1. What is TBLT?

TBLT stands for Task-based language teaching; as the name suggests, it is an approach to language teaching which is based on the use of tasks to drive student second language acquisition forward. Central to TBLT is the classroom practice with students carrying out tasks designed by the teacher for learning and acquisition to take place.  

2. What is a task? 

Ellis (2003) defines performing a task as involving pragmatic processing of language, using the learners' existing language resources and attention to meaning, and resulting in the completion of an outcome that can be assessed for its communicative function; East (2021) summarised that task has a goal which requires processing input, creating output and interacting with others to meet it.

3. Why TBLT?

TBLT is so far the most authentic, pragmatic, and learner-centered second/foreign language teaching approach. It has its origins in communicative language teaching. To summarize many scholars' comments, in one word, it’s the only way so far that turns language learners into language users and TBLT classes are the only classes that students will really use the language the way they must do in the future. It focuses on the use of authentic language to complete meaningful tasks in the target language in real-life situations. Such tasks can include visiting a doctor, conducting an interview, or calling customer service for help. Assessment is primarily based on task outcome (the appropriate completion of real-world tasks) rather than on accuracy of prescribed language forms. This makes TBLT especially popular for developing target language fluency and student confidence.

From a pragmatic sense, it enables language learning to become down-to-the-earth authentic, and practical and effectively prepares students for real-world survival and jobs.

Although TBLT is mainly for language teaching, especially second or foreign language teaching, its basic principle and its fundamental goal can be taken as an overarching educational framework which is important for all subject teachers, that is, to teach knowledge in a way that’ll enable students to use it the way it is used in real life and that they know how to use the knowledge for their life (when/where/what to do/how to do it). Students come to school in order to learn for their future life so we should teach them for their future life, ideally in every bit of the teacher-student interaction, certainly including use of TBLT activties such as debates, presentations, writing in terms of various functional/practical purposes such as synthesizing, summarizing, paraphrasing, shortening, expanding, use of humor/simile/metaphor, etc.