Name:- Dave Mayuri P.
M.A. Sem:-3.
Roll no:-13.
Paper no 12. English Language
teaching (ELt-1).
Assignment topic name:- What is
TBL?
Submitted by:- Department of
English. M.K.B.U.
What is Task-based Language Learning(TBL)?
Introduction:-
Task based language learning (TBL) focus
on the use of the authentic language and on asking students do meaningful tasks
using the target language. Such task can include visiting a doctor, conducting
and interview, or Teacher and student or calling customer service for help.
Most approaches to language teaching can be described as ‘Form-based’. Such
approaches analyse the language into an inventory of forms which can then be
presented to the learner and practiced as a series of discrete items. J. Wills(1996)
defines a task as an activity ‘where the target language used by the learner
for a communicative purpose in order to achieve an outcome’. Here the notion of
meaning is subsumed in ‘Outcome’.
What is
TBL?
Task based language learning.
Task based language learning
(TBL) also known as Task based language Teaching (TBLT), or task based
instruction (TBI) focus on the use of authentic language and on asking students
do meaningful tasks using the target students do meaningful tasks using the
target language. Such task can include visiting a doctor, conducting an
interview, or calling customer service for help.
Assessment is primarily based
on task outcome in other words the
appropriate completion of real world tasks rather than on accuracy of
prescribed language forms. This TBL
especially. Popular for developing target language fluency and student
confidence as such task based language learning can be considered a branch of
“Communicative language teaching”.
What is a Task?
Definition
of Task:-
1). A task
involves a primary focus on meaning.
2). A task
has some kind of ‘Gap’ (Prabhu
identified the main types as informal gap, reasoning gap, and opinion
gap.)
3).The
participants choose the linguistic resources needed to complete the task.
4).A task
has a clearly defined non linguistic outcome.
Prabhu(1987)
identified four broad task types:
1
information Gap
2 Reasoning
Gap
3 Problem
solving
4 Opining
Gap
Stern (1992)
offers a similarly useful typology. Learners can be asked to:
-
Give
and follow instruction;
-
Gather
and exchange information
-
Solves
problem;
-
Give
information talks in the classroom;
-
Task
parts in role play and Drama activity.
1 Information Gap activity:- which
involves a transfer of given information from one person to another or from one
place to another generally calling for decoding or encoding of information from
or in to language.
One examples is pair
work in which each member of the pair has a part of the total information. The
activity often involves selection of relevant information as well as, and
learners may have to meet criteria of completeness and Correctness in making
the transfer.
2. Reasoning Gap:-
Reasoning gap
activity, which involves deriving some new information from given information
though processes of inference, deduction, practical reasoning. or a perception
of relationship or patterns.
One example is working out a
teacher’s timetable on the basis of given class timetables.
The activity
necessarily involves comprehending and conveying information, as in
information-gap activity, but the information to be conveyed is not identical
with that intially comprenced. There is a piece of reasoning which connects the
two.
3. Opinion Gap:-
Opinion gap
activity which involves identifying and articulating a personal preference,
feeling, or attitude in response to a given situation One example is story
completion another is taking part in the discussion of social issue. The
activity may involve using factual information and formulating arguments to
justify one’s opinion, but there is no objective procedure for demonstrating
outcomes as right or wrong, and no reason to expect the same outcome from
different individuals or on different occasions.
According to
Jane Wills Task based language learning TBL consists of the pre-task cycle, and
the language focus.
The components of a Task are:
1.Goals and objectives.
2.Input.
3.Activities.
4.Teacher role.
5.Learner role.
6.Setting.
Principles of Task based
language learning:-
-
Learners
require exposure to the real and varied language of speakers of the target
language.
-
Learners
must be exposed to and use the kind of language that they want and need for
their own interest or purposes.
-
Learners
must be provided with opportunities for unrehearsed and meaningful language use
in purposeful interaction where they take informed risks, make choices, and
negotiate meaning while seeking solution to genuine queries.
