In addition, regarding the earliest curricular applications of Task-based Language Teaching, Nunan 2010 proposes three
„principal task types‟ which can be used on the work of TBɝT. a.
Information-gap activity, which involves a transfer of given information from one person to another
– or from one form to another, or from one place to another-
generally calling for the decoding or encoding of information form or into language.
b. Reasoning-gap activity, which involves deriving some new
information from given information through processes of inference, deduction, practical reasoning, or a perception of
relationships or patterns.
c. Opinion-gap activity, which involves identifying and
articulating a personal preference, feeling, or attitude in response to a given situation.
c. Task Components
Task consists of several elements which highly need to be integrated within materials. Nunan 2010 points several components
that make up the existence of tasks. They are tasks goals, input data, and learner procedures. These three components are supported by
teacher and learner roles and the settings in which tasks are gathered. Rehearsal
Tasks Activation
Tasks Enabling skills
Language exercises
Communicative activities
Pedagogical tasks Real-world target tasks
Figure 2. 3: The Framework of TBLT Nunan, 2004
This minimum model of task elements can be drawn by a diagram as follow:
Goals
TASK
Teacher role Input
Learner role Procedures
Settings
Figure 2. 4: Task Component Nunan, 2010
a. Goals
Nunan states that goals of tasks are general intention behind any learning task. They provide a path between the task and
broader curriculum Nunan, 2010. b.
Input Input concerns with the spoken, written, and visual data that
students work with in the course in order to complete the task. The data input can be provided by a teacher, a textbook, or
other sources Nunan, 2010. Brown and Menasche 1992 state that the data input can be in the continuum from
genuinely authentic to non-authentic in Nunan, 2004. c.
Procedure Procedure indicates what learners will actually do with the
input that forms the point of departure for the learning task.
d. Teacher and learner roles
Role refers to the part that learners and teachers are expected to gather in carrying out learning tasks as well as the social and
interpersonal relationship between learners Nunan, 2010. e.
Setting It refers to the classroom arrangements which is specified or
implied in the task. It includes the consideration of whether the task should be carried out wholly or partly outside the
classroom Nunan, 2010.
d. Task Continuity
Tasks which are organized in any textbooks or materials should be sequenced in well chained and dependent among other tasks.
According to Nunan 2010, the terms „continuity‟, „dependency‟, and „chaining‟ refer to the same thing, that is, the interdependence of tasks,
task components, and supporting enabling skills within instructional sequence. Therefore, in order to gain the learning goal, the tasks
within the material should be well structured or well sequenced. The task continuity can be fulfilled by a number of procedures.
Nunan 2010 proposes the „psycholinguistic processing‟ approach that can be used to sequence the tasks according the cognitive and
performance demands which are based on the learning pathway. The psycholinguistic processing involves a set of steps in
instructional sequences. The sequences require learners to take several
activities which become gradually demanding, moving from comprehension-based procedures to controlled production activities
and exercises, and finally to ones requiring authentic communicative interaction. Below ten-steps are the procedure that promotes the
illustration of task continuity or task chaining. In the ten-step sequence, the demands on the learner gradually increase, both within
the each phase, and from one phase to next one Nunan, 2010.
Table 2. 4: Psycholinguistics Processing Approach for Task Continuity
Nunan, 2010
Phases Steps within phase
a. Processing
comprehension 1.
Read or study a text – no other response required.
2. Read or listen to a text and give a non-verbal,
physical response e.g. learner raises hand every time key words are heard.
3. Read or listen to a text and give a non-
physical, non-verbal response e.g. check-off a box or grid every time key words are heard.
4. Read or listen to a text and give a verbal
response e.g. write down key words every time they are heard.
b. Productive
5. Listen to cue utterances or dialogue fragments
and repeat them, or repeat a complete version of the cue.
6. Listen to a cue and complete a substitution or
transformation drill. 7.
Listen to a cue e.g. a question and give a meaningful response i.e. one that is true for
the learner. c.
Interactive 8.
Role play e.g. having listened to a conversation in which people talk about their
family, students, working from role cards, circulate and find other members of their
family.
9. Simulationdiscussion e.g. students in small
groups share information about their own families.
10. Problem-solving information gap e.g. in an
information gap task, students are split into three groups; each group listens to an
incomplete description of a family; students recombine and have to complete a family three,
identify which picture from a number of alternatives represent the family.
e. Principles of TBLT
