Universidad Pedagógica Nacional
Facultad de Humanidades
ENGLISH TEACHING METHODS
The teaching method is: Task-Based approach
Camilo Ferrer – Juan Romero
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
1.The goals of teachers who use
this method
2. The role of the teacher
3. The role of the students
4. Characteristics of the Teaching-
learning process
NOTES/COMMENTS
- The main goal is to develop communicative
competence through the completion of a task using
the target language. In this case, the language is not
the end but rather the means.
- Giving the students the possibility to use their own
resources, as they can use any language they wish to
reach the task outcome. Students then do not feel
constrained by a requirement to produce specific
language.
- Getting students’ attention to processing input and
creating output, rather than on grammar.
- Making students interact with each other as during
interaction they negotiate meaning using gestures or
comprehension checks (did you understand me? Can
you repeat that?) helping them produce language
collaboratively.
Teacher should:
- Be clear about the task, explaining what must be
done, how long the task will last, and how students
will work to complete it.
- Motivate the students so that they can get into
action.
- Be a supporter. Teachers should support students in
whatever they need so that they can complete the
task.
- Provide feedback on task performance (oral
corrective/written corrective).
- (May) draw learners’ attention to explicit grammar
structures.
Students should:
- Regulate their own process following their own
patterns of learning.
- Interact with other learners to reach a
communicative goal.
- Be actively engaged in the task proposed.
- Follow the steps provided by the teacher.
- Learning takes place when internal capacities of the
learner interact with the linguistic environment. In

5.The nature of student-teacher
interaction
6. The feelings of the students
7. The way language/culture is
viewed
8. Areas/skills of language that
are emphasized
9. The role of students’ native
language
other words, there are some biological factors and
cognitive processes of students that work together
with environmental factors such as learner-learner
or learner-teacher collaboration that foster language
learning.
- Conversational interaction is essential to complete
the task.
- Regarding teaching, there should be a focus on
improving not only fluency but accuracy as well.
- Evoking real communication is key.
- Attention is focused on meaning rather than on
linguistic structure, although at the end of the task
(post-task phase), teachers can highlight some
important linguistic forms to improve accuracy as
well.
Teacher and student roles are important for the Task-Based
approach. Both interact and their actions are essential.
Teachers plan a lot of anticipated outcomes, provide
necessary vocabulary, help students through the completion
process, and students respond to it by getting engaged,
producing language in a free manner, and interacting with
other people, making it possible to foster communication.
- Students do not feel restrained by grammatical rules
they have to use, but rather encouraged to use the
language so that they can complete the task, which
is the main goal in a class.
- They feel interested and engaged as there is a
requirement for them to express information, give
an opinion or deduce a meaning.
- They feel they are important as they bring ability,
aptitude, and motivation to the task.
- They feel supported by the teacher so that they can
complete the task successfully.
- Language is a vehicle to communicate something and
to complete a task. Language is best learned and
taught through interaction.
- There might be cultural barriers to the Task-Based
approach undertaking. Conflicting realities in
practice might challenge new ideas in theory.
Therefore, it is important to focus on those
challenges by accommodating to local cultures in a
hybrid and evolving way.
- Fluency and accuracy
- Commutative competence
- Oral expression
- Meaning negotiation
- Real communication
Where the learners share an L1, it is possible that some
negotiation can take place in the L1. In other words, if the L1
is a tool that helps to scaffold learners into the task and

10. The way students are
evaluated
11. The way the teachers respond
to students’ errors
reduce cognitive load of the task, it may have a place. This
characterizes interaction by a code-switching between L1
and L2. However, it is important to emphasize that the goal
of communicative competence in the L2 should not be
unduly hindered by the L1.
Students’ performance is evaluated during the task, so that
teacher can realize if students can use the L2 to accomplish
the target task.
Students can receive oral or written corrective feedback in
the post-task phase. That make students focus on grammar
aspects and notice errors.
They provide feedback that takes place at the end of each
session, teachers let students make mistakes and at the end
they reinforce the grammar knowledge students need to
improve their competence. Teachers use either oral or
written corrective feedback.