TBL IN READING

We planned a lesson oriented to put in practice written comprehension (reading) in

a group of a rural school (C.R.A.), which means we encountered different levels
among different grades in the same classroom (4º, 5º and 6º grade). In addition, one
of the students have specific educative needs due to an Autism Spectrum Disorder.
To develop this practice, we decided to work under a TBL (Task Based Learning)
basis.

For a clearer organization, we have separated the task in three different steps: pre-
reading, while-reading and post-reading.

To start, it is necessary to define what a task is. According to Willis (1996), a task is
“an activity where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative
purpose (goal) in order to achieve an outcome.”

Given this definition, we consider the type of task we want students to complete is a
comparing task -at the end of the task, students will be able to match pictures by
establishing relations with parts of the text-

Regarding the attention to diversity, we will take two paths: in first place, students
will be in small groups considering their levels. Due to the nature of the centre being
a C.R.A. the students are accustomed to work in groups and support each other to
progress. The second take is the development of a token economy for all the groups,
so the TEA (Autism Spectrum Disorder) student can keep an order in the steps and
procedures to follow detailed in the token economy, as well as making it easier for
all the students to follow the activities and assuring they complete all the steps of
the task.

Pre-reading: To foster interest in students we will start by showing them

images/pictures related to different texts, allowing them to activate schemata and
predicting the type of texts that can be worked in the lesson. Students will then
discuss about the pictures and choose by raising a hand which of the texts they think
we are going to use (each student can only raise his hand once).

While-reading: Once the text has been presented, students will work with a 1-2-4
cooperative structure by reading the text by themselves at first, then reading it in
pairs, and finally to the whole group. The teacher will monitor all the groups,
keeping special attention to the TEA student in case some additional support would
be needed.

Post-reading: The groups will finally complete the task, by sorting the images they
have been given, and discussing about the parts of the text that is reflected by each
picture. This way, they scan through the whole text to find key chunks of the text
that fulfills the representation of the pictures.

Evaluation: To evaluate this task, we will consider three ways of evaluating.

As an evaluation of the students, the completion of the task at the post-reading will
serve as a tool for evaluating understanding.

As an evaluation of the teacher, students will be given a moodboard with a question

that allows them to reflect on whether they have learned or not with this activity, as
well as their concerns or problems that they have encountered.

As an evaluation of the task process, we take Willis’ framework to assure the

activities are correctly organized in each of the steps, and the type of activities are
consequently within the standards of this framework.

TBL FRAMEWORK (WILLIS, 1996)