N.B. As I was unable to attend the final session, this blog along with two others entitled The Finnish Miracle and The company words keep, replace the diario and dossier for Tema 7 & 8.
My second lesson plan attempts to use some of the principles of Task Based Learning. TBL is a branch of communicative language teaching and focuses on the students’ ability to carry out a task, thus fluency is more important than accuracy.
My second lesson plan attempts to use some of the principles of Task Based Learning. TBL is a branch of communicative language teaching and focuses on the students’ ability to carry out a task, thus fluency is more important than accuracy.
A typical task might
include, a visit to the doctor, a job interview or a phone call. Given the importance that the EU and
the CEFR gives to students being able to ‘do things’ this approach is becoming
very popular and can be useful in the classroom.
The approach was
popularised by N. S. Prabhu in India.
In his book “Second Language Pedagogy, (1987) he identified three types
of task in this approach: Information gap, Reasoning gap and Opinion gap.
Information gaps
involve the transfer of information from person to person. Students have the opportunity to
request information, ask for clarification and negotiate towards an
outcome. Examples might be,
completing a profile of something or someone, arrange a time to meet depending
on the timetables the students have.
In my lesson, students play “Who am I?” to guess the ‘occupations’ of
their classmates.
Reasoning gaps are
similar to information gaps but students have to analyse the information to use
reason or logic to come to a conclusion.
Students might have to for example, decide on the best hotel to stay in
on holiday depending on the price/characteritics of the options. In my lesson, students decide on the
best candidate for the jobs they created adverts for, based on performance in
the interviewee.
Opinion gaps involve
students expressing personal preference.
This could involve a debate or choosing a favourite from a list of
options. In my lesson, students
decide on the best/worst from a list of unusual jobs.
Hola!
ResponderEliminarAs a teacher with sound experience,what is, in your opinion, the best teaching method? Which ones have your tried as a student back in the UK?
Thank you!
Hi Elisabet! Thanks for your comment. From my point of view there's no one miracle method that is better than another. A lot depends on the target language, the needs of the learners and their style of learning.
EliminarThe Audio Lingual method has rather fallen out of favour but it can be quite effective in improving oral fluency quickly. Likewise, grammar translation is useful depending on your needs.
I tend to lean towards the communicative method because students need to learn how to communicate effectively in order to live, work and study in another country. That being said, I've also, for example, used Total Physical Response with teenagers to teach vocabulary about emotions and movement. As we say, 'variety is the spice of life' - it's always worth changing approach from time to time!