Welcome to our Facebook live set.

Jack and today I'm joined by two fantastic people under

Ellis, associate professor of Applied Linguistics at University College London. She came all
the way from London to join us and Tony Clark, senior research manager at here at
Cambridge Assessment English. And today they will be.Talking about task based learning.
Before we start, please first of all let us know where you joining us from.And second of all do
remember that you can claim your digital badge that called the code is just displaying on the
screen now and I will put him back up throughout the session while people are telling us
where joining from. Andrea, can you tell us a few words about you? Many thanks for joining
us high again. I'm.Andrea and I mean based in the Centre for Applied Linguistics at the UCI,
seat of Education, University College London. I teach on the M80, so anime, applied
linguistics programmes at UCI, one of my key interests, US based language teaching and
learning, and I also served as the Vice President of the International Association for Task
Based Language Teaching.I've recently co-authored a book, a massive open online course
on past based language teaching at reading with my colleagues at UC. AI was so worked as
a language teacher for many years, teaching English both in Hungary and in the United
States. Okay, Tony, can you let us know something about you? Hello and Tony, I manage
research.When iOS exam here at Cambridge English as cash said, one of my main interest
is the writing section of the Isles itself, which is a good example of a task based format. Will
come looking to that in a bit more detail later on. There was also a teacher for many years as
well.I'd like to remind you if you do have any questions or comments, were very happy to to
listen to those. So please put them in the box below.And we will answer the questions either
at the end of the session or just afterwards. And we have people joining us from India, from
Italy, from Croatia, from Peru, from.Then we had people from Delhi, in India, Brazil.An yeah.
So believe. Yeah it's it's just all over the world. But people are joining us from Mexico,
Argentina, Spain, USA.An fantastic when I Cyrus so very international audience, okay,
Andrew and Tony through its yours. Thank you. Thank you. OK. So the first thing we're
going to think about today is what is task based learning.But I would like you to do is think of
two keywords or phrases that come into your mind when you think about tax bases.If you
want, you can put it in the comments box as well.Okay, in my thoughts of words like
communicative, meaning based, real life learning by doing. Indeed all these expressions and
words are associated with us based language teaching. Before we discuss the defining
features of past days activities, let me give you an example for a pedagogic task
first.Yesterday I took a train from London to Cambridge and when I arrived at the station I
realised that the battery of my phone was Sam. So instead of looking at my Google Maps in
on my phone I had to ask for directions. There is a kind lady who told me how to get to the
hotel where I stayed.If you are second language learners to complete an activity similar to
this, this would constitute as a second language task of pedagogic task. Why would be
classified this activity as a task?According to Peter skiers van on definition, tasks have 4
defining characteristics. First pedagogic pedagogic taskbar activities where meaning is
primary. So the scar different from traditional language learning activities by the primary
focus has to be on linguistic features such as grammar.Capillary pragmatics or pronunciation
in the map class. Clearly the learners focus would be on meaning as they need to explain to
the learner or to their partner where the hotel or whatever place they giving direction to is.
Another characteristic of task is that they involve the communicative problem to solve.You
might have heard of terms like information gap or opinion gap. This actually refer to the
same characteristic. In the case of the map task, there is a clear information gap. One of the
learners is aware of the directions but the other one does not know. So there is a reason to
communicate.Another characteristic of task is that they bear some sort of relationship to real
life activities. In other words, tasks are similar to or simulate activities that we would do in
real life settings. The example I gave you the map task also something that we might do in
real life, although we rely on our on our phones more and more.And they give direction.
