The Evaluation of Task-supported and Task-based Language Teaching : Teachers' Voices(Special Issue Dedicated to Professor TAKENAKA Teruo)
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: There have been a number of attempts to use tasks as a means to engage learners in communicative activities. Some have simply incorporated tasks into traditional approaches consisting of present-practice-produce stages. Others, more radically, have treated tasks as a unit of teaching. These two ways of using tasks can be referred to respectively as task-supported language teaching (TSLT) and as task-based language teaching (TBLT). The main difference between the two ways of teaching lies in timing to introduce specific language forms. In TSLT, language forms to be focused are predetermined, on the other hand, TBLT can be characterized as absence of predetermined language forms. The purpose of the present study is to examine how practicing teachers of English assess the two different approaches to teaching. Eighteen teachers of English participated in the teacher development program called the Summer Workshop for English Teachers (SWET). In the session, they were engaged in two kinds of task activities as a learner. The Tokyo Disneyland task is a typical example of TSLT and The Deserted Island task exemplifies TBLT. After the task completion, participants were asked to rate each of the task activities using a 5-point scale and to discuss the pros and cons of the two kinds of approaches to teaching. The result shows that TSLT is preferable to TBLT for the teachers because they feel some difficulties in applying TBLT to the Japanese classroom context.
Authors: 島田, 勝正, SHIMADA, Katsumasa
Language: Japanese
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7164243497