Fund
ONSORTIUM on
ASK
ASED
ANGUAGE
EACHING
4
TBLT Recent Developments
New book series Task-Based Language Teaching
Issues, Research and Practice Vol 1 Task-Based
Language Teaching and Learning A Reader Vol 2
Towards a Researched Language Pedagogy Vol 3
Second Language Task Complexity Researching the
Cognition Hypothesis of Language Learning and
Performance
5
TBLT Recent Developments

AILA Colloquium on Task Complexity - 2008
6
Tasks in language teaching
Italian
Spanish
Japanese
German
English
Dutch
TARGET LANGUAGES
Korean
Ukranian
French
Chinese
Arabic
Czech
Russian
7
Tasks in language teaching
Special Purposes
Child
General Education
Large Classes
Second Language
PROGRAM TYPES
Face-to- Face
University Requirement
Advanced Learners
National Ed. Policy
Vocational Education
Local Innovation
Foreign Language
Small Classes
Adult
Beginning Learners
Online
8
What are the fundamental problems of language
education?
9
TBLT Whats at stake?
Whats it worth? to whom, when, why?
Does it work? for whom, when, why?
??? Language Education ???
Can it be improved? by whom, when, why?
How does it work? for whom, when, why?
10
Why Task? Whats a task?

• Skehan (1989) generic definition of language
  task
• Meaning is primary
• There is some communication problem to solve
• There is some relationship with real-world
  activities
• Task completion has some priority
• The assessment of the task is in terms of outcomes

11
Why Task? Whats a task?
Swales (1990) notion of task A task-driven
methodology thus keeps an appropriate focus on
rhetorical action and communicative
effectiveness, however much the means to those
communicative ends may involve, in various ways
and to variable extent, the analysis and
discussion of texts and situation, and the
teaching and practice of form. (p. 72)
12
Why Task? Whats a task?
Samuda
?Holistic versus Analytic educational
experience ?What is planned versus what
happens ?What the teacher does versus what the
learners do ?Learning process versus learning
product
Bygate
A task-based approach forces us to think in
considerable depth about these and related issues.
13
Why Task? Whats a task?
meaningful outcomes
holistic L2 use
L2 learning target
individual group
begins with input
multiple pedagogic purposes
Complex, multi-phased
Conditions matter
Widdowson comment, AILA 2008 Any language
teaching activity can be considered a taskDo
you agree?
14
Tasks and philosophy of education
15
Why task? A few educational tenets
Ed-phil proposals related to task-based learning
Dewey?
experience, personal relevance, active engagement
Freinet, Kilpatrick, Kolb?
purposeful action, individual-general
connections, school-outside, doing reflecting
doing
Freire?
personal engagement, participation, transformation
Bruner?
ability to use, mental effort, multi-task
connections
Barnes?
exploratory v. final, process v. product,
structured v. open
16
Why task? A few educational tenets
All genuine education terminates in discipline,
but it proceeds by engaging the mind in
activities worthwhile for their own sake.
Dewey (1933), pp. 86-87
17
Why task? A few educational tenets
This discussion rejects the doctrine that
students should first learn passively, and then,
having learned, should apply knowledge. In
fact, the applications are part of the knowledge.
For the very meaning of things known is wrapped
up in their relationships beyond themselves.
Thus, unapplied knowledge is knowledge shorn of
its meaning.
Whitehead, 1947, pp. 218-219
18
Why task? A few educational tenets
Effective education requires that we receive
sensible news of our behavior and its results. We
hear the words we have spoken, feel our own blow
as we give it, or read in the bystander's eyes
the success or failure of our conduct. Now this
return wave . . . pertains to the completeness of
the whole experience."
William James (n.d.)
19
Why task? A few educational tenets
Consider now what benefits might be derived from
the experience of learning through discoveries
that one makes oneself. I shall discuss these
under four headings (1) the increase in
intellectual potency, (2) the shift from
extrinsic to intrinsic rewards, (3) the learning
of the heuristics of discovering, and (4) the aid
to conserving memory."
Jerome Bruner (1979, p. 83)
20
Why task? A few educational tenets
Teaching for expertise and successful
intelligence For starters, this means having
students do tasks, or at least meaningful
simulations, that experts do in the various
disciplines. Second, it means teaching them to
think in ways that experts do when they perform
these tasks.
Sternberg (2003), p. 5
21
Task-based practice in other domains
Math education
Music education
Task-Based Practice
Social work
Medical school
Nursing
Technology-mediated learning
College composition
Environmental studies
22
The potential of task-based practice One example
William Reid
Reid. W. J. (1992). Task strategies An empirical
approach to social work practice. New York
Columbia University Press.
Social work problems truancy, aging,
delinquency, substance abuse, family health
23
The potential of task-based practice One example
Development
Empirical Justification
Theory Learning, behavior, cognition
Needs Identify, agree, prioritize
Practitioner-friendly methods
Task-Centered Practice
Research Psychosocial change, Problem solving
Action Plan, rehearse, attempt, feedback
Evaluation Case work practice, Intervention
outcomes
Assessment Task accomplishment, Problem change
Field-tested findings
Empirical Implementation
Improvement
24
The potential of task-based practice One example
Reid was the single most significant figure in
social work research Shaw (2004) p. 113
25
Why Task?