There might be situations, as it happened to me yesterday, that you need to ask for
directions when you need her or when you get lost.Finally, an important and defining feature
of passkeys that the outcome is assessed in terms of its non linguistic features. What we
mean by this that we are not only interested in the language the way languages used during
past performance, but also whether the actual communicative purpose of the task has been
met. To continue with the example of the MAP task, this would mean.We are not only
interested in, you know, how accurately learners use the language, but also whether they
actually managed to give successful directions. It's possible that someone uses completely
accurate language, but they might still send you the wrong part of town. In this case, the
Community communicative purpose of the task would not be met.I'd like to emphasise that
when it comes to the definition of tasks, task cannot only be oral activities. They cannot only
include the skill of speaking. It's a misconception that task only focus on this scale of
speaking. Ask any involve all four skiers. They could be listening, reading, writing.Or
speaking activities.Yes, that's a good point. Thanks and yeah, so.In relation to that, we're
going to consider a writing task first of all. So this example is from the Cambridge English
first example. You can see it on the slide there actually. So this is an e-mail from David. The
subject we can see is touring holiday and what the candidate needs to do here is described
their local.Earlier.So recommending places to visit, basically by car, bike or court.Is a short
response and it's appropriate. It's important to get the appropriate tone and register,
considering that the candidate is right into French.No, referring back to the skiing definition,
there's a communicative problem to solve here. So the writer needs to know something
personal sent the e-mail, needs to know the candidate has the information it needs to share
it. So the real world problem there, as we mentioned, it's interesting to know that this is part
of a test.So it's from CFRP to level. And the philosophy here at Cambridge English is that we
teach language communicatively. That means that we need to assess language in the same
way. So our exams reflect that. If we use tasks in our exams, this ensures that the way
students or assessed reflects away the top.So.As we can see that task assessment is
something that's very, very important as well. Thank you, Tony. So now you've seen an
example for speaking to us the direction giving task and was an example for writing task,
writing an e-mail because I mentioned earlier task and evolve all for skiers and example for a
listening task would be listening to train announcement.What is an intern academic lecture
for dating task would entail? Let's say reading an e-mail or a report that requires an action?
Now let's consider an activity which actually does not mean the criteria for tasks. This activity
comes from a book which was published in Rod Alice's seminar book on task based
language teaching. Take a quick look at this activity.Probably you can quickly see right away
that this part would not mean this activity. I shouldn't take that shouldn't say task we not
meet the criteria for tasks.Do we have a primary focus on meaning? No. Clearly the focus is
on grammar. Learners need to practise that there is under construction.Is there a
communicative problem to solve? I don't think so. Learners exactly have the same
information and there is no information gap here.Is this something that she examples how
we used language in real life? Again not. It's a very artificial piece of conversation. And what
about the our linguistic outcome? The non linguistic outcome in this activity? The only
outcome here is the language produced. So there is no one in linguistic outcome in this task.
It's worth considering, however heavy could.Turned this activity intertask, it's possible to do
that.The picture could be given only to one of the students, and the student could be taught
that some of them items from the back have been actually stolen. And then the other student
would have the originalist of items and the student task would be to identify those items
which had been taken from the bag.What would be the non linguistic outcome here? We
could use the resulting list the items they've identified as the non linguistic outcome in the
task.Now you've got a good understanding of what the task is so he can consider the role of
tasks in the syllabus. Most people make a distinction between two main types of syllabus is
one of them is referred to as the fast-paced syllabus and the other one is that past supported
syllabus.In Thursday's language teaching and learning, the key units of syllabus design our
tasks. Both the syllabus and the assessment are specified in terms of tasks, so this type of
syllabus is different from traditional syllabus. Ease by the main organising unit would be
most of the time and linguistic item such as vocabulary.Grammar or pronunciation?An
example for grammatical syllabus could be when you start with some simple grammatical
items, such as the present simple, and then you move on to teaching something slightly
more advanced, such as the past simple but in touch. Base syllabus is again what we do.
