Ryan James Purdy
Task Based Learning part 1: Primer and Approach
Before we get started, for both veteran teachers and newcomers, there is an example lesson template near the end of the article so feel free to skip ahead.
We’ve all heard about Task Based learning (TBL). It’s the teaching style that gives students more freedom, improves motivation and engages their creativity. This is one of those areas of teaching where just about every teacher you ask says that they incorporate Task Based Learning (TBL) into their lesson plans yet most of them have trouble defining exactly what it is, how it works, or why it’s important. What are the first three things that come to mind when you hear “Task Based Learning”? TBL is; *project based / group based *student centered *practically oriented If your list looks anything like this, the good news is you’re not wrong but there’s a critical element missing. What do you think it is?
First Contact: When I first heard about TBL, many years ago, the example went something like this; Imagine that a teacher drops off their students at a bus station and tells them that they have to take the bus to the next town. The students meekly try to apply their newfound English skills to buy bus tickets. Joy and hilarity ensues. Unfortunately, this cannot be called a TBL lesson. This example could be called a practical test but what about the students who fail to buy the bus ticket? What have they learned? This example completely misses the “learning” aspect of task based learning. Years later, I heard a better explanation which proposed that TBL could be applied to any lesson plan by restructuring the stages of the lesson. If we follow a TBL formula such as; a pre-task (which sets expectations and/or provides a model), then the teacher presents the lesson aim, gives the task, allows for planning/preparation and finally, the teacher is supposed to save the latter part of the lesson for a presentation or demonstration. This model pretty well describes most of the TBL lessons I have read about (and occasionally seen), it still falls short though. What is the teacher supposed to do if the student fails to engage with the lesson aims? What if the students fail to connect their interpretation of the task with the teacher’s expectations? The above approach is going to frustrate the teachers because the students probably won’t learn what the teacher wants them to learn. Moreover, the students are going to be frustrated because they won’t see the relevance of the lesson or the learning that has taken place.
What’s the missing ingredient? Over the years, I’ve come to realize that the “foundation” of TBL lessons are; 1) Reflection 2) Student driven outcomes.
Reflection:
In the above examples of TBL lessons, the reflection stage is missing. This is where the students decide what they have learned, what they can improve, and how they can incorporate their newfound knowledge into their English studies. This stage is where the teacher needs to provide the most support and offer feedback. Also, this is where a teacher can demonstrate their expertise over online alternatives like youtube.
Student driven outcomes:
In effective TBL lessons, students decide what they need to learn. Teachers have to quiet down and listen. In short, abandon whatever hopes you have of conventional lesson plans and let the students tell you what they are trying to learn.
Why is TBL important for students? Task based learning takes a fluency to accuracy approach while promoting learner autonomy. In other words, TBL teaches students to teach themselves, gets them excited about production, and lets them deal with their own mistakes. Students engage with this content with more cognitive depth and greater motivation. In turn, this leads to faster learning with greater retention. Also, from a student’s point of view, TBL is more fun than a barrel of monkeys.
Why is TBL important for teachers?
The obvious advantage of incorporating TBL into your class is that teachers gain better, more motivated students (see previous point). This also shifts the responsibility for student learning from the teacher to the student. Another often overlooked benefit is that TBL lessons are great diagnostic tools to discover learner preferences and learning styles. Many teachers go into the first few lessons with a new group with a handful of surveys to help discover this information. However, students (especially younger students) often lack the self-awareness needed to provide reliable feedback. Setting up a TBL lesson to gauge this is more enjoyable for the students and more reliable for the teacher. There’s a lot more to say about this but, for now, we’ll leave it here.
Where do most teachers make mistakes in TBL lessons?
One of my all time favorite quotes about education is; “teaching might be happening in your lesson but that doesn’t mean that learning is happening”. TBL requires teachers to take a back seat and let the students figure things out for themselves. The minute a teacher walks in and says; “I’m using TBL to teach the first conditional”, the lesson is already a failure. The teacher can accelerate the learning process but they are not responsible for it.
Most teachers only allocate 1-2 minutes for reflection and review at the end of the lesson. In TBL this is another critical mistake. Since the students judge their own progress, this becomes the “learning” stage of the lesson from the student’s perspective. Therefore, students have to be given enough time to find the value in what they have done and how they can use it. Furthermore, since most courses and textbooks are quite teacher-centered, many students are not going to be used to any degree of learner autonomy (so there’s also going to be a fair bit of learner training happening).
What’s the catch?
The trade-off for all of these wonderful boons is that TBL is 100% student centered and driven. That means teachers are going to have a fair bit of difficulty adapting this to many of the most popular coursebooks or using TBL as a reliable tool in exam preparation. Unless your course is 100% student driven, task based learning must be employed strategically.
Incorporating TBL into existing curriculum
The first thought of most teachers is to assign a long term project as a TBL project. This is a great idea but if the students haven’t had much learner training or done anything like this before, they will struggle to complete it.
TBL needs to be deployed with enough frequency to allow students to build and incorporate the lessons of learner autonomy and learner training yet few courses are loose enough to allow for one lesson a week or even one lesson a month to spend on it. One of the simplest ways to implement TBL into an already busy curriculum is to put it into the beginning and end of a term or semester. In other words, about once every six weeks through either group assignments or formal class time. Ideally, teachers could find time to incorporate both in class and out of class assignments. Placing a TBL lesson at the beginning of a semester gives teachers one lesson to signal some of the milestone goals at the end of a term, which also gives teachers valuable diagnostic data for future lesson planning as well as letting students “ease into” a class after a break. On the other end, a TBL lesson at the end of a semester, after a large test for example, will give students a practical gauge of how far they’ve come in the last few months.
For my taste, I’d prepare one more TBL lesson in a semester. Just when the students are getting bored, ploughing through the course materials or when half the class is sick with the flu or away on a school/business trip, break out a nice TBL lesson to shake things up.
Final Thoughts:
The moment where I realized that TBL was an incredibly powerful tool in my teacher’s toolbox was in my very first TBL lesson, where I watched the quietest, least interested students, who had refused to engage with any material or pedagogy for months, become the most active and motivated participants in the class. I’d worked with the same group for months yet I was completely unable to predict how the students would engage with the materials and yielded results far beyond my expectations. In short, give this method a try. You won’t be disappointed.
Here's a TBL lesson template that I've had a fair amount of success with. Let me know if you find it useful.
Pre-task (5mins)
Modeling target production (whatever the thing is the teacher wants the students to do – invent a gadget, write a card, give a news report, call granny for her birthday, take the bus to Chicago etc...)
Preparation (5-7mins)
Teacher sets up the production/demonstration phase
organizes students into groups
students set their own production goals
Teachers provide minimal scaffolding
Individual / Group Work: (15 - 20 minutes)
Students prepare to demonstrate or prepare the task through whatever means they deem appropriate
Teachers monitor and help individuals or groups but students upgrade their own language - mostly.
Task Presentation / Demonstration (15 - 20 minutes)
Students perform / demonstrate their work
Reflection (15 minutes)
Students / groups reflect on what they have learned
Students / groups give feedback to each other (if applicable)
(ideally) students set their own HW based on their individual needs.
Teacher feedback (1-3 minutes)
(optional)
Teacher addresses class-wide problems,
gathers direct student feedback for future lessons
Total time 51 – 65 mins.
Finally, if you are inspired, here are some of the ESL luminaries who have helped shape my thoughts on the issue:
Willis J. (1996) A Framework for Task Based Learning, Longman
Willis and Willis (2007) Doing Task-Based Teaching, Longman
Nunan D. (2004) Task-Based Language Teaching, Cambridge Good luck out there everybody.