TASK-BASED LEARNING

Question 1

‘A ___ methodology is based on the ___that out
of ___ comes ___. A task-based methodology is
based on the belief that out of fluency comes accuracy, and
that learning is __and __by the need to
__’ (D. Willis 1990)

Answer 1

1. presentation
2. belief
3. accuracy
4. fluency
5. prompted
6. refined
7. communicate

Question 2

In 1979, the ____ in ___, under the guidance of N.S. Prabhu, embarked on a ___ project that was to achieve ___status in the history of English language __. Referred to ever since as ‘_____’, the aim was to teach
English to a ___ number of classes in local __and ___schools using a syllabus that was based – not on a list of __ patterns, as was customary in __ at the time – but on a series of ___, where tasks are defined by Willis (1996) as ‘activities where the ___language is used by the learner for a ____(goal) in order to achieve an ___’. Dissatisfied with the prevailing ‘____’ methodology, but ___ about replacing a ____ items with a __ (as some proponents of ____ were advocating – see chapter 15),Prabhu opted instead for a task-based approach, and for ‘the creation of ___in which learners engage in an effort to cope with
communication’ (1987).

Answer 2

1. Regional Institute of English
2. Bangalore, India
3. five-year
4. legendary
5. teaching
6. The Bangalore Project
7. small
8. primary
9. secondary
10. grammatical
11. India
12. tasks
13. target
14. communicative purpose
15. outcome
16. structural -oral-situational
17. skeptical
18. syllabus of grammar
19. syllabus of functions or notions
20. Communicative Language Teaching
21. conditions

Question 3

In this sense, he was following the lead of advocates of a ‘___’ form of
CLT, such as Dick Allwright (1979) who insisted: ‘If the “____” management activities are ___ at involving the learners in solving communication ___ in the target language, then language ___will take care of itself’. In other words, you learn to communicate simply by ___. And ___– doing things that
involve ___language use – provide the ideal ___and ___for communicating. Prabhu, like many after him, ___the view that a ___syllabus, whether of grammar __or of __, and the ___methodology associated with it, are the ____ to ___.

Answer 3

1. strong
2. language teacher’s
3. directed exclusively
   4, problems
4. learning
5. communicating
6. tasks
7. real
8. context
9. motivation
10. rejected
11. preselected
12. items
13. functions
14. PPP
15. optimal route
16. proficiency

Question 4

Although supported by a long tradition in _____ education of
‘____’, initially TBLT ___ a ____ basis. Certainly, research into ___ was starting to cast ___ on the ____ of teaching according to a syllabus of ‘__’ (i.e. ___). The learner’s ‘____’ syllabus seemed to be ___ to this kind of ___. Moreover, research into the ___between learners when performing tasks, including the way that they ___and __ communication ____, suggested that these interactions might be a ___ site for ___. On the other hand, evidence from other ‘___’ learning contexts, such as ___(see chapter 1), indicated that an ___ on communication – without some ___ attention to the formal features of the language (called ‘___’) – might result in ‘___’, i.e. the ___ or ___stabilization of the language system.

Answer 4

1. progressive
2. learning by doing
3. lacked
4. sound empirical
5. SLA
6. doubt
7. wisdom
8. forms
9. grammatical structures
10. inbuilt
11. immune
12. manipulation
13. interactions
14. negotiate
15. repair
16. breakdowns
17. fertile
18. acquisition
19. deep-end
20. immersion
21. exclusive focus
22. explicit
23. focus on form
24. arrested development
25. temporary
26. permanent

Question 5

Accordingly, the ___ model of TBLT – which ___ ‘any ___ to ___itself’ (Prabhu 1987) – was ____ by scholars such as Mike Long so as to include a focus on ___. But it is a focus on form ‘which is by ____, i.e. responsive to the learner’s current stage of ___’ (Long 2015). In other words,
‘___lead, the ____follows’.

Answer 5

1. Bangalore
2. discouraged
3. sustained attention
4. language
5. reconfigured
6. form
7. definition reactive
8. development
9. students
10. teacher

Question 6

Much ink has been shed as to what constitutes a task, but there is general
____ that a task should be directed at achieving ___, where language is the ___but ___. Filling in the verbs in a ___ exercise is not a task. Finding the differences in two pictures, by exchanging ___descriptions with your partner, is. As is the collaborative planning and taking of a class photo. ___can involve any one of the ___skills, ___or ___. They are more often done ___, but they can be done ___, and in __or on ___.