We select tasks and then we decide what ask learners are going to the first.Which is going
to be the second task and so on.In past supported language teaching, *** are important, but
they know the main primary. They are not the main organising principle. The syllabus itself
could be defined in terms of other features against, such as vocabulary or grammar or
pronunciation and so on. The role of task is to enhance the material.And to include more
language learning opportunities for learners, the assessment itself is not defined in terms of
pass either or maybe partially defined, but not all the assessment will be tasked based.So in
summary, when it comes to tax supported language teaching, ask the important role, but
they not the primary organising unit.So if you've just joined us, we've been talking about
what task based learning is, we're now going to move on to talking about why task based
learning is important.As we can see on our slight, we've got three possible rationality.I'd like
you to think about which ones of these apply to task based learning your opinion. So it is
meaning faced, but it also offers opportunities for focus language. It is motivating because
it's relevant to learners real life needs.And it involves learning by doing.These are three refs
announced. As you probably realised, all of these options actually applied to task.Hey, let's
look at each of these rationales in more detail.The first one said that past these language
teaching its meaning this. But it also offers opportunities for focus on language. Indeed,
that's one of the most important rationales for task based language teaching. How can be
achieved these, for example, learners engaging the speaking activity. A teacher might give
corrective feedback to learners. They might correct the errors that the learners make.In this
way, there is some information about language that learners receive, but the primary focus
still remains on meaning in the field of second language acquisition. Research is generally
accepted at instruction is going to be most effective when learners primary focus is on,
meaning that there are timely opportunities for focusing on language.Such as grammar and
vocabulary.Yeah so that other advantages as well. So let's look at these in a bit more detail.
One of these is it boosts motivation to use task based learning and one of the reasons for
this is it should be relevant to the students experience and give some practise in a situation
that they may want they find themselves. So an example of this would be the e-
mail.Question that I mentioned earlier. It's very possible that students would have to write an
e-mail like that in there like it helps most of it and when they relax.Effective task based
learning should be under leaving by a proper needs analysis. So what I mean by that is the
specific group of students that we have in mind for teaching. You got to find out what they
need. One example would be nurses learning English for professional purposes. Yes to think
what would these nurses have to do.So, for example, they might be taking their patients
medical histories or offering counselling, but ask they do when they learn English really
should reflect that.Another benefit of using tasks is classroom management.OK, so one of
the advantages it can be very easy to see if students are on taskbar off, that if the teacher
gives students a speaking task and they go away and do, it is very visually clear who's doing
that and who isn't. So it can help with controlling the class and all other factors.There are
some practical challenges, but I think task based learning can be used to overcome
challenges in the classroom such as mixability learners or different learning styles.Different
tasks can offer a different learning experience to people, so it's gotta flexibility built into that
is very useful as well.Another.Potential challenge would be if you had very large classes for
exam.Again, I would argue that task based learning can be used to your body.So.You can
use technology. For example could give students a task to go away and record the dialogue
on their phones dispersed into smaller groups and then come back later and and share with
the group. So these practical considerations are worth thinking about, but it by number
means exclude task based learning. The final point about that is.But it's definitely a student
centred activity, not material centre.So scholars like John jury about good that tasks should
be typically learner centred teachers facilitate rather than leading a session. And as Julie
said, that education is much more effective that learning, learning by doing is much
more.Effect of the landed a boat. So in other words, past based learning is supported by
general learning theory as well.Thank you, Tony. Hopefully by now your companies that
Cosby is language learning is important and it's something that we should be doing. But now
let's look at the practicalities **** *** bass lesson would actually look like.In general, cars
based activities are described in terms of free stages, the plea to stage, the during the stage
and the poster stage, interpreter stage. Usually learners prepare for the task that's going to
happen. It's sort of a preparation for task performance. The during past age actually involves
performing the task.And then in the post last stage, learners usually engage in some sort of
follow up activities after task performance. Now let's look at each of these stages in more
detail. As I mentioned earlier, the aim of the pre pass stages is to prepare the performance
of the task in order to make sure that the task is going to be as conducive to language
learning.As possible we can make a distinction between two types of pre task activities.
