Task Based

Learning II
Task Cycle
TBL … Steps of a TBL lesson
Pre-Task

The teacher sets the stage: In this portion of the class, the teacher
will introduce the task and provide all the guidelines the students
need to successfully complete it.

The teacher may review some vocabulary that would be helpful

for the students, but there is no language focus stage.

It could also include a video of people completing the (real

world) task as a model.

Once the task and guidelines have been given, students take
some time to prepare and plan how to execute the task.
TBL … Steps of a TBL lesson
Task

In this stage of the lesson, the students complete the task in pairs
or groups.

The teacher monitors and offers encouragement, but does not

correct their language.

The teacher is also available to answer questions the students

may have.
 TBL … Steps of a TBL lesson
Planning and Reporting
Once the task has been completed, the students
must prepare a report to present the results of their
task to their classmates.

In this stage, they are more likely to ask for

assistance with language, so the teacher should be
available to them.

Once the reports have been prepared and

practiced, the pairs/ groups present them to their
classmates. The report may be memorized or read
from notes.

The teacher and classmates may offer feedback at

this time.
 TBL … Steps of a TBL lesson
Analysis and Practice

This is the stage of the lesson most like a language focus.

Once all of the reports have been presented, the teacher may
highlight features of the language used for the task.

This can be anything from grammar to register to

text features.

For example, in terms of text features, a science report

is likely to have a hypothesis at the beginning and
should use technical language to describe observations.
TBL … Steps of a TBL lesson
Based on the results of the task, the teacher can determine if
some aspects of the language require additional practice.

At this time, students can be given an activity to develop

accuracy with regards to a specific language feature. However,
some purists believe that this is unnecessary.

In any case, you can see from the above lesson that the teacher
does not predetermine a language focus, rather it evolves
organically based on observations of the students' performance.
In TBL, there is little to no focus on error correction, as
communication is the goal, rather than accuracy.
TBL … Steps of a TBL lesson
So, … in a TBL lesson …
1. The teacher does not predetermine a
language focus, rather it evolves organically
based on observations of the students'
performance.

2. There is little to no focus on error correction, as

communication is the goal, rather than
accuracy.