9.
4 Textbooks and TBL
Willis, D., & Willis, J. (2007). Doing task based teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
While there are a number of task-based resource books on the
market, there are as yet few genuinely task-based course-
books. However, several course-books have tasks in, and
teacher's books often suggest additional tasks. Text and
resource books save teachers a lot of hard work, and serve as
useful reference points for students. This section suggests how
they can be appraised, adapted to and supplemented by TBL.
9.4.1 Appraising course-books for TBL content
It is important to analyze the contents with your students'
needs in mind. First of all, read the Introduction. This is
usually in the Teacher’s Book- to discover how the book is
meant to be used, and what principles lie behind it. Many
introductions state that a course-book is 'communicative', but unfortunately this may just mean
that there are pair activities where students practise using pre-specified forms but very few
opportunities for true communication. Some resource books containing tasks which do stimulate
real communication lack language-focused work, and fail to supply recordings which will help
students improve their spontaneous spoken language.
Then look at the range and type of exposure to the target language in the Student's Book and on
the cassettes. Ask questions such as those posed in Chapters 5 and 6, for example:
• Is there a balance of spoken and written, spontaneous and planned text?
• Is there a sufficient range of types of text?
Find how many activities in a typical unit give learners a chance to use the target language.
Analyze these into two categories, asking:
• How many activities are intended to stimulate practice of specified forms -either on their own or
alongside other language?
• How many activities are communication tasks - ones which require learners to use
language freely to attain a goal or achieve an outcome?
Analyze the approach the material takes to language-focused work, asking:
• Is the grammar taught on its own? How is it contextualized?
• What about lexical phrases, collocations, and vocabulary building?
• Are there analytic consciousness-raising language exercises?
• Is spoken language studied as well as written?
You might need to adapt the balance of exposure (written and spoken) and activities promoting
language use. Adaptation can involve omitting things as well as supplementing them. It can also
involve finding a different way to exploit what is already there.
9.4.2 Adapting textbook materials to TBL
Opportunities for task-based learning can be provided by making minor changes in the way the
original textbook materials are used.
• You could change the class management. For example, if you are planning to use a sequence
of questions (either from the book or asked by you):
• Instead of asking the whole class a question and inviting one student to respond, you
might ask learners in pairs to consider the answer for thirty seconds or one minute, and
then volunteer a reply. This in fact makes a series of mini task-planning-report cycles. You
won't have time to ask so many questions, but you'll get far higher-quality responses, and
a greater proportion of learner composing and talking time.
• You may simply need to change the order of two activities. Two examples follow.
• If there is a reading text or a listening comprehension followed by a series of questions,
introduce the topic then ask students to cover the text and predict answers to the
comprehension questions before they read or listen (task). Students then tell each other
their predictions (report), and read or listen to find out who guessed most accurately.
Withhold the answer for as long as possible to promote student discussion and to
encourage them to re-read the text or recording transcript to resolve any problems.
• If your book follows a PPP cycle, you might begin with the free production activity- and use
it as the basis for a task-planning-report cycle, introduced by a pre-task activity, doing
some language focus work afterwards. You can select from the language presented in the
book and show how it could have been used in the task. You may be able to supplement
listening material by making a task recording beforehand (see Chapter 6). Learners can
then study the language of the transcript, too. Set some controlled practice activities for
homework instead of taking up valuable class time.
• You could change the balance of study in a given section.
• For example, spend less time on practising and perfecting learners' production of the target
pattern. Spend more on exploiting language from the texts or recording transcripts, or
highlighting useful language that students have used in their own writing or in their task
reports.
• You might try some activities with books closed. This introduces an element of fun and turns the
original activity into a memory challenge task.
• For example, list three things you can remember about one person/ place/event in the
story /text/picture.
9.4.3 Supplementing textbook materials with TBL
TBL features can also supplement existing textbook materials.
• Look out for good starting points for tasks (see Appendix A). For example;
• With any picture or diagram play games like Memory challenge, 'True or not true?', 'Guess
what is in this picture
• Take the unit or reading text topic and think of a task based on personal experience related
to it.
• Exploit reading and listening skills lessons for text-based task cycles. There are lots of ideas in
Section 4 of Chapter 5. For example:
• Ask learners to write their own prediction questions before they read or listen, as suggested
for Text A in Focus 5. They then read each other's questions. After reading or listening to
the text, the class discuss whose questions were answered.
• After reading or listening, teams of four learners set other teams comprehension questions
or quizzes. Encourage responding teams to give their evidence by quoting from the text.
