According to Prof. Prabhu, a task "is an activity that requires
learners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some process of
thought, and which allows teachers to control and regulate that process" Prof.
Prabhu deserves
credit for originating the task-based teaching and learning, based on the
concept that effective learning occurs when students are fully engaged in a
language task, rather than just learning about language.
Though Task-based
Language is becoming increasingly popular the following questions keep cropping up every now and then:
·
How should we sequence the tasks?
·
What kind of tasks can a teacher give
in a mixed ability class?
·
How can an ordinary teacher be trained
to prepare suitable tasks?
I had recently
attended a workshop for preparation
of tasks at the Regional Institute of
Education,(NCERT), Mysore, India. I was
feeling quite comfortable all these days with the satisfaction of having done a
fairly good job. But last week
everything changed… I had
attended a session engaged by Prof.
Prabhu during the Plenary session of the International Conference on The English
Classroom- Experiments and Experiences, at Chennai, India.
Please view
22. Prof. Prabhu on task-based teaching
For more details about Task-based language teaching please read :
Prabhu, N. S. (1987). Second Language Pedagogy.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. (1987).