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Date Posted: 20:25:48 07/03/03 Thu
Author: Júnia Resende de Freitas
Subject: Task 9

Task 9

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

I researched in all sites that are in Task 9 and I am going to explain what a task-based approach is. And, I selected some of the main ideas about t approach.
Firstly, I can say, “in the last twenty years or so a range of alternative syllabus models has been proposed, including a task-based approach. Task-based syllabuses represent a particular realization of communicative language teaching. Instead of beginning the design process with lists of grammatical, functional-notional, and other items, the designer conducts a needs analysis which yields a list of the target tasks that the targeted learners will need to carry out in the ‘real-world’ (a communicative act we achieve through language in the world outside the classroom).” Some examples of target tasks include:
a. Taking part in a job interview.
b. Completing a credit card application.
c. Finding one’s way from a hotel to a subway station.
d. Checking into a hotel.
Secondly, if you consider any approach to language pedagogy will need to concern itself with three essential elements: language data (samples of spoken and written language), information, and opportunities for practice. These three elements can be seen from the perspective of task-based language teaching. ”In addition to data, learners need information. They need experiential information about the target culture, they need linguistic information about target language systems, and they need process information about how to go about learning the language. They can get this information either deductively, when someone (usually a teacher) or a textbook provides an explicit explanation, or they can get it inductively. In an inductive approach, learners study examples of language and then formulate the rule.”
Thirdly, “the task-based approach presents learners with carefully graded activities or 'tasks' in order to develop their communicative competence. As the tasks become more complex, so they require a more developed set of communicative skills. A communicative syllabus should, according to this approach, be constructed according to the difficulty of the tasks required of the learner at different stages in a course. A task-based syllabus is also sometimes referred to as a procedural syllabus. In language teaching, a contrast is drawn between “authentic” (samples of spoken or written language that have not been specifically written for the purposes of language teaching) and “non-authentic” data (dialogues and reading passages that have been specially written)” In English as a Foreign Language contexts, learners need both authentic and non-authentic data because both provide learners different aspects of the language.
Next, the main steps in designing a task-based program should be:
a. Select and sequence real-world / target tasks
b. Create pedagogical tasks (rehearsal / activation)
c. Identify enabling skills: create communicative activities and language exercises
d. Sequence and integrate pedagogical tasks, communicative activities and language exercises

Finally, I am going to emphasize the three main criteria for task-based activities, such as: a) First, they have a goal or purpose that requires the use of the target language, but is not itself centered on that language. The students are going to create a story and the focus is on the story rather than on the language itself; however, the means to the end is through effective communication in the target language; b) 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. Activities such as cloze exercises based on music passages are not lab-specific. Such an activity can be accomplished as well, or perhaps even better, with a portable tape recorder in the regular classroom. On the contrary, some group-oriented classroom-based activities can be improved by adapting them to the language laboratory. Telephone conversations are another activity ideally suited in this way for the language lab; c) 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. "To want something is to be motivated, and motivation initiates and sustains involvement in learning" (Spithill, 1980, p.72). Task-based activities, then, can be designed to provide students with the opportunity to want something. This opportunity to be inventive itself becomes a motivator as the students' self-esteem is enriched through the positive feedback received from their peers.
To sum up, I can say that all sites are so good and they can provide you a lot of information about task-based approach is; you can learn not only what task-based approach is but its characteristics, examples, illustrations, and lessons, and much more than I said, about this subject, as I proved above.


Júnia Resende de Freitas

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