During the last decades different approaches to the EFL teaching have been developed, contributing to the growth of the field and recently, the task-based approach has become very popular. Linguists have developed this theory challenging the traditional concept of transmitting knowledge to students in an abstract way and far away from the real world.
The task-based approach sustains that language has to be used as a communication tool in real-world situations, so meaning and the achivement of a task is the most important goal in the class, leaving grammar and other traditional concepts behind.
Learning has to be meaningful because students need to make sense of their environment and connect it with their learning, facilitating students’ construction of their own knowledge. That means you, as a teacher, have to guide students but should take a step aside and let students work at their own pace and using the language they know.
Projects, group and peer work are good techniques to develop task-based activities because students communicate with their peers and they help each other in the achievement of the given task.
To acomplish those goals you have to provide frameworks or contexts in which the learning process takes place and tasks should link in such a way that one is a consequence of the previous one.
Activity
Let’s suppose you have just taught the comparative forms of adjectives (enabling skills) and your students have done several controlled practices (language exercises).
Now you want your students to use this knowledge in a task-based activity.
You plan a celebration at school and students have to bring supermarket flyers to choose products and check prices.
In groups they discuss, analize and take decisions, taking into account their budget.Then they write a report to share with the other groups in the class and explain why they have chosen those items .
The teacher moderates the discussion and introduces comments to guide and correct the students' performance.
The winning report is the one to be followed and they should buy everything and have a little party in the classroom.
These related activities embedded in a particular framework grow one out of the other naturally and so the task is part of real life, giving students the chance to apply what they know in a communicative situation.
Abilities
Language skills
Task- based teaching can be demanding but I’m sure you and your students will enjoy this way of working in the classroom.
© Monica Haydee Di santi
Monica Haydee Di Santi is an ESL teacher and has a master degree in Linguistics. She has been a teacher and speaker in Chile, Argentina and USA. She’s also a published translator and writer. Her work has been published in Mexico, USA, Hong Kong and India. She’s the author of www.e1-network.com