Language focused pre task activities and content focused activities.Language focused
activities may introduce or recycle vocabulary and grammar that learners will find useful
during task performance. For example, if your task is related to travelling, you might want to
review modes of transport or how to buy tickets for a trip.It's important, however, not to
spend too much time on language before task performance, because if they do so, learners
may decide to focus on language more than meaning during actual task performance. But as
we said, it's really important. One of the underlying principles of the space language
teaching is focused on meaning, and that should be the aim.Of the during task stage.When it
comes to content focused people ask activities. The aim here is to engage learners with the
topic. Learners, for example, could rehearse that ask what? They might also observe other
people performing a task which is similar to what they going to perform. We could also give
learners some planning time. They could prepare what they're going to say.This is also a
good platform for activating prior knowledge or background knowledge that learners might
have. She's going to be relevant for task completion.Moving on to the Turing test stage
again, here the primary focus would be on meaning students might work on them by
themselves, or they might work in groups or in pairs.You answer. You, as a teacher would
probably give assistance to students. You might also give feedback to students. Let us show
what they mean by this, Tony. Now you are my student and I'm your teacher, and your task
is to come up with a weekly plan, OK?Imagine I'm a student. I might say something like first I
have to make my homework. O first you have to do your homework.I see. So what are you
going to do next?We need to answer. I think it was a good demonstration how they can give
feedback during past performance.Of course, Tony might have picked up on my correction.
Must have notice that I repeated what he said to correctly, but it's also possible that he
didn't. It's also possible that he's going to incorporate this feedback into his future
performance. There was an opportunity for 20 to learn, but they still stayed on task, so the
primary focus remained on meaning.Continued with past performance.It's also possible for
teachers to assume a more passive role during the during past stage. For example, they
might just observe what learners do and they might only intervene if there's some issues
arise arise, for example communicative problems. Or the students might have issues with
them as procedures or students themselves.Might ask for some assistance.Once the tuning
start during task stage has finished, we can move on to the post ask face. This is the point in
that *** bass lesson when you can actually introduce an explicit focus on language. Of
course it's also possible to continue with some content focused activity or to move on to
another task.Now let's focus on what type of in what ways you can teach. You can achieve
an explicit focus on language in the post as space. There are there are a variety of ways of
doing that. For example, you can ask students to repeat the task in front of the audience.
Imagine that the students engage in the storytelling activity.Then in the post as stage, you
could ask learners to perform them narrative again in front of the whole class. Students
might might have also worked on preparing a speech and delivering a speech in the during
past base. Then in the post asked Basic would ask them to deliver that speech in front of the
whole cast to a larger audience.What in earth? From research as well, when learners have
to perform in front of larger groups to a larger class, they tend to use more formal language.
They also tend to pay more attention to accuracy, and they might also use more complex
syntax.Another useful post, ask activities is to ask users to report back to the class about the
task outcome.For example, if learners engaged in the district in a decision making task.The
post as page would provide a platform for sharing the decision that they reached.I'm sure
many of you are familiar with this awkward desert island task. In this task, learners have to
choose five or six item from a list of items that they could take the desert island. So they
need to reach a decision about these items. What we could do in the post past face then is
to ask learners to share the decision they reached.The items that they've chosen, and it
could also ask learners to explain the rationale for that decision. Again, in this stage,
because the learners are speaking to a larger audience, the whole class, it's likely that
they're going to pay more attention to the way they used a language.Finally, in the post
asking if we could also engage learners in explicit form focused activities, Michael Long
would refer to these activities as focus on phones activities. These are the traditional
exercises that I'm sure you're familiar with. You could work on where can grammar activities
or vocabulary activities.Target level for the task it's important which was activities which are
connected to the task that donors have just performed. For example, if they worked on a
narrative or a storytelling task, it would make sense to focus on temporal connective
connective such as first, second, last, and soon. We could also focus on past tense
marking.These are both features Emperor connectives and pastors marking which are
relevant to explaining narrating a story because these features tend to occur frequently in
narratives.Okay, thank you. If you've just joined us, I just remind you were talking about how
do you actually teach and assess in a task based learning classroom. So I'm going to give
some more examples now from Cambridge English test. It's interesting to me the connexion
between teaching and assessment.And in particular its not just attached themselves, it's a
criteria that used to assess.That's really, really important when we look at how performance
can be assessed. So the first example we're going to look at is from linguistical listening.We
can see it on the slide there.Students are faced with a problem, so there's a man after four
and he's trying to use a self-service machine to get through into that to airport having
problems checking in.The task students have to solve here as identify what the problem is.
