Speaking of second language teaching, many learner-centered approaches and methods meet the needs and objectives of the language learners and keep pace with the development of teaching methods and learning theories. However, the best methods to be considered in this field are the ones that directly and clearly impact the development of the learner’s language level, and increase the motivation and efficacy of the learner for acquiring the second language inside and outside the classroom.
In this regard, linguists today have an agreement that the communicative method would be the best one to acquire the second language. And task-based learning would fall under the communicative method, in which this method may deal with the target language as a tool that students use to get the task done; and so the language itself is not the point.
Therefore, the communicative language task can be defined as a practice that would help learners to acquire the target language, and to learn it accidentally and spontaneously in real or semi-real situations through receiving the language input that is included in the task; whether it is a direct input or an indirect one. In other words, the teacher might design a task that is close to the real-life situations and includes many activities that are incremental in goals and difficulty, and so, such a task might need understanding, production, and ability to interact with the idea of it using the target language. Then, the teacher might distribute the roles to learners, therefore, they will use the included language input spontaneously to collaborate, listen, write, and communicate with each other to achieve what they are asked to do.
This, in turn, would affect the increase of their language output, and the acquisition of the language skills. Learners, as a result, would interact with the task to achieve a language production that serves its goals, in which it can be invested later in similar linguistic and communicative situations in real life.
As far as the communicative tasks have been made as a key component of the curriculum or the teaching process, they will give learners much confidence. In doing so, learners might put the language repertoire, they may have, of the second language to the test within their groups and with their peers, in an atmosphere of privacy and comfort, where there is no place for direct teacher criticism.
Moreover, such tasks might give the learners the chance to see the way the others use to express ideas that are similar to their own, in the second language. Besides, these tasks might grant the learners the experience of spontaneous verbal interaction that would require many skills to be practiced; for example; negotiating to get the part during the dialogue, raising and answering questions, responding appropriately to others’ initiatives, and taking the communication strategies on to ensure the task is well done. So, when the learner’s focus is on the task itself, the learner may learn the language much better than if the focus has been on the language itself.
Importance of task-based teaching:
The importance of this method of teaching lies in:
- Enabling the learners to develop their experience of immediate interaction with the language.
- Building learners’ confidence to use their language, regardless of its size and level.
- Motivating learners.
- Providing an opportunity for learners to recognize others’ ways of explaining themselves in the target language
- Increasing the provided language input through the teacher’s feedback.
Nature of the tasks:
Scholars who are interested in this method of teaching see that classroom activities can generally be classified into three:
- Model-based Activities: such activities might focus on using a specific language “model” (i.e., text or audio), and they might concentrate on understanding the language model, analyzing it, and fostering its meanings and vocabulary.
- Simulation-based Activities: such activities might be based on model simulation in a way to build a near-real communication of using the target language. “Role-play” activity can be an example of this, in which the learners are given the rules, and then, they are encouraged to use language models, they had learned before, as to build a communication with their colleagues in the task; as a way to figure out if they can use new language patterns with learned models.
- Building-based & creating-based Activities: such activities might be based on using the language forms or the models that are studied before, creatively, in different aspects of communication in real life. In such activities, learners may enjoy full freedom to use their vocabulary and to raise their language to interact with each other, with the text, or with the others, as a way to solve challenges, to reach decisions, to compare their different life experiences, or to do surveys inside or outside the classroom. In other words, they can submit their results by using different language sources that they may prefer to use, to achieve their goals.
Types of tasks:
- Creating lists as a brainstorming.
- Ordering, classifying, and hierarchy.
- Comparing and contrasting.
- Solving problems; this may include planning and advising.
- Sharing personal experiences.
- Projects and creative tasks.
- Memory challenge.
- Predicting.
AN EXAMPLE OF A LANGUAGE TASK:
You are a group of researchers in the field of history. You work in the archive section of your university library. While you are archiving some of the old documents, you have found this letter where the sender and the recipient are not mentioned:
… my brother is at the nearby barrack,” he said. “If the heat can be filled,” and he glared at a lighter that was shaking in his hand. He glared at it until his eyelids could not stand the heavy snow on his black eyelashes, and he slept.
“Do you remember my brown scarf?” he said, “you sewed its wool during my first-grade year, and “take it with you”, you said that before the war, and you have said “… I have made it large to be your lucky charm, now, and safekeeping talisman. My hand mark is on it, my hand that warms your neck and chest”.” “My brother had been injured and I had wrapped around his injury with the scarf when the Band-Aid was depleted, before the blood in his wound freezes,” he added, “if you had seen him so, you would have made him the lentil soup every Friday, but he died, and the scarf with him, too.
”“Yesterday, we were scoring the enemy’s points by throwing balls; each ball that enters into the hole is a point!.” He continues, “his throws were ended at fifteen points, three martyrs, and six wounded. The enemy was on its best day, but the hole, where I am, did not hurt, only a handful of ice and dirt, and a few drops of blood; some of them got my face.”
“Today, they have asked us to leave the holes and to move towards them. Some planes will open the way for us …,” he finishes.
As you read through the letter:
- Try to guess who would be the sender and the recipient. Explain your answer. What era might this letter belong to? Why?
- What do you expect about the place and the circumstances of this letter? Explain your answer.
- If the documents had contained a response to this letter, what would it talk about? Write a paragraph of around 200 words, as a response to the letter.
- In which section of the library would you put this letter? Why?