Fachdidaktik I, Englisch

TASK-BASED LANGUAGE
LEARNING (TBLT)

Carolina Tavares, Lukas Zbinden

5 October 2017
SYNTHETIC VS. ANALYTIC SYLLABI
Synthetic syllabus

Linguistic units with a logical order and a pattern

from simplicity to complexity

Analytic syllabus

[O]rganised in terms of the purposes for which

people are learning language and the kinds of
language performance that are necessary to meet
those purposes.
2
(Wilkins 1976: 13, qtd. in Larsen-Freeman/Anderson 2011: 149)
WHY TASKS?
Tasks are meaningful (Transfereffekte).

(Natural) language is used to solve them.

They have a clear outcome.

Language is acquired through its use.

constructivism < > behaviourism

3
EXAMPLES OF TASKS
Students plan an itinerary for a trip with a train
schedule

Students complete a timetable and find out each

others preferred school subjects (cf. Prabhu 1987,
qtd. in Larsen-Freeman/Anderson 2011: 151-153)

Interaction for task completion fosters language

acquisition.

4
TASK-BASED SYLLABI VS.
TASK-SUPPORTED TEACHING
Task-based syllabi

Training in the target language occurs without

grammatical items.

Task-supported teaching

Tasks are laid out to practise particular linguistic

structures.

The command of grammatical structures can be

consolidated with receptive input tasks by means
of input enhancement, input flooding 5
THE 5 STAGES OF A TASK
Purpose of the task?
Outcome to be expected?
Define

Introduce specific language

Relevance and engagement
Pre-
Performance monitoring and model use of target language
task

Students role: to use their ling. resources to solve the task

Teachers role: to circulate and make notes (e.g. on mistakes)
Task

How successfully have the students tackled the task at hand?

What has been done well?
Feed-
Where is still room for improvement?
back
Difficulties are addressed
Post-task Language structures are implicitly or explicitly trained
The post-task phase can involve preparation for the next task 6
Follow-up
3. CONCLUSION: TBLT
ADVANTAGES PITFALLS

Natural context for Usually not suitable

language use for absolute beginners
(pragmatics) Sometimes difficult to
Varied exposure to predict and guarantee
language, free of what students will
language control learn
Communicative How to formally
approach assess progress of L2-
acquisition?
7
 ?
QUESTIONS?

8
WORKS CITED
Larsen-Freeman, D., and M. Anderson. 2011.
Techniques and Principles in Language
Learning. 3rd ed. Oxford: OUP.

Prabhu, N. S. 1987. Second Language Pedagogy.

Oxford: OUP.

Wilkins, D. 1976. Notional Syllabuses. Oxford:

OUP.