c. Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process.
The key assumptions of task-based instruction are as follows: a.
The focus is on process rather than products. b.
Basic elements are purposeful activities and tasks that emphasize communication and meaning.
c. Learners learn language by interacting communicatively and purposefully while
engages in the activities and tasks. d.
Activities and tasks can be either: those that learners might need to achieve in real life; those that have a pedagogical purpose specific to the classroom.
e. Activities and tasks of a task-based syllabus are sequenced according to difficulty.
f. The difficulty of a task depends on a range of factors including the previous
experience of the learner, the complexity of the task, the language required to undertake the task, and the degree of support available.
3. Participatory Approach
In some ways the participatory approach is similar to the content-based approach in that it begins with content that is meaningful to the students and any forms
that are worked upon emerge from that content. What is strikingly different through is the nature of the content. It is not the content of subject matter texts, but rather content
that is based on issues of concerns to the students. Larsen and Freeman, 2000: 150. The principles of the participatory approach are as follows:
a. What happens in the classroom should be connected with what happens outside that
has relevance to the students. The teacher listens for themes in what students say that will provide the content for future lesson.
b. The curriculum is not a predetermined product, but the result of an ongoing context-
specific problem-posing process. c.
Education is the most effective when it is experience-centered, when it relates to the students’ real needs.
d. When knowledge is jointly constructed, it becomes a tool to help students find voice
and by finding their voices, students can act in the world. Students learn to see themselves as social and political beings.
e. Focus on linguistic form occurs within a focus on content. Language skills are
taught in service of action for change, rather than in isolation. f.
Students can create their own materials, which, in turn, can become texts for other students.
g. A goal of the participatory approach is for students to be evaluating their own
learning and to increasingly direct it themselves.Larsen and Freeman, 2000: 153- 154
4. Cooperative Learning
Richards 2001: 192 states that Cooperative learning is an approach to teaching that makes maximum use of cooperative activities involving pairs and small
groups of learners in the classroom. Larsen and Freeman 2000: 164 explain cooperative or collaborative learning essentially involves students learning from each
their in groups. But it is not the group configuration that makes cooperative learning distinctive; it is the way that students and teachers work together. In cooperative
learning, teachers teach students learn how to learn more collaboratively or social skills so that they can work together more effectively. Indeed, cooperation is not only a way
of learning, but also a theme to be communicated about and studied. In second language teaching, Cooperative learning has been embraced as a way of promoting
communicative interaction in the classroom and is seen as an extension of the principles of communicative language teaching. It is viewed as learner-centered approach to
teaching held to offer advantages over teacher-centered classroom method. The goals of this approach in language teaching are:
a. to provide opportunities for naturalistic second language acquisition
through the use of interactive pair and group activities. b.
To provide teachers with a methodology to enable them to achieve this goal and one that can be applied in a variety of curriculum settings e.g.,
content-based, foreign language classroom, mainstreaming
c. To enable focused attention to particular lexical items, language
structures, and communicative functions through the use of interactive tasks
d. To provide opportunities for learners to develop successful learning and
communication strategies. e.
To enhance learner motivation and reduce learner stress and to create a positive effective classroom climate. Richards, 2001: 193
4. Constructivism
