Task-Based Language Teaching Components

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d. Task-Based Language Teaching Components

The components of Task-Based Language Teaching can be adapted to suit the students’ needs. According to Willis 1996, there are three components of Task-Based Language Teaching. The components are presented as follows. 1 Pre-task This phase is aimed to introduce the topic and the task. The importance of introducing the topic is to encourage the students’ confidence and give them something to fall back on. In this phase, while the teacher explores the topic and helps the students understand task instructions, the students note useful words and phrases and prepare the individual tasks. This phase can be shorter or longer depending on the students’ degree of familiarity with the topic and types of task. The activities in the pre-task phase can be classifying words and phrases, matching phrases to pictures, memory challenge, brainstorming and mind-maps, thinking of questions to ask, or teacher recounting a similar experience. 2 Task Cycle Task cycle offers an opportunity to the students to use whatever language they already know in order to finish the task and improve the language under the teacher guidance. Task cycle is divided into three steps: a Task In this step, the students do the tasks in pairs or groups. The teacher monitors and encourages them to do the tasks. The teacher should also stop the task when the tasks are finished and give comments briefly on the content. 21 b Planning This step requires the students to report how they do the tasks and what they decided or discovered. The teacher gives feedback, helps the students correct, rephrase, rehearse andor draft a written report. c Report In this step, the teacher selects some groups to present their reports orally or in writing. The teacher is like a chairperson that links the contribution, and sums it up. After that, the teacher gives necessary feedback on the content and the form. 3 Language Focus Language focus is aimed to underline the specific language features that the learners used in the task cycle. In this step the students will already have worked with the language and processed it on meaning, so they are ready to focus on the specific language forms that carry the meaning. This phase is divided into analysis and practice activities. In the analysis activity, the students examine and discuss specific features of the text or transcript of the recording. In the practice activity, the teacher conducts some practices of new words, phrases, and pattern occurring in the data, either during or after the analysis. The following part is the explanation of the listening theory. The listening theory is elaborated because it is the skill in which the students face the difficulties. 22

3. Listening Theory