The document outlines the evolution and principles of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), which emphasizes using tasks that focus on meaning and real-life communication to enhance language learning. It explains the benefits of TBLT, such as fostering intrinsic motivation and facilitating a natural learning process, while also detailing various types of tasks and activities suited for different learner needs. Key characteristics and objectives of TBLT include goal-directed tasks, exposure to comprehensible input, and the necessity for learners to engage interactively in their language development.

2. OUTLINE
I. Historical Background
II. Definitions
a. What is a task?
b. What is Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT)?
III. Why do we use a task based approach?
IV. Principles of TBLT
V. Objectives of TBLT
VI. Types of Teaching and Learning Activities
VII. Instructional Materials
VIII. Research examples

3. Historical Background:
• TBLT started in the 1970s when scholars argued that language
instruction should teach both grammar and meaning (Skehan, 2003).
The field widely takes Prabhu as one of the first proponents for tasks
or TBLT when he started the approach in teaching secondary school
classes in Bangalore, India in the 1970s (Ellis, 2003; Long & Crooks,
1992; Shehadeh, 2005). From then on, TBLT began to be recognized
and widely discussed in language teaching and research in Second
Language Acquisition (SLA).

4. • Some of its proponents (e.g., Willis, 1996) believe that TBLT develops
from communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the predominant
language teaching approach since the 1970s, because TBLT shares the
same several principles with CLT. From the 1980s, “task” and “task-
based language teaching/instruction” have become increasingly
preferred terms to those of “communicative activity” or
“communicative language teaching” (Bygate, Skehan, & Swain, 2001;
Crooks & Chaudron, 2001; Kumaravadivelu, 2006; Skehan, 2003).

5. • Though TBLT is argued to have originated from CLT, it has its own
rationales from different philosophies and approaches toward
language instruction. Nowadays TBLT is a broad term, which involves
not only research and teaching, but testing and curriculum design in
SLA.

6. What is task?

7. Definitions:
A. Nunan (1989) –
A piece of classroom work which involves learners in
comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target
language while their attention is primarily focused on meaning rather
than form" (p. 10)
1. What is a task?

8. B. Willis (1996) –
An activity "where the target language is used by the
learner for a communicative purpose (goal) in order to achieve
an outcome" (p. 23). It is more effective to use a meaning-
based approach than a form-based approach.

9. C. Skehan (1996) –
Tasks primarily focus on meaning and resemble real-life
situations. Since tasks are goal-directed activities, participants
decide which language forms to use to achieve the goal.

10. D. Van den Branden (2006) –
An activity in which a person engages in order to attain an
objective, and which necessitates the use of language" (p. 4).
It is evident in this definition that there is a language form
needed to perform a task; however, the language is the means not
the end. Language is the vehicle to reach successful
communication when having real-life communicative situations.

11. •Nowadays, the most commonly used and widely
accepted definition of task is that of language
activity in which there is a focus on meaning.

12. Skehan (1998), drawing on a number of other writers, puts forward
key characteristics of a task:
 A task is goal-directed.
 A task has a primary focus on meaning.
 A task has a clear pedagogic relationship to real world
language needs.
 A task has a clearly defined outcome.

13. 2. What is Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT)?
TBLT is an approach which offers students opportunities to actively
engage in communication in order to achieve a goal or complete a task.
TBLT seeks to develop students’ interlanguage through providing a task
and then using language to solve it.

14. III. Why do we use a task based approach?
• Tasks can be easily related to students’ real-life language needs.
• They create contexts that facilitate second language acquisition.
• Tasks create opportunities for focusing on form.
• Students are more likely to develop intrinsic motivation in a task-
based approach.
• A task-based approach enables teachers to see if students are
developing the ability to communicate in an L2.

15. Approach: the nature of language learning
• Language is primarily a means of making meaning.
• Multiple models of language inform task based instruction. (Richards
& Rodgers, 2001: 226-228)
The focus: conversation and meaning-making
• Lexical units are central in language use and language learning.
• “Conversation” is the central focus of language and the keystone of
language acquisition. (Richards & Rodgers, 2001: 227-228)

16. IV. Principles of Task Based Language Teaching:
1. Making errors is natural and is considered as a part of the process in
acquiring the target language.
2. Exposure to comprehensible input is crucial.
3. Learning tasks facilitating learners to engage in interactions are
essential.
4. Learners need to be encouraged to produce the target language as
producing the target language facilitates learning.
5. Although language production may be encouraged from the early
stage in the learning process, it is reasonable to allow a silent period.
6. Focus on form is necessary.

17. IV. Principles of Task Based Language Teaching:
7. Second language teaching and learning pace should be made
reasonable for both learners with higher and lower aptitude.
8. Language learning tasks should be varied to cater for the needs
for both extrovert and introvert learners.
9. Learning tasks should encourage learners to attend to both
meaning and form and be varied in order to accommodate
learners with different learning strategy preferences.
10.Teaching and learning processes should foster motivation and
minimize learner anxiety.

18. IV. Principles of Task Based Language Teaching:
11. The choice of teaching and learning tasks and content should
be based on learner age.
12. Learning tasks should arouse and maintain learners’ learning
motivation. (Priyana, 2006)

19. V. Objectives of Task Based Language Teaching:
to facilitate students’ language learning by engaging them in a
variety of tasks that have a clear outcome. (Larsen-Freeman, 2001:
156)
to give learners confidence in trying out whatever language they
know,
to give learners experience of spontaneous interaction,
to give learners the chance to benefit from noticing how others
express similar meanings,

20. V. Objectives of Task Based Language Teaching:
 to give learners chances for negotiating turns to speak, (Willis,
1996: 35–6)
 to engage learners in using language purposefully and
cooperatively,
 to make learners participate in a complete interaction, not just
one-off sentences,
 to give learners chances to try out communication strategies,
 to develop learners’ confidence that they can achieve
communicative goals. (Willis, 1996: 35–6)

21. VI. Types of Learning and Teaching Activities:
1. Listing – Brainstorming, fact-finding
2. Ordering and sorting – Sequencing, ranking, categorizing,
classifying
3. Comparing – Matching, finding similarities, finding
differences
4. Problem solving – Analyzing real or hypothetical
situations, reasoning, and decision
making

22. VI. Types of Learning and Teaching Activities:
5. Sharing personal experiences – Narrating describing,
exploring, and explaining attitudes,
opinions, reactions
6. Creative tasks – Brainstorming, fact-finding, ordering and
sorting, comparing, problem solving and
many others. (Willis, 1996)

23. VII. Learner Roles:
1. Group Participant
2. Lead role in their own learning
3. Risk-taker and innovator

24. VIII.Teacher Roles:
1. Selector and Sequencer of Tasks
2. Preparing Learners for Tasks
3. Consciousness-Raising

25. IX. Instructional Materials:
- Books
- Newspaper,
- Magazine,
- Radio programs,
- CDs,
- TV,
- Internet,
- Board,
- Worksheets

26. X. Research Examples:
Richards and Rogers (2004):
Task-Based Learning is an approach that uses tasks as the main unit for
planning and instruction. Language is meaningful so that learners engage in
tasks and thus learning takes place.
26

27. • Willis and Willis (2007):
• A good task not only generates interest and creates an acceptable
degree of challenge, but also generates opportunities for learners to
experience and activate as much language as possible" (p. 70)
• Focus on language occurs when learners "pause their process for
meaning and switch to thinking about the language itself" (p.113)
• Focus on form occurs when the teacher isolates a specific structure
and explains it outside the context of the communicative activity (p.
114).