COMMUNICATIVE AND TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING

The communicative approach is based on the idea that learning language successfully comes through having to communicate real meaning. When learners are involved in real communication, their natural strategies for language acquisition will be used, and this will allow them to learn to use the language. One influential branch of CLT is Task-Based Language Teaching. What do researchers tell us about the widely used communicative approach?

Reading

Jack C. Richards, in a book from 2006, describes Communicative Language Teaching (40 minutes)

Christopher Brumfit, Henry Widdowson and others discuss aspects of CLT in a British Council book from 1986 (Time:10-15) minutes - pick and choose)

Dave Willis (1990) discusses some key issues around syllabus design, focusing on the contrast between a structural syllabus and communicative syllabus (Time: 20 minutes) NEW 27.11.22

Background and analysis of Communicative Language Teaching by Franz Ludescher (Time: 10 minutes)

Michael Long writes about focus on form in Task-Based Language Teaching (Time: 15 minutes)

A review article about Task-Based Instruction: article by Peter Skehan (Time: 30 minutes)

The methodology of Task-Based Teaching: article by Rod Ellis (Time: 30 minutes)

A critical look at the communicative approach from Mike Swan (Part 1) (Time: 20 minutes)

A critical look at communicative approach from Mike Swan (Part 2) (Time: 25 minutes)

Anxiety can inhibit students in a communicative classroom. This research-referenced blog from Language Teacher Toolkit explores this issue, with suggestions for teachers (Time: 5 minutes)

Martin East discusses the background of CLT, misconceptions, research and successful applications in modern language learning contexts (Time: 10 minutes)

Michael Long and Graham Crookes write about syllabus design in this important article. They explain the difference between synthetic and analytic syllabuses and make the case for a task-based syllabus design (Time: 20 minutes).

Michael Long’s 2016 article called “In Defense of Tasks and TBLT: Nonissues and Real Issues” (Time: 25 minutes)

Video

What is Task-Based Language Teaching? A musicuentos.com illustrated video presentation (Time: 11 minutes)

Jack C. Richards describes what CLT is (Time: 3 minutes)

Three stages of a communicative task explained in this video from the University of London (Time: 4 minutes)

Peggy Marcy describes Task-Based Learning (Time: 6 minutes)