Exploiting the texts and listening activities in this way maximises student spoken interaction, and
increases motivation to read and listen several times, each time for a different purpose. It often
leads on to a relevant writing activity, too.
• Exploit useful language from the texts for language focus work. Chapter 7 gives examples
and detailed guidelines for this.
• Ensure writing activities have a purpose and an audience. Many writing sections in
textbooks set out to give students practice in writing for its own sake, rather than in
communicating through writing. Exam practice often entails writing for display, i.e. to show
how much language a learner knows. In Chapter 4, section 5 we looked at the place of
writing in the task cycle, and at ideas for ways of writing for a wider audience. Chapter 5,
Section 4 offers many suggestions for using writing as a follow up to text-based tasks.
Make writing activities purposeful.
• Turn the preparation phase for a piece of writing into a group task brainstorming, then
ranking and sequencing the best ideas. Groups then plan how to do the writing, share it
out and read and edit each other's work. Finally, the writing is passed to other groups
who have written on a similar topic to read and compare content.
• Turn the writing activity into an opportunity to produce a reading puzzle for other
students. Ask learners to include in their piece of writing a sentence that is either totally
irrelevant or quite untrue. Other groups then read it to 'spot the stranger'.
• Ensure speaking activities give learners a purpose for communicating. Sometimes a
'discussion' activity can be developed into a task. For example, a role-play or simulation
such as: Pretend your class is going to have a party. Say what you would like to eat and
drink can be turned into a more challenging and engaging problem, such as: If you were
given a budget of £20 to organize a party for your class, how would you spend it? Work in
groups. Compare menus and reasons for your choices. Vote on the most original menu
Speaking activities such as those in resource books, will often benefit from being followed by a
planning and report stage, and from a recording of fluent speakers doing the same activity. This
recording can then be exploited for language focus work.
Business language resource books often contain case studies and additional materials to
replicate business situations and simulate types of communication that are typical of business
encounters. These often contain a spoken or written report stage. You could add to the learning
opportunities here by recording learners' oral reports, and playing them back for appraisal.
9.4.4 Planning TBL
Whether you are adapting or supplementing parts of your textbook to provide input opportunities
for task-based learning, it is important to look ahead over a week's or month's work, so that you
achieve a good overall balance of exposure and language use.
You may decide that the texts themselves offer rich language opportunities but activities that
stimulate talk are lacking. By inserting mini task cycles based on the texts and recordings, you can
postpone or even omit some of the PPP language cycles. If the language on the syllabus doesn't
occur, and you feel it is vital, cover it rapidly at the end of a cycle, and ask students to look out for
further examples. You may have noticed some examples of the target structures in texts they have
read previously, or in future texts; collect these for later and then set an analysis activity on them.
You may discover that your textbook offers a rather limited range of texts, or very little in the way of
natural language. In that case, you will need to introduce a greater variety of styles, text types and
language by bringing in extra texts and recordings (see Chapters 5, 6 and 7 for guidelines).
Decisions about selecting texts and specifying language to supplement the textbook take us into
the realm of syllabus design, a far wider issue, and one which is, sadly, beyond the scope of this
book.
Summary
In conclusion, here is a list of the main advantages of adopting TBL.
• A task-based framework for language learning aims at stimulating language use and providing a
range of learning opportunities for students of all levels and abilities.
• The role of tasks is to encourage learners to activate and use whatever language they already
have, both for comprehension and for speaking and writing.
• The role of the task-planning-report cycle is to stimulate a natural desire in the learner to improve
upon that language.
• Tasks based on texts and recordings of spoken language provide learners with a rich exposure to
spoken and written language in use. This provides an environment which aids natural acquisition.
• The language focus component enables learners to examine that exposure, and systematize
their knowledge of language structure.
• The texts and recordings used in task cycles form a pedagogic corpus of data for use in class.
This provides a clear and familiar context for the teaching of grammar and other language
features.
Adopting TBL is not a question of acquiring new teaching techniques - most of those necessary are
already practised on teacher training courses. Neither is it a question of tacking TBL onto what is
done already ('I already do tasks in my classes').
TBL is more a matter of perceptive and sensitive management of the learning
environment. It involves examining existing beliefs and trying to look at learning and teaching in a
realistic light. It entails coming to terms with the principles that underpin the components in a TBL
framework and using them to create the right conditions for language learning. This in turn entails
seeing the lesson outline as a framework which accommodates sustained learner activity.
In fact, for the teacher who has just introduced and set up a task-based cycle for the first time, the
biggest challenge of all is possessing the strength of mind to stand back with confidence, and to let
learners get on with their own learning.
