Part one:

1.Background:
TBLT started in the 1970s, when scholars argued that
language instruction should teach both grammar and meaning
(Skehan, 2003). Prabhu as is one of the first proponents for
tasks or TBLT as he started the approach in teaching secondary
school classes in Bangalore, India in the 1970s (Ellis, 2003; Long
& Crooks, 1992; Shehadeh, 2005). That is how TBLT began to be
recognized and widely discussed in language teaching and
research in Second Language Acquisition (SLA).
Others such as Willis (1996) believe that TBLT develops from
communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which dominated
since the 1970s, because TBLT shares several similar principles
with CLT.
TBLT has originated from CLT; nevertheless, it has its own
rationales from different philosophies and approaches toward
language instruction. Crooks and Gass (1993) claim that TBLT is
mainly used in two areas: first, as an aspect of the research
methodology used in studies of second language acquisition
(SLA). from the beginning of the 1980s, and second, as a
concept used in second language curriculum design from the
middle of the 1980s (p.1). Recently Samuda and Bygate (2008)
go beyond by arguing that classroom learning should be
connected with students personal experiences, or classroom
teaching should be authentic. The implication is that we need
to seek out new ways of teaching so that the content is
accessible, useful and relevant given the levels of experience
and understanding of learners (Samuda & Bygate, 2008, p.
20).
Defining tasks:
Task in TBLT has been defined in various ways. From the
1980s up to now, more than 20 definitions of task have been

offered in the literature by the researchers from different

research perspectives. From its initial use in the literature in the
early 1980s up to today, the concept has been associated with
relating with real world activities, focusing on meaning and
focusing on form, and finally comes to the comprehensive
definitions after 2000. Here are two interesting definitions:
A task is a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for
others, freely or for some reward. Thus, examples of
tasks include painting a fence, dressing a child, filling out
a form, buying a pair of shoes, making an airline
reservation, borrowing a library book, taking a driving
test, typing a letter, weighing a patient, sorting letters,
taking a hotel reservation, writing a check, finding a
street destination, and helping someone across a road. In
other words, by task is meant the hundred and one
things people do in everyday life, at work, at play, and in
between. Tasks are the things people will tell you they
do if you ask them and they are not applied linguists.
(Long, 1985, p.89)
[A task is] a piece of classroom work which involves
learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing, or
interacting in the target language while their attention is
focused on mobilizing their grammatical knowledge in
order to express meaning, and in which the intention is to
convey meaning rather than to manipulate form. The task
should also have a sense of completeness, being able to
stand along as a communicative act in its own right.
(Nunan, 2004, p.4)

2. Steps in TBLT:

Pica, Kanagy and Falodun (2009) illustrate five kinds of

communicative tasks: jigsaw, information gap, problem-solving,
decision-making, opinion exchange. Willis (2009) offers her
theoretical framework for a task cycle.
In fact, The design of a task-based lesson involves consideration
of the stages or components of a lesson that has a task as its

principal component. Various designs have been proposed e. g.

Estaire and Zanon 1994; Lee 2000; Prabhu 1987; Skehan 1996;
Willis 1996. However, they all have in common three principal
phases. These phases reflect the chronology of a task-based
lesson.
The task-based teaching design :

The design of a task based lesson involves consideration of

the stages or components of a lesson that has a task as its
principal component. Generally speaking, they all have 3
principle phrases in common, which reflect the chronology of a
task-based lesson.

1) Pre-task
it concerns the various activities that teacher
and students can undertake before they start the
task.
2) During task
it centers around the task itself and various
instructional options.
3) Post-task
it involves procedures for following up on the
task performance.

How should a lesson be designed guided by Taskbased teaching?

So in addition to design what type of task to include in a
lesson, we teachers need to make decisions about what
students will be asked to communicate about and what skills or
abilities the students need to be trained through the task. Thus,
a key element in the design of the task must be the choice of
the thematic content. Now the syllabus of the textbook we are
using is developed for the Communicational Teaching Project.
Many of the tasks included are built around the themes that are
directly related to the students school or social life that theyre

expected to be familiar with. Now what Im interested in and

also more concerned about is how we teachers put those
wonderful tasks into practice in each individual lessons, making
students learn and fulfill those tasks through carrying out the
effective activities designed by the teachers.
It is designed as follows:
(1). the Pre-task phase
The purpose is to prepare the students to perform the task in
ways that will promote acquisition. Lee (2000) describes the
importance of framing the task to be performed by providing
an advance organizer of what the students will be required to
do and the nature of the outcome they will arrive at in other
words he explains the purpose and utility of the task. There are
some alternatives which can be tackled procedures in one of
the 4 ways below.
1) Supporting students in completing a task of the same
kind as and with similar content to the main task. Thus, it
served as a preparation for performing the main task
individually.
2) Asking students to observe a model of how to perform
the task; this involves presenting them with an oral or
written text to demonstrate an ideal performance of the
task. They might involve pre-training in the use of
specific strategies.
3) Engaging students to non-task activities designed to
prepare them to perform the task. Activating learners
content schemata or providing them with background
information serves as a means of defining the topic area
of a task
4) Strategic planning which involves the provision of
linguistic forms/strategies for performing the task.

