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Date Posted: 15:12:05 07/03/03 Thu
Author: Mônica
Subject: task 9


02/07/2003
Assessment 9
Ninth class - June 30th to July 4th
Mônica Alvarenga

Explain what a task-based approach is. Describe its main characteristics

This is an approach to foreign language teaching which emphasizes the learner's ability to use the language appropriately in specific situations. It tries to make the learners 'communicatively competent'. It`s an effort to incorporate what is known about the processes involved in second language learning and it requires students to engage in interaction in order to fulfill a task.
Skehan (1994) says that the tasks must be challenging for the language learner –not too difficult so that achieving meaning predominates and not too simple as in this case nothing is being learned or developed. There are several phases and in each phase (pre-task, during-task, post-task) Skehan identifies which aspects of task difficulty should be considered so that task implementation can have a positive effect on task value and task selection/ grading can become a “less arbitrary” process. Different tasks will place different processing loads on learners, therefore careful planning will ease the burden during the task and attention may be directed to the detail of the language. The density of information is controlled by the choice of text once texts used in the tasks should be authentic. Jigsaw activities are used where the whole set of information is not revealed until all students have performed their part of the task. The information gap principle will keep students alert and interested in what the other groups report. The literary genre which is not frequently used in teaching is poetry, but poems can be a source of authentic material where language and structure are not graded.
Classroom examples of target tasks include: taking part in a job interview, completing a credit card application, finding one’s way from a hotel to a subway station, checking into an hotel. Such activities are closer to reality. Althought the truth is, that in EFL contexts, learners need both authentic AND non-authentic data. Both provide learners with different aspects of the language.
There are some steps that can be followed while designing language programs, they are to select and sequence real-world / target tasks, to create pedagogical tasks (rehearsal / activation) and create communicative activities and language exercise. Some characteristics of the task-based approach are, First, they have a goal or purpose that requires the use of the target language, but is not itself centered on that language. The second criterion involves making use of the unique features of a language lab to create a learning environment that cannot be recreated in the regular classroom. The third characteristic of a task-based activity is that it involves the student in a way that intrinsically


motivates, lowers the affective filter, and creates a desire to excel. One element of motivation is to want something.

Bibliography

http://simsim.rug.ac.be/staff/elke/recpast/taskbased.html
http://www.tesolgreece.com/dinou01.html
http://www.nuis.ac.jp/~hadley/publication/kosentbl/taskbased.htm
http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jalt/pub/tlt/00/feb/willis.html
http://www.ericfacility.net/ericdigests/ed343407.html

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