WHY TBL IN MY ENGLISH CLASSES?

Why using TBL in my lessons...
Many times did I find myself in the quandary of adopting the method TBL in my lessons or not. At times, I would feel insecure yet there was always that sense of possibility and it was that promising perspective on teaching what gave me the extra nudge I needed. How often do we as teachers ask our students to do something in class which they would do in everyday life using their own language? Probably, not often enough.
In fact, it was until I had the chance to teach Prep 1 that I noticed about the meaning of this method. I myself was asked to teach this new course and I was a newcomer in the use of this method. So, I had to look for more information about TBL in order to become familiar with it. After garnering the information, I now had to put my knowledge into action. With the help of my dear mentor, I realized how wonderful a lesson can be with a TBL approach but even more wonderful when I saw how PREP 1 students produced their own language in a more effective way.
When adopting TBL there should be a clear and defined purpose of where you are heading to. We as teachers must recognize that “teaching does not and cannot determine the way the learner’s language will develop”. Peter Skehan says that “The elements of target language do not simply slot into a `place in a predictable order” and I guess he means that as teachers, we have to let go of the control of the learning process and this is because with this method the learners use their own language and feel free to produce the language.
When using TBL the student is exposed to as much of the foreign language in order to observe it, then hypothesize over it, and finally experiment with it. Thereby, TBL is a communicative method whose only aim is to create a need to use and learn the language.
The primary focus of TBL classroom activity is the task and the language is the instrument which the students use to complete it. A task can be defined in several ways however, for me, the task is an activity in which students use the language to attain a specific outcome. In this sense, the central notion of the TBL approach is a task. When completing communicative tasks students come closer to achieving the goal of learning a foreign language. They have to use the language actively and overcome difficulties connected with possessing limited language resources.The activity reflects real life contexts and learners focus on meaning; they are free to use and produce any language they want. Writing a cheque, making an airline reservation, borrowing a library book, playing a game, solving a problem or sharing information or experiences are activities that occur in day-to-day life and thus they can all be considered as relevant and authentic tasks.
Finding a positive response from the students was the result of a long search. I could not help but be pleased with having found another way to make my teaching more meaningful and useful just by using TBL. It is clear though, that one of the main purposes of TBL is to increase learner activity, the teacher here plays the role of a monitor, guide, resource and to supply the students with tasks that will permit the student to experiment spontaneously, individually and originally with the foreign language. Each task will give the student the opportunity to experiment different types of experiences with the target language and it is here where the teacher has the responsibility of consciousness raising process. This part is essential for the success of TBL because it is here where the teacher helps students to recognize differences and similarities, helps them to correct, clarify and deepen their perception of the foreign language.
In spite of having been proposed various designs ( e.g. Prabhu 1987, Estaire and Zanon 1994, Skehan 1996, Willis 1996, Lee 2000) they all have in common the three principal phases. These phases reflect the chronology of a task based lesson: Pre task, during task, and the final post task.
Willis (1996) proposed the following framework for task- based learning.

Pre-task: Introduction to topic and task
Task
-Task cycle Planning, Report
-Language Focus Analysis, Practice

Within the model, the pre-task phase serves as a preparation for the topic and perhaps a presentation of a similar task already done. In this phase students are also given instructions for the task.
In the task cycle learners first perform the task and subsequently plan the final version of the task outcome and report the effects of their work.
The language focus phase serves both as teacher’s and students’ analysis of the language that was used in the task and also as a moment in the lesson when new language is introduced and practiced.
What is the advantage then of task-based language learning?

-One of the advantages of this method is that tasks allow the use of language resources that students possess in a creative way. Making students use the target language to solve a problem, reach an agreement or communicate some message seems to benefit them in the best possible way: learners are stretching their linguistic knowledge and communicative skills to the maximum.

-Another advantage of task-based learning is that doing tasks supports learner autonomy. While doing tasks, students have to use a number of language learning strategies. For ex ample, a number of compensation strategies, communication strategies or cognitive ones. Completing communicative tasks creates basic conditions for greater autonomy on the part of the student because a lot of decisions connected with language use are made by the learner.
-From this perspective task based language learning seems to be an appropriate method to develop learner autonomy as a basis in a curriculum.

Consequently, the challenge for task based pedagogy is to choose sequences and implement tasks in ways that will combine a focus on meaning with a focus on form as well. Foster and Skehan have shown that giving learners time to plan before they begin a task significantly increases the complexity, accuracy and fluency of the language they use and that these effects increase in relation to the cognitive difficulty of the task. In conclusion, one of the 4 standards of Education is “Learning by doing” and that is what TBL means to me. I would like to encourage you to try out the new method in your classes in order to give you some better ideas of what a task-based lesson may look.