Task-based Learning and Teaching

Language learning should be experiential and should aim at developing students’ communicative competence. The task-based approach to language learning emphasises learning to communicate through purposeful interaction. Through the use of tasks, students are provided with purposeful contexts and engaged in processes that require them to exercise critical thinking and creativity, explore issues and solutions, and learn to use the language skills and functions, grammar items and structures, vocabulary, and tone, style and register for meaningful communication. The use of tasks also provides opportunities for the development of language learning strategies, generic skills, learner independence, and positive values and attitudes conducive to lifelong learning.

When designing tasks, teachers are encouraged to consider and apply what follows.

Tasks and Exercises

Tasks are activities in which students are required to draw together and further develop their knowledge and skills. They are characterised by an emphasis on activity, participation and communication among participants through a variety of modes and media. Every learning task should have the following five features:

 A task should have a purpose. It involves students in using language for the range of purposes described in Sections 2.3 and 2.4.

 A task should have a context from which the purpose for using language emerges.

 A task should involve students in a mode of thinking and doing.

 The purposeful activity in which students engage in carrying out a task should lead towards a product.

 A task should require students to draw upon their framework of knowledge and skills and

should be designed to enable them to strengthen or extend this.

In order to learn successfully, students need a judicious combination of tasks and supporting exercises in which they focus upon and practise specific elements of knowledge, skills and strategies needed for the task. Exercises do not usually contain the five features of a learning task.

They are good preparation for the completion of tasks and may focus on particular grammar items and structures, vocabulary and text types. They are best carried out in the context of a task, and should be sequenced systematically and integrated with each other to support the task.

Student-centred Instruction

Students learn most effectively when teachers treat them and their learning as the focus of attention. Student-centred instruction may be provided through:

 designing learning tasks or activities that cater for students’ age, needs, interests, abilities, experiences and learning styles;

 engaging students in group work or pair work for genuine communication;

 applying suitable questioning techniques to stimulate thinking, encourage experimentation and facilitate knowledge construction; and

 encouraging students to contribute to the learning process by:

- sharing their views and learning experiences;

- playing an active role in consulting the teacher; and

- negotiating with the teacher on the learning objectives, helping to select learning materials, and suggesting appropriate activities.

Integrative and Purposeful Language Use

Most tasks in real-life situations involve the integrative use of language skills and strategies.

Teachers are strongly encouraged to design learning tasks which make use of theme-based materials that cover a variety of text types (e.g. informational, persuasive, imaginative/literary) and facilitate the integrative and purposeful use of an extensive range of language knowledge, skills and strategies. In the learning process, teachers should:

 enhance students’ communicative competence through realistic contexts which call for natural integrated language use;

 encourage students to use English creatively to respond and give expression to real and imaginative experience; and

 develop students’ critical thinking and problem solving skills, promote the sharing of experiences and foster cultural awareness and understanding.

Learning and Teaching Grammar in Context

Task-based learning facilitates the learning and teaching of grammar in context. Fluency and accuracy are complementary, and students need to have a good command of language forms if they are to understand and express meanings effectively.

In the task-based approach, grammar-focused practice provides students with the language support they need to carry out tasks. Grammar activities can be used at different stages of a task, depending on the needs of students. Grammar learning can take place at the:

 pre-task stage, when particular language items or structures which students will need in performing the task are introduced and practised, through the teacher’s direct instruction or an inductive and discovery approach, which involves the students detecting, or noticing, and working out a “pattern” for themselves;

 while-task stage, when grammar activities are provided to address problems or difficulties that students may be having with particular language forms, which hamper their completion of the learning task; and

 post-task stage, when focused practice is provided to consolidate particular grammar items or aspects of language which students did not use effectively during the task.

In the task-based approach, grammar is seen as a means to an end and it is not taught as a system of rules or a stand-alone body of knowledge. In selecting the language items and structures to focus on, teachers should use tasks as a starting point and consider:

 what language items and support students will need to carry out the tasks effectively; and

 ways of helping students master the target structures and items effectively, which may include exercises on discrete items and contextualised grammar practice with the necessary language input provided for students to perform the task.

For the learning of grammar to be effective, students must be given ample opportunities to apply their knowledge of grammar in interaction and communication. Formal explanation of grammatical rules in isolation and the use of decontextualised and mechanical drills are not always useful in helping students develop communicative competence. Students should be helped to see the connection between language forms and communicative functions, and internalise the forms through meaningful everyday language use.

Extended Tasks and Projects

Extended tasks or projects are effective means to consolidate and/or stretch students’ learning upon completion of a task.

Extended tasks provide further opportunities for students to practise various language skills and use the language items and structures, vocabulary and text types they have learnt in the unit or module. Students of different ability levels can be encouraged to complete the extended tasks at their own pace within a certain period of time. Teachers need to design extended tasks that are suited to students’ abilities and adjust their expectations according to the competence of individual students.

Alternatively, teachers might like to engage students in project work. Projects have various advantages as they:

 provide an effective framework for more extensive language use and language learning:

Through the process of planning, information search, note-taking, interviewing, data analysis, discussion, drafting and re-drafting, editing, presentation and other steps that are often involved in project work, students are able to use language skills and language learning strategies purposefully, extensively and in an integrated way.

 help students develop independence and a sense of responsibility: Projects allow students to pursue a topic of interest to themselves, set their own learning targets, and plan and reflect on their course of action. Personal involvement of this sort enables students to become more responsible for their own learning.

 facilitate lifelong and life-wide learning: Projects may encourage students to move out of the classroom into the community, allowing them to connect what they learn at school with the world at large. Through planning, organising and participating in real-life investigations, which involve exploring problems from various perspectives and presenting information in various modes, students develop not only language knowledge and skills but also the generic skills, positive values and attitudes that are conducive to lifelong development.

Co-ordination across Key Learning Areas (KLAs) may be necessary not only for interdisciplinary projects, but also for ensuring that students are given a manageable number of projects at the same time. Before assigning project work, teachers need to plan and make appropriate arrangements, taking into consideration the theme or topic, the learning targets and objectives, the generic skills, values and attitudes, the resources, the amount of time required, the parties involved and the products.

For projects to be genuinely student-centred, teachers need to be flexible and open-minded when working with students, and provide appropriate support.