Content-based, Task-based and Participatory approaches

1
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• CLT giving students opportunities to practice
  using the communicative function of making
  predictions
• These 3 approaches
• giving priority to process over predetermined
  linguistic content
• Students use English to learn it, rather than
  learning to use English teaching through
  communication, rather than for it
• Difference their focus

2
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• Content-based instruction
• For years, specialised language courses have
  included content relevant to a particular
  profession or academic discipline, e.g., for
  airline pilots
• It integrates the learning of language with the
  learning of some other content, often academic
  subject matter academic subjects provide
  natural content for language instruction

3
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• In a second language environment, it offers the
  significant advantage that second language
  students do not have to postpone their academic
  study until their language reaches a high level
• Competency-based instruction an effective form
  of content-based instruction for adult immigrants
  offers an opportunity to develop their language
  skills and vital life-coping skills

4
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• The subject matter content is used for language
  teaching purposes
• Language is learnt most effectively when it is
  used as a medium to convey informational content
  of interest to the students
• When learners perceive the relevance of their
  language use, they are motivated to learn
• Vocabulary is easier to acquire when there are
  contextual clues to help convey meaning
• Communicative competence involves more than using
  language conversationally but also the ability to
  read, discuss and write about content from other
  fields

5
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• Learners work with meaningful, cognitively
  demanding language and content within the context
  of authentic material and tasks
• When they work with authentic subject matter,
  students need language support
• The teacher scaffolds the linguistic content,
  i.e., helps learners say what they want to say by
  building together with the students a complete
  utterance
• Teaching should build on students previous
  experience

6
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• Task-based instruction
• A task-based approach aims to provide learners
  with a natural context for language use
• As learners work to complete a task, they have
  abundant opportunity to interact
• Learning can be facilitated by the interaction in
  which learners work to correctly understand
  others and make themselves understood
• Learners will have opportunity to acquire
  language that beyond their current level and use
  them later

7
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• Prabhu (1987) identified 3 types of tasks an
  information-gap activity, an opinion-gap
  activity, and a reasoning-gap activity (p. 148)
• An information-gap activity involves the exchange
  of information among participants in order to
  complete a task
• An opinion-gap activity requires that students
  give their personal preferences, feelings, or
  attitudes in order to complete a task
• A reasoning-gap activity requires students to
  derive some new information by inferring it from
  information they have been given

8
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• Prabhu feels that reasoning-gap tasks work best
• Information-gap tasks often require a single step
  transfer of information, rather than sustained
  negotiation
• Opinion-gap tasks tend to be rather open-ended
• Reasoning-gap tasks encourage a more sustained
  engagement with meaning, though they are still
  characterized by a somewhat predictable use of
  language

9
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• Participatory approach
• In some ways the participatory approach is
  similar to the content approach -
• It begins with content that is meaningful to the
  students
• Any forms that are worked upon emerge from that
  content
• Difference the nature of the content
• It is not the content of subject matter texts,
  but rather content that is based on issues of
  concern to students

10
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• What happens in the classroom should be connected
  with what happens outside that has relevance to
  the students
• Education is most effective when it is
  experience-centred, when it relates to students
  real needs
• A goal of the participatory approach is for
  students to be evaluating their own learning to
  increasingly direct it themselves
• Students are motivated by their personal
  involvement
• Teachers are co-learners, asking questions of the
  students, who are the experts on their own lives

11
Content-based, Task-based and Participatory
approaches

• The curriculum is not a predetermined product,
  but the result of an ongoing context-specific
  problem-posing process
• Students can create their own materials, which,
  in turn, can become texts for other students
• Focus on linguistic form occurs within a focus on
  content
• Language skills are taught in service of action
  for change, rather than in isolation
• 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