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instruction takes a fairly strong view of communicative language teaching. Skehan 1996b, as cited in Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 224
It is clearly stated that in Task-Based Instructions learners need to participate in communicative tasks in English. It is important for the learners to have the
communicative purpose which indicates that they use the language by means to achieve an objective. Generally, basic pair-work and group work are often used to
increase the students’ interaction and collaboration. There are several characteristics of a task stated by Jack J. Richards 2005, 33-
34. First, task is something that learners do or carry out using their existing language resources. The second is that when the learners are carrying out the task,
the learning acquisition may occur. Furthermore, the task in Task-Based Instructions involves a focus on meaning, and it involves two or more learners to realize the
communication strategies and interactional skills. Based on the characteristics of tasks from the Task-Based Instructions point of
view, there are two kinds of tasks in Task-Based Instructions; they are pedagogical tasks and real-world tasks. Pedagogical tasks are usually designed for the classroom
which requires the use of specific interactional strategies and the use of specific types of language skills, grammar, and vocabulary. The task would normally appear in
the real world. In Task-Based Instructions, the activities used are those that increase the
learners’ activities, not the teachers’. The teachers themselves need to produce and supply different tasks which help the learners to experience the target language
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spontaneously, individually and originally Willis, 1996: 25. It is expected that the learners would obtain new experience with the target language through the tasks
given which is indicated by some errors during the communication practices.
a. Varieties of Tasks
Many of the activities in CLT could be described as tasks according to the understanding of the characteristic of the task itself. There are six types of tasks
proposed by Willis 1996: 26-27: 1 Listing
Listing tasks tend to generate a lot of talk as learners explain their ideas. It involves two stages, namely brainstorming and fact-finding. In brainstorming, the
learners would employ their experiences and knowledge either in class or in grouppairs. Whereas in fact-finding the learners are required to find out things by
asking each other or other people and referring to books and many others. 2 Ordering and Sorting
These tasks involve four main processes. First, the students are to sequencing items, actions or events in a logical or chronological order. The second process is
ranking the items in groups, and in the third process the learners have to classifying the items in different ways, in which the categories are not given.
3 Comparing This task involves comparing information of similar nature but from different
sources or versions in order to identify common points andor differences. The processes involved in this task are matching to identify specific points and relate
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them to each other, finding similarities and things in common, and also finding the differences.
4 Problem solving This task involves people’s reasoning power and intellectual and though
challenging they are engaging and often satisfying to solve. The process would depend on the type and complexity of the problem.
5 Sharing personal experiences These tasks encourage learners to talk more freely about themselves and share
their experiences with others. This task is not goal-oriented as in other task, and it may be difficult to be carried out in the classroom.
6 Creative tasks These tasks tend to have more stages than other tasks, and could involve
combinations of task types. The learners could be more creative using the target language they learn.
These kinds of tasks involve different cognitive process and support the activities developed in the design. Some of the tasks would be combined and applied
since they are appropriate for the needs in this study, and they could support the learners to have their listening activities in the classroom.
b. Learner’s Roles in Task-Based Instructions
According to Richards and Rodgers 2001:235, there are several numbers of specific roles for learners.
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1 Group participant It is very common for the learners to do the task in small groups or in pairs. The
learners are expected to be accustomed to participating in small group or in pairs, instead of to the whole-class andor individual work.
2 Monitor Since the purpose of the tasks given is to facilitating the learners, they have the
opportunity to notice how language is used in communication which requires the learners not only to attend the message in task work but also to the form in which the
message may emerge. 3 Risk-taker and innovator
In Task-Based Instructions, the learners would have more practice in restating, paraphrasing, using paralinguistic signals. They need to develop their skills of
guessing from linguistic and contextual clues, asking for clarification, and consulting with other learners.
c. Teacher Roles in Task-Based Instructions
There are some additional roles for the teachers in Task-Based Instructions proposed by Richards and Rodgers. First, teacher as selector and sequencer of the
task. must form the tasks into an instructional sequence in keeping with the learner needs, interests, and language skill level. Whereas selecting, adapting, andor
creating the task themselves are the central roles. Secondly, a teacher must prepare learners for the task. These activities include topic introduction, clarifying task
instructions, helping students learn or recall useful words and phrases to facilitate PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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task accomplishment, and providing partial demonstration of task procedures. The last, teacher as a consciousness-raising is where the teacher here must help the
students to employ a variety of form-focusing techniques, including attention- focusing pre-task activities, text exploration, guided exposure to parallel tasks, and
use of highlighted materials.
d. The Components of Task-Based Instructions
Willis 1996: 38 stated that the learning process in Task-Based Instructions consists of three phases: pre-task, task cycle, and language focus.