Answer 6

1. agreement
2. some outcome
3. means
4. not the end
5. gap-fill
6. spoken
7. tasks
8. four
9. together
10. in isolation
11. collaboratively
12. individually
13. class
14. line

Question 7

The ___and ___ of tasks is more ___, since it is ___ in what ways one task is more difficult than another, or in what way tasks may build on one another to form a ___. A series of projects – or one continuous project, such as the __ and ___of a class website – offer possible ways of structuring a course. Attempts to ___ tasks according to the grammatical forms that they are ___to require have been ___as ___, and ___

Answer 7

1. selection
2. sequencing
3. problematic
4. not always clear
5. coherent learning sequence
6. design
7. maintenance
8. sequence
9. likely
10. dismissed
11. task-supported learning
12. not the real thing

Question 8

There are various suggested models of how a task-based lesson can be
designed. Prabhu himself ___beginning with the ___performing the task, and then the ___following suit. Jane Willis (1996) ___this sequence, so that viewing the ___performance of the task occurs ___learners have attempted it themselves (and reported on the outcomes). At some ___ stage, ___might be devoted to how the task performance could be ___, including an __focus on form.

Answer 8

1. favoured
2. teacher
3. learners
4. reverses
5. skilled
6. after
7. post-task
8. attention
9. improved
10. explicit

Question 9

While the (___) evaluation of the __ project was
itself ___, there is probably ___ that has been more ___ than TBLT: it comes supported by an ___ research base into SLA, especially the school of SLA that subscribes to a ___ view of ___, i.e. one that ___the learner as a ‘____’. ___tasks, and getting ___on them, would seem to ___this kind of processing. ____ studies of ___features of the method, such as different ways of focusing on form, have been ___. Evidence that ___models of instruction – such as __ – work any better is __.

Answer 9

1. somewhat delayed
2. Banglore
3. inconclusive
4. no method
5. persuasively championed
6. ever-growing
7. cognitive
8. learning
9. construes
10. limited capacity information processor
11. Performing
12. feedback
13. optimize
14. Laboratory-type
15. specific
16. encouraging
17. alternative
18. PPP
19. scarce

Question 10

Why isn’t TBLT more ___, then? One reason might be the ___, mentioned above. There is also the __concern that, __ a ___syllabus, learners will simply ___their existing (___) competences. More acute still is the uncertainty, on the part of many __and their __, as to how to deal with the
___of task outcomes. Not to mention the actual ___ challenges of __, __and ___ on ___and ___. Where TBLT seems to work ___is when experienced ___ are working with ___groups of learners, e.g. immigrants, whose _ language needs can be ___, such that the programme can be designed to address them.

Answer 10

1. widely applied
2. syllabusing issue
3. plausible
4. without
5. language
6. recycle
7. limited
8. teachers
9. supervisors
10. unpredictability
11. management
12. setting up
13. monitoring
14. providing feedback
15. pair
16. group work
17. best
18. teachers
19. smallish
20. practical
21. accurately predicted

Question 11

The idea that the ‘___lead [and] the ___follows’ is a ___one – implying a ___ of ___in the curriculum. Taken to an extreme, it suggests the ___of what is called a ‘___’, that is, a syllabus that is in a __state of ___, as learners’ needs ___, their interests ___and their capacities ___. In this sense, ‘tasks are ___ events but parts of a __whose goals are determined by the interaction between __and their ___ and ___’ (Legutke & Thomas 1991). Recent
developments in some mainstream education systems, e.g. ___, where school subjects are ___ taught as ___disciplines, but are __into the ___ implementation of l___ projects involving a whole ___of tasks, might seem to offer a way forward.

Answer 11

1. students
2. teacher
3. powerful
4. fundamental redistribution
5. power
6. adoption
7. process syllabus
8. constant
9. negotiation
10. emerge
11. fluctuate
12. evolve
13. not isolated
14. process
15. learners
16. expressed interest
17. needs
18. Finland
19. no longer
20. independent
21. merged
22. collaborative
23. long-term
24. constellation