Actually. By the way, the problem is he's trying to get in on a group ticket and he's an
individual. That's why I can't get into this into the cheque in they have to choose one of three
multiple choice options.And as we can see here again, this is another real world tasks.
Referring back to ski and original definition. The under mentioned at the beginning students
are assessed on the outcome of the test, so will the actor managed to solve the problem?
Also, they might find themselves in that position one day. It's very possible that could be at
an airport and trying to get into the checking and struggling like that, so it resembles real life
really.For the next example, we're going to look at my oats writing. So this is something I
mentioned in the introduction. I'm very involved. That helps examine the research behind it,
and the writing part of that signifies a very good example, the task.We can see on the slide,
we've got two graphs there. They're both about computer ownership. One of them is about
computer ownership by education level.And they're both in a fixed time period between 2002
2010. What students have to do here is compare the two graphs and report on the main
features of each of them.So again, there's a communication problem to solve.This time it
needs to be put into writing.Once more, I'd like to think about how is this assessed so.In my
hands, I've got a copy of the Ioc's band descriptors here, which are publicly available. We're
going to post the link for that, no.Very soon.So here we have it. OK?And when we look at
these in detail, they'll tell us a bit more about what we expect from students actually
complete the task. So the column on the on the far side here is task achievement now.When
it comes to assessing writing, people know about coherence and cohesion, lexical resource,
grammatical range and accuracy. The task achievement is equally weighted, which means
it's 25% of these for practically. So it's really, really important for band seven, as we see on
the screen, a candidate can present a clear overview of the main trends of differences.That's
to get high school. That's what you need to do.Band 4 lower down. Of course, a candidate
will have attempted the task but not covered all of the key points.So you see, there's quite a
big difference there. If you want to get high school, you need to get the mall. Really.Now.If
we consider what this actually means for the candidates themselves, a lot of yoyote students
will go on to study at university afterwards. And by doing a task like this and being assessed
on tasks like this, they start to develop the skills that they may need later off, for example as
part of an academic essay. Then we need to summarise data.I hope it is a good start for that
day.So that's how we assess and teach in a task baseline.OK, great. Thank you for that.
That was marvellous and very informative and thank you everyone who posted their
questions. We might not be able to answer them now, but we will definitely do it after the
session. So you can find the answer to your questions in the comment box.I've only found
few questions that if we could have a look at them.An I year a year Patty and is asking what
is in during task stage. Students don't use the target language, but they use their native
language.Should I? Should I go ahead? And of course that's not an idea situation, but I think
important question is what they use the first language for. If it has to do with let's say cost
procedures and they try to make sure that they actually can do the task, then probably that's
okay. But of course they use their native language instead of using the second
language.That's an issue because the idea of the space language teaching isn't during task
performance that they would use the second language at that stage.Well, what can you do
then? One of those things that you might be able to do, maybe just explain learners why is it
is important that they actually use them. Second language to make sure that they
understand the goal of the activity and it's important for their practise. I've also heard
teachers coming up with different types of rules if you use your first language.Then.Or if it
maybe we can think of it as a positive way. If you use your second language, you might
receive some kind of evil words. But this is an issue, especially in context when learners
have the first same first language. If you're in a second language environment, learners have
different first languages. This is going to be less of a problem.OK, great. Another one from
Henry Tron. How can we examine students performance fairly when they conducted the
tasks? This is because the students working in groups tend to get more workload than their
friends.Yeah.It's a bit better.I'm.I think that depends on the teacher really. So teachers
responsibility.It's very important for the assessment to think what are the essays in hope so if
your Stacey mistress individually on the task based but ask something.Got to hope for that.
