Task-based Language Teaching

The text Task-based Language Teaching from Larsen Freeman and Marti Anderson
is about one of the many techniques used by teacher all over the world in the teaching of a
foreign language. This theory defends teaching through giving useful and relevant tasks to
students.
The authors start by explaining the two different forms of syllabi the synthetic and
the analytic. The one to be perused will be the analytic syllabi, which are organized in
terms of the purposes for which people are learning language and the kinds of language
performance that are necessary to meet those purposes (Wilkins 1976: 13).
There are two kinds of tasks that can be used in this approach, the input-providing
tasks and the output-prompting tasks. According to the authors, the first one will engage
learners with the receptive skills of listening and reading; whereas the second one will
stimulate students to write or speak meaningfully.
The idea is to teach students by giving them meaningful tasks to accomplish
throughout the classes. While performing such tasks students will be practicing how to
structure their sentences, how to organize their ideas, vocabulary and even grammar
(implicitly). The role of the teacher is to give the instructions on how to perform the activity,
to give pointers when needed, and to give, afterwards, the necessary feedback. The role of the
students, in this scenario, is very big. They will have to work in every step, either practicing
their understanding, producing or presenting.
This kind of approach gives students the freedom to speak, to use English in different
ways for different purposes and most importantly, to find out that English can be used in real
situations.