-
Teacher
Ensure that activities are interconnected and organized with clearly specified
objectives and promote the desire to learn.
-
Teacher
should elicit self-correction enable personalized feedback, and consider
learners individual developing language systems.
-
Teacher
must set activities for learners that help them notice language forms; induction/
discovery is preferable to deduction/ presentation; teachers should instruction
form in the context of activities where is primary.
-
The
whole language listening, speaking, Reading, and writing should be integrated.
-
Teachers
evaluate learners in a formative manner and in terms of the process of
achieving a goal; learners need to evaluate their own performance and progress.
One feature of TBL, therefore,
is the learners carrying out a task are free to use any language they can to
achieve the outcome: language forms are not prescribed in advance.
The task based approaches,
therefore, language development is prompted by language use, with the study of
language form playing a secondary role. Recent research however, suggests that
while communicative language form if acquisition is to maximally efficient.
Skehan (1996), e.g. argues that unless we encourage a focus on form,
learners will develop more effective strategies
for achieving communicative goals without an accompanying development of
exchange meanings in spite of the shortcoming of their language as a result
they to exchange meanings in spite of
the shortcomings of their language. As a result they may fossilize at a
relatively low level of language development.
Skehan(1992) suggest that
learning is prompted by the need to communicate, but argues that learning will
be more efficient if:
1.There is a need to focus on accuracy
within a task-based methodology.
2.There is a critical focus on language
form within the task-based cycle.
The challenge for TBL,
therefore, is to devise a methodology which affords learners the freedom to
engage natural learning processes in the creation of a meaning systems, but which
incentives to ‘restructure’ their system in the light of language input.
An approach similar in some ways to
Prabhu’s is put forward by Breen 1987
and Candlin 1987 in their advocacy of a process syllabus. Breen and candlin
agree with prabhu in they see the basic unit of syllabus design and classroom
methodology as an activity of some kind.
-
The
role of the teacher is not to determine unilaterally how learning will be
organized and sequenced, but to consult learners and help them realize their
own learning plan.
-
Prabhu’s
procedural approach deliberately avoids all focus on language. Students
operating with the process syllabus, however, may choose for themselves to
focus explicitly on language form.
TBL like CLT rests on
road principles rather than precise recommendations or perceptions. The second
principle is that learning will be effective only if it is related closely to
language use and involves relating form and meaning.
J.Wills 1996 offers
another classification of tasks which subsumes the above types and as a
generative pedagogic tool. She suggests that we first draw up series of topics
suited to our learners. She then identifies a number of operations, based on
chosen comparing; problem solving; sharing personal experiences; creative
tasks.
The need for a focus on
form within a task-based methodology may be met in part by manipulating the
circumstances of communication in the classroom. Tasks carried out orally in
manipulating the circumstances of communication in the classroom. Task which
involve a presentation to the class as a whole, or the preparation of written
output, demand a higher level of accuracy. this is in line with natural
language use. We are more conscious of language form in public presentation
than in private use. Wills and Wills 1987-96 offer a detailed rationale for
these procedures, a frame work involving a pre-task phase followed by a
task-planning report cycle, in which learners move from pair discussion of task
to a public report of their findings.
It is important that
teacher question for the principles and procedures which inform TBL. Formal
research may identify and refine questions to do with classroom practice and
provide experimental findings which are indicative of answers to some of those
questions, but it is important to test these finding through critical
observation of classroom practice. And recently start to digital era and this
time task are different role of education like email, blog task, online
discussion task, etc… role of the task based learning.
Conclusion:-
TBL represents an attempt to harness natural
processes. But it also seems that these process and provide language focus
activities based on consciousness-raising which will support these processes.
The crucial challenges for TBL, therefore, are to do with design and sequencing
of tasks, and the determination of how best to encourage learners to focus on
language form in a way which prompt language development while, at the same
time, recognizing that there is no direct relationship between language
instruction and language learning.
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