This is designed to raise learners consciousness about

specific features of task performance.
It concludes some

learning strategies, e.g. Learning to live with uncertainty and

learning to make intelligent guesses. Thus, students can be
taught to help become adaptable, creative and inventive.
. The during-task phase
The methodological option available to the teachers in the
during-task phase is of two basic kinds. First, there are various
options relating to how the task is to be undertaken that can be
taken prior to the actual performance of the task and thus
planned for by the teacher. These will be called task
performance options. Second, there are a number of
process options that involve the teacher and students in
online decision making about how to perform the task as it is
being completed.

When the task performance is being carried out, the following

3 things should be put into consideration.
1. Whether to require the students to perform the task under
time pressure.
2. Whether to allow students access to the input data while they
perform the task.
3. Whether to introduce some surprise element into the task.

The teacher needs to ensure that students can complete the

task in their own time and then set a time limit to encourage
fluency rather than accuracy. When students are carrying out
the task, the teacher should allow students to borrow the useful
related information from the input data to encourage students
participation in the task, especially for those poor learners,
especially when they feel speechless. And of course, while
discussing, some unexpected questions and answers will come
up, for the students imagination and creativity have been
greatly motivated. And it may help to enhance the students
intrinsic interest in the task.

On the other hand, achieving the processes during the task

is quite challenging. It depends on how the participants
orientate to the task and on their personal skills in navigating
the roles of interlocutor / language users and instructor/
learners as the task is performed.

The post-task phase

The post-task phase affords a number of options. These have
three major pedagogic goals:
1) To provide an opportunity for a repeat performance of the
task
2) To encourage reflection on how the task was performed
3) To encourage attention to form, in particular to those forms
that proved problematic to the learners when they performed
the task.
Here is a framework illustrating the three phases options:

Examples of options

Phase
A- Pre-task

B- During task
C- Post-task

*Framing the activity. e. g.

establishing the out
come of the task
* Planning time
* Doing a similar task
*Time pressure
*
*
*
*

Number of participants
Learner report
Consciousness-raising
Repeat task

Figure 1: A framework for designing task-based

lessons

It is known that when students repeat a task their production

improves a lot when theyre told to repeat the task publicly in
front of the class, of course, it may increase the communicative
stress, but it gives students an opportunity to show their ability
and their wonderful work, through which they can get the self
achievement.
It is very important to get the reflection, students will
consider how they might improve their performance of the task,
and it may contribute to the developing of learning strategies,
which are important for language learning and it will help
teachers to decide whether to use similar tasks in the future or
look for a different type.

And whats more, if time permits, before the end of the class,
teachers should select forms that students used incorrectly
while performing the task or useful or natural forms that
students failed to use at all. As the post task stage is needed
to counter the danger that students will develop fluency at the
expense of accuracy.
Principles of Task-based lesson:
It is highly important as teachers to ensure that the decision
they make when designing a task-based lesson are principled
ones. And here are the principles:
Principle 1: ensure an appropriate level of task difficulty
Principle 2: establish clear goals for each task-based lesson
Principle 3: develop an appropriate orientation to performing
the task in the students.
Principle 4: ensure that students adopt an active role in taskbased lessons
Principle 5: encourage students to take risks.
Principle 6: ensure that students are primarily focused on
meaning when they perform a task

Principle 7: provide opportunities for focusing on form

Principle 8: require students to evaluate their performance and
progress.
Conclusion
The design framework is very useful for planning task-based
lessons. Teachers need to decide first on the basic format of
the lesson, though sometimes it may be difficult to tell the main
activity of a lesson, as it is largely a matter of perception and to
some extent arbitrary. Once the basic structure of a lesson has
been decided, the specific options to be included in each
phase of the lesson can be considered. Actually designing a
task-based lesson requires careful consideration to the different
phases of the lesson and the task-based teaching has typically
based itself on group / pair work.
Every teacher has his/her own style and possesses his/her
own way of thinking and designing. Thus, every teacher can
make their own methodological decision based on their
learners styles and on the understanding of what will work best
with his/ her own students.