Make sure that their contributions, each other needs me there accounted for or you could
assessment it as a group in some cases. So it depends really. There's a question about that
like to ask which is connected, OK.I got it from my memory. Yeah just cause it's connected
to that. The question is.Into space language learning. Sometimes learners who are learning
English in a second language feel uncomfortable. In the case of expressing ideas, feel So
what can be done?Again, there are several possible solutions that I was thinking back to the
technology.Using the phones to record a dialogue Aurora short interaction of something
gives them a chance to go away in their own time and record it, so then you might feel a bit
more confident than just having to come up with it on the spot.So the task should be
constructed in such a way that allows for that.OK, we have one from Catalina Vashkevich
must be published just like me. Are there any task based course books on the market at the
moment?That's a good question. I wish there were more of them. Most of the textbooks that
you would find tend to follow a task supported approach. Remember there was a difference
between past these language teaching and pass supported language teaching. So most
commercial textbooks you would find tasks but they would not be the primary organising
unit. Usually there would be focused.Scammer vocabulary and so on and textbook which
have really nice as based activities is cutting edge. Every session or every unit ends with the
task based sickness and those tasks are usually very well prepared and very well
designed.Having said this, I asked for that there are not really space books out there, but
there is also reason for that. They were saying that they would like to come up with activities
and tasks that are relevant for the learners. And usually it's not easy to come up with a
textbook that will be relevant to certain language group, so it also needs to be.You need to
be familiar with the context, but the students needs are to be able to accommodate what do
realise fully task based approach.Okay, thank you. There is one question and that I think
many people asked is tbl suitable for young learners?At Thursday's language teaching is
suitable for all ages and for our purposes. What you might find that in when it comes to
young learners in most contact they would be beginner learners or learners who don't have
much language knowledge yet. In that context probably would focus more so-called.Input
based us or listening tasks when? If they cannot readily read, maybe you could also include
more reading activities comes first. Of course you can't really speak if you don't have the
language skills yet available, so in those contacts you would use more listening in the
beginning so their owners can get the input they can use later. In terms of what type of
tasks, I would consider what your children like to do.Something that free time what they do in
other classes, so you could use as based activities which is suitable for them and for the age
group there. In many of the games that children would play actually with would qualify as
fast. If you think about those four criteria that we described earlier. So definitely Tasker
suitable for young learners.In some way, actually, it's easier to do task with younger learners
then then older students. I feel okay. I believe we have time for one more question. That's
money Wilson, he's saying. But won't there be an argument that the there is a trend for this?
Our generation wasn't taught.That way, and we came Outwell.Oh, that's a good point. I
suppose you could say that about a lot of aspects of learning. Lots. And it doesn't mean you
can't evolve test weeks, learning a little while. But it does help. I don't think that's about it.I
don't think so either, and indeed that's a good point. And sometimes it's also difficult for
teachers to do task based language teaching because we learn from how we learned, right?
But I think we would all agree that if you would like to use language in communicative
context, we do need to practise using language in communicative context as well.And we
never know what would have happened if he had been taught in a different way. I wasn't
taught English innit as base they either. It's an empirical question and been with research to
explore that.Yeah. And another point as well as I don't know exactly what generation in front,
but nowadays we're all moving around a lot more then we're doing the kind of tax it like I
mentioned is the airport checking. So it's very, very important.Can I just say it? Add one
more thing? If you're proficient speaker, I'm pretty sure that if we're not just thought
language, you didn't focus only on grammar and vocabulary, you must have had
opportunities to practise using that language, probably in real life settings. Otherwise, if we
don't practise speaking, it's very unlikely that we'll be able to speak.My feet done practise
reading, we won't be able to read, so it's important to to do that and there's also research
suggesting that if we use the activities the task in settings that reflect this before, it would be
easier to do the same thing in real life settings.Okay, great. Well, I'm afraid that is that is it
from us today. We don't really have much more time today, but we hope that you found it
useful in that people will use task based learning due to their classroom activities. So
hopefully that was that was very useful. Join us again next month.For our next session,
which will be on multilingualism in the classroom, do remember that the session has been
recorded, so if you missed some bitter bid or you've just joined, or you want to share it with
your friends or colleagues, the footage will be available on our Facebook and
YouTube.Channel. Thank you very much, Andrew. Again, thank you for coming all the way
down from that, so having me and thank you for your attention. Thank you, Toni Anne. Bye,
bye and see you next month.