1 Pre-task In this stage, the teacher should introduce the topic and the tasks to the
students which are conducted through the brainstorming ideas, pictures, mime or personal experience to introduce the topic. It is important that the teacher should
create attention and give the learners chance to prepare to do task on the topic given. This step means to ensure that the learners understand about the task, goal, and the
result. Therefore, the clear explanation and detail instructions must be given. 2 Task-cycle
a Task In this phase, the students are allowed to carry out the activities and task in pairs
or in small group. The main focus of the task is to get on meaning or content rather than on the form of the target language. The emphasis is on spontaneous, explanatory
talk and confidence building. Thus, it is necessary for the teacher to help the students formulate what they want to say without intervening to correct their error of form.
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b Planning Planning is the essential part of task cycle because it prepares the next stage
where the students are asked to report how they did the task and what the outcome was. I this part, the teacher may correct the errors that the students made and give the
suggestion to improve their language. c Report
This part could be categorized as the conclusion of the task cycle stage. Learners are to report, compare findings or begin to survey what they have done in groups,
whole class or in pairs. 3 Language focus
This last stage of the Task-Based Instructional learning process continues the repot phase and provides an opportunity for explicit language instructions. The
purpose is to highlight the specific language features from the materials used earlier in the task cycle. The focus is on the learners to the forms of the target language after
processing the meaning. This stage consists of two steps namely analysis and practice activities. The aim
of the analysis activities is to get the students to identify particular features of language form and language use in their own time. On the other hand, practice
activities could be naturally combined with analysis work and are useful for consolidation and modification. After identifying the language for and use, the
learners have to practice it through some exercises like repetition, memory challenge, and dictionary exercise.
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Figure 3: The Components of Task-Based Instructions Willis, 1996: 114
6. Listening
a. The Nature of the Listening Process
Nida 1982, as cited by Wijayasuriya and Gaudart, 1992: 63 in an article entitled “Learning by Listening” says, “Learning to speak a language is very largely a task of
learning to hear it.” However, hearing is only the first part of listening. The activities in listening involve high concentration. It is not only about hearing but also
concentrating on what we listen and know how to respond it. As Rost in Teaching and Researching Listening 1994: 141-142 points out that listening is vital in the
language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understanding
Task cycle
Several sets of tasks followed by the teacher walks through of tasks
Planning Report
Presentation
Pre-task
Introduction to subject and task
Language focus
Selecting, identifying and classifying common
words and phrases
Practice of language and phrases in classroom
Building personal dictionaries
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input at the right level, any learning simply could not begin. In other words, listening becomes the basic skill in learning foreign language since it is usually used in other
skills: reading, writing, and speaking. Moreover, Rost 2001: 11 states that making listening materials needs a good
understanding of effective teaching that includes careful selection of sources, creative listening materials design, continuous assistance, and integration of listening with
other skills. In teaching listening those aspects are the most important key to hold to create purposeful class activities. Basically, the problem is that many students could
hear but have not learned how to listen and process the information well. According to Nunan, the top-down view suggests that the listener actively
constructs or more accurately, reconstructs the original meaning of the speaker using incoming sounds as clues 2002: 239. It means that we know certain things
about certain topics and situations and use that information to understand. On the other hands, bottom-up processing model assumes that listening is a process of
decoding the sounds that one hears in linear fashion, form the smallest meaningful units phonemes to complete texts 2002: 239. We could say that this model uses
the information we have about sounds, word meanings, and discourse markers like first, then and after that to gather our understanding of what we read or hear one step
at time. Listening requires both bottom-up and top-down processing to comprehend the