• What can we discern from other disciplines?
• Tasks are motivating, personalizable
• Tasks encapsulate valued human activity
• Tasks are holistic
• Tasks provide opportunities for meaningful
  feedback
• Tasks stimulate key cognitive and emotional
  mechanisms
• Tasks have structure beginnings and ends
• Task learning occurs effectively outside of the
  classroom
• Tasks enable the learning of K A D W

Tasks provide a means of creating
experience-based opportunities for language
learning Samuda Bygate
26
Early emergence of Task-Based Language Teaching
27
What is task-based language learning?
1. Societal need for change in language
education ?Value ?Outcomes ?Methods
2. Emerging notions of L2 acquisition ?Processes
?Impediments ?Indicators
28
What is task-based language learning?
Practices
1. Societal need for change in language
education ?Value ?Outcomes ?Methods
Observations
Proposals
Opportunity for a researched language pedagogy
Discussions
2. Emerging notions of L2 acquisition ?Processes
?Impediments ?Indicators
Hypotheses
Findings
29
Who came up with these ideas?
UK Breen Brumfit Candlin Johnson Widdowson
UC Krashen Long Terrell
Other Larsen-Freeman Littlewood Savignon Swain
CLT? Late 70s
Lancaster Candlin (Bygate) (Samuda)
UH Long (Crookes) (Duff)
Bangalore Prabhu
TBLT? Early 80s
30
What does Candlin (1987) foreshadow?
?Not just communicative classroom
activities ?Basis for syllabus construction as
well ?Comprehensive approach, including
evaluation ?Issues that task-based approach
handles well different learners, different
learning targeting declarative procedural
K involving learners in own learning ?Principles
for task-based teaching ?Components of pedagogic
tasks ?Notion of different task types for
distinct purposes ?Relation to larger educational
goals (learner dvlpt.) ?Possible bases for
curricular sequencing decisions
early role for ongoing evaluation
31
So what is TBLT? A post-method educational
framework
Rationales and Principles
L2 Education Programs
Applied to
Philosophy of Education
Learners
Task-Based Language Teaching
Cognitive Psychology
Needs
Curriculum
Social theory
SLA
Instruction
Curriculum theory
Materials
Language teaching
Assessment
Planning and policy
Inform???
Teacher development
32
Tasks in language teaching
The critics say
another L2 teaching method bandwagon
T B L T
cognitive-interactionist SLA hegemony
wont work with _____ learners
not possible in _____ program settings
too much task, not enough language
not happening in practice
33
The potential of task-based practice TBLT
Task-Based Language Teaching
A(nother) method for
language teaching.
34
The potential of task-based practice TBLT
Task-Based Language Teaching
A(nother) method for
language education practice.
35
The potential of task-based practice TBLT
Task-Based Language Teaching
An empirical approach to
language education practice.
36
The challenge of task-based practice TBLT
Major challenges ?Teacher development and
autonomy ?What needs, values, targets,
tasks? ?Curriculum and syllabus
ordering/organizing ?Local materials
development ?Didacticizing tasks to balance
multiple goals ?Assessment to instruction
alignment ?Contextual, policy, and other
constraints
37
Things in pockets task
In groups of five, begin the TIP task. One
member of the group should serve as a
non-participatory task observer. See handout.