From grammar-based teaching to task-based teaching - making the shift. Jane Willis and Dave Willis Willis-ELT. If you want us to tell you about new lessons as we post them please send us an email. NEW: Three lessons based on written texts at the intermediate level. All of these lessons begin with a prediction task– learners are given clues and are asked to predict the content of a story based on the clues. The lessons then go on to do some detailed language work. Lesson 1: I’ve just jumped off the Empire State Building. (This lesson goes on to look at reflexive pronouns and the verbs that are commonly used with them) Lesson 2: Brave Pensioner Foils Raid on Jewellery Store. (This shows the way –ing forms are used in English. Lesson 3: Robbery in a Sweet Shop. If you use these stories in class could you please do two things to help us? Email us to tell us how they went.
Download a FREE COPY of Dave's 1990 publication The Lexical Syllabus. Click here to download from Birmingham University website Link to download lesson plan Link to download commentary. This is another intermediate lesson. Task-based speaking. Fourth Annual McGraw-Hill Satellite Teleconference. Abstract Given adequate opportunities, older children, adolescents and adults can and do learn much of an L2 grammar incidentally, while focusing on meaning, or communication. Research shows, however, that a focus on meaning alone (a) is insufficient to achieve full native-like competence, and (b) can be improved upon, in terms of both rate and ultimate attainment, by periodic attention to language as object. In classroom settings, this is best achieved not by a return to discrete-point grammar teaching, or what I call focus on forms, where classes spend most of their time working on isolated linguistic structures in a sequence predetermined externally by a syllabus designer or textbook writer.
Task-based language learning. Task-based language learning (TBLL), also known as task-based language teaching (TBLT) or task-based instruction (TBI) focuses on the use of authentic language and on asking students to do meaningful tasks using the target language. Such tasks 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 makes TBLL especially popular for developing target language fluency and student confidence. As such TBLL can be considered a branch of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). According to Jane Willis, TBLL consists of the pre-task, the task cycle, and the language focus. The components of a Task are: Goals and objectivesInputActivitiesTeacher rolelearner roleSettings Background[edit] Task-based language learning has its origins in communicative language teaching, and is a subcategory of it.