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2.1 A new approach
It is possible to learn to speak a language quite fluently without any teaching at all. We all have learnt our mother-tongues by having been exposed to natural language which we then imitated and analysed in order to understand how it works. Some learners aquired a foreign language in that way. They may not always be totally accurate, but their level of language ability is entirely adequate for their needs. Learners having managed to learn a second language in the way most people learn their first, are usually very motivated, have received a lot of exposure to authentic language and have had many opportunities to speak and experiment with the language, as Willis states (Willis, 4).
Task-based learning tries to set up classroom and learning conditions that language learning can take place in the most natural way possible. The situations with which the learners are confronted are not designed to practise a specific part of the language but to give learners the opportunity for using language not in terms of form, but rather in terms of meaning.
Tasks are always activities where the target language is used by the learners for a communicative purpose in order to achieve an outcome. The emphasis is on understanding and conveying meaning in order to complete the task successfully. To achieve the demanded outcome, learners would be focusing first on meaning and then on the best ways to express that meaning linguistically. So, learners are free to choose whatever language forms they want to use in order to fulfil the task goals. When the need for communication is strongly felt, they will find a way of getting round words or forms they do not yet know or cannot remember.
Skehan gives a number of examples for task-based activities:
- completing one another's family trees;
- agreeing on advice to give to the writer of a letter to an agony aunt;
- discovering whether one's paths will cross [...] in the next week;
- solving a riddle;
- leaving a message on someone's answering machine.
(Skehan, 95 f.)
In contrast, a number of classroom activities would not count as tasks:
- completing a transformation excercise;
- (most) question and answer activities with the teacher;
- inductive learning activities where pre-selected material is conducive to the generation of language rules.
(Skehan, 96)
The teacher can monitor the activities in class from a distance and should encourage all attempts to communicate in the target language. He should, however, not correct learners' mistakes or give advice. Fluency in communication is what counts. The emphasis is on meaning and not on practising language forms correctly.
According to Nunan, communication tasks have been defined as tasks that "involve learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form" (Nunan, 1989, quoted in: Ellis, 79). The pedagogic rationale for the use of communcation tasks rests partly on the claim that they will help to develop learners' communicative skills and partly on the claim that they will contribute incidentally to their linguistic development. Hence, communication tasks are important for both fluency and accuracy.
It is, obviously, necessary to adapt the task dimension and task difficulty to the learners concerned. Skehan proposes a three-way distinction for the analysis of tasks which distinguishes "code complexity", "cognitive complexity" and the category of "communcative stress" which includes factors such as time limits and time pressure, speed of presentation or the length of texts used (Skehan, 99).
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