Task-Based Language Teaching: Principles and Strategies

Task-Based Activities in ELT

It is a principle of communicative approaches to ELT that task-based activities enhance learning. In language learning, task-based activities are those which stimulate effective use of language but involve no conscious analysis of language. An exercise which instructs a learner to change the tense of a verb is not task-based because it is language-focused. Getting learners to listen carefully to instructions in order to draw a picture, make a model, or play a game are examples of a task-based approach.

It is argued that if tasks are identified as the main elements of the syllabus, then syllabus and methodology will control each other.

The Role of Games in Language Learning

To play a game is to enjoy competing alone or in groups against other players, against time, or against the challenge of the game, and not to think consciously about the language involved in doing so. In other words, games may be seen as tasks. If they successfully engage the learner's attention as a proper children's game should, then learning will be supported.

Using games as a supplementary activity to give children the opportunity to use language purposefully and playfully may be a comfortable and sensible route to follow.

Interaction and Language Development

Work on second language development echoes findings about the way in which negotiation and interaction help first language development. Opportunities for using a language in order to interact effectively—even if inaccurately—with someone else help learning to take place. It was assumed for a long time that such opportunities would occur naturally only outside the classroom, where interaction needs to take place in the target language; it is an important part of any communicative methodology.

If a learner can be put into a situation as effectively as possible, that experience contributes to language learning.

Learner-Centered Teaching Principles

A third important principle of communicative methodology is that teaching situations must be learner-centered. Learners' needs, both as future language users and active language learners, should be the chief criterion for assessing how appropriate a syllabus and method are. We can relate this principle to what we have already said about motivation, involvement, and the need for success.

Understanding the Affective Filter

Krashen applied these principles to the field of second language teaching, and one of the concepts he developed was that of the "affective filter." He defined the affective filter as the emotional disposition of an individual which acts upon learning processes.

• A high affective filter causes the learner to be a relatively inefficient learner.
• This state is likely to result from anxieties, disturbances, or inhibitions.