Training

TBL
Grammar Lessons
Overview - What is TBL?
Task-based learning (TBL) or task-based language teaching (TBLT) is a framework for
organising a language class based around the completion of real-life,
communicative tasks that have a clear goal or outcome.

TBL vs PPP
To define it more clearly, it might be better to compare it with other, more traditional
methodologies or approaches. The methodology which most English coursebooks are
based on is the Present, Practice, Produce (PPP) approach. The approach is most
typically associated with teaching grammar via a "grammar structure of the day"
system; "today we are learning the past simple, tomorrow we'll do the past
continuous, etc." The PPP model is made up of three stages:

Presentation Practice Production

1. Presentation Stage:
The teacher presents language to the students.
a) This may be done via a range of methods, such as by writing sentences on the board
or via a reading or listening text.
Example: 3 sentences on the board:

1) I went to the beach on Saturday. 2) I didn't go to the park. 3) Did you go to the beach this weekend?

b) Teacher presents the meaning, form and pronunciation of the target structure.

2. Practice Stage:
Students practise using the structure in a controlled way, typically through written gap-fill exercises:
a) Example: Coursebook exercise:
1) She ______ (eat) too much at the barbecue.
2) They ______ (no drink) enough water while they were at the beach.
3) ______ (you have) a good weekend?

3. Production Stage:
Students practise using the structure with more freedom and opportunity for personalisation:
a) Example: Write 6 questions in the past simple and then ask them to your partner.
Drawbacks of PPP
On the face of it, the PPP model seems logical; students are introduced to new
language and slowly work their way up to using it independently, like a child learning
to ride a bike with stabilisers/training wheels. However, there is little evidence to
suggest that it is an effective way of acquiring new language.

Lack of Flexibility:
The PPP methodology is highly structured and lacks flexibility
to adapt to individual learner needs or interests.

Relevance to Real-life Contexts:

The PPP approach may not effectively prepare students for
real-life language use, as the Production phase often involves
contrived situations rather than realistic scenarios.

Lack of Learner Autonomy:

PPP often puts the teacher in the driving seat, which might
limit learner autonomy and discourage independent learning.

Overemphasis on Accuracy:
The PPP approach can put undue emphasis on accuracy over
fluency, potentially hindering learners' ability to communicate
in English effectively.

Repetitiveness:
The structure of the PPP method can become predictable and
repetitive, which might cause students to lose interest over time.

Neglect of Higher-Order Cognitive Skills:

PPP can limit the development of higher-order cognitive skills such
as critical thinking, problem-solving, and analysis, because it often
emphasises rote memorization and repetition.
How TBL is different
A Task-based Syllabus
In the PPP approach the syllabus or content of the classes is based on a list of
different grammar structures students are expected to learn. However, a task-based
syllabus is based on a series of communicative tasks that mirror real-life
interactions. For example, students might complete the end of school trip task listed
below in one class and a different task in another class.

Focus & Objectives

While a PPP class will focus on ensuring the
correct use of the grammar structure of the

!
day, a TBL class will instead concentrate solely
on the completion of the task. During the
various feedback stages of the class the
teacher will encourage students to reflect on
their performance of the task and help them to
improve. Students see the immediate relevance
of the language the teacher is introducing.

What is a task?
A TBL task should:
Require interaction
Have a clearly defined goal or objective
Impose no limitations/guidelines on the language
(grammar, vocab, etc,) that must be used.

Here is an example task:

You are a member of the planning committee for your university social club. You have
been asked to plan a mini-break to a European city to celebrate the end of the
academic year in June. The trip must:

be educational and culturally stimulating

provide an opportunity to celebrate the end of the year
be clearly priced and budgeted

Students would then work together to plan the trip by communicating in English. Note
that in their initial attempt at completing the task, they are given no guidelines about
the language structures they should use.
Topic: Travel
· Ordering, Sorting, and Classifying: Put pictures of different travel destinations in
order from the most desired to the least desired destination. Sort travel
destinations from the northern to the southern hemisphere. Classify destinations by
languages people speak.
· Comparing or Matching: Compare different countries. Match people to their
country of origin.
· Problem Solving: Plan a day trip for your class on a very tight budget.
· Creative Task: Create a travel poster or find out about different countries and
become an expert on a country that you would like to travel to in the future.
· Share Personal Experiences: Share stories about a past travel experience that
brings back good memories.

Spontaneous Teaching and Spontaneous

Exposure and planned use restricted use and planned use

· Introduction · The task · Analysis · Repetition

· Instructions · Planning · Presentation · Repeated task

· Demonstration · Doing · Practice · Development

· Pre-task · Reporting · Language focus

activities

In the diagram you will see a typical procedure for a TBL class. The different phases are as follows:

Pre-task Phase
Teacher introduces the task and its context, gives instructions and possibly a short
demonstration.

Task Phase
Students attempt to complete the task spontaneously using whatever language
resources they have at their disposal. In some cases students may do a small amount
of planning before attempting the task. They then report back to the teacher and
their classmates on how the task went and any decisions they made.

Language Focus Phase

Based on their observations during the task phase, the teacher suggests language
the students could use to improve their completion of the task. This could include a
"model answer" of high-level English speakers completing the task. The teacher then
guides the students to notice useful language used in the model answer that they
can replicate in their own attempts. Students can immediately see the usefulness
and relevance of the language presented because it is directly related to the task
they just completed.
Repetition Phase
Students are presented with a new task that is similar to the initial task so that they
can put the teacher's language suggestions into practice immediately. The teacher
may then have students reflect on and compare their performance in the two tasks.
This can be extremely motivating for students as they can immediately see how their
performance has improved over the course of one class.

Needs Analysis
In order to be most effective and relevant to students, the tasks that make up a TBL
course should be based on a thorough analysis of the students' needs. When
implementing TBL for in-company classes in a specific business, those responsible
for creating the course content might interview the workers or even observe them
as they go about their daily routines in order to identify what they need to be able to
do in English. For example, they may observe workers handling customer complaints
on the phone and then design a series of tasks that mirror these customer service
interactions in order to provide students with relevant, practical practice.

Evidence suggests that because students see the immediate relevance and
usefulness of the class content in a TBL course based on an analysis of their needs,
they are more likely to acquire the language studied/practised when compared with
studying a one-size-fits-all grammar PPP syllabus.

Twenix TBL
Grammar Classes
Twenix is about to launch a series of micro courses that follow the TBL procedure
designed to help students develop their speaking skills by practising some
high-frequency grammar structures. For example, one class focuses on improving
students' ability to tell anecdotes by focusing on past narrative tenses (past simple,
past continuous and past perfect). While each class does have a clear grammatical
focus, it's important to remind students of the real-life application of the
language; we're not learning past tenses, we're practising telling anecdotes.

Class Procedure
Each class follows a shortened version of the task cycle mentioned above. We will
use the anecdotes class as an example

Part 1 - Mini-task/Initial Attempt

The teacher asks the student a simple question in order to get an idea of how well
they currently use the target language. For example, in the anecdotes class the
teacher might ask: "What did you do last summer?"
Before the student answers the question do not mention or specify any language
structures you want them to use. The aim here is to get an idea of how well the
student uses past tenses spontaneously.

While the student is talking, the teacher makes notes on how well the student
performed the task and the errors they made. It's important that you use this initial
attempt as a way of diagnosing which areas of the target language the student
struggles with. That way your feedback and support later in the class will be better
targeted and more relevant.

Part 2 - Feedback #1
The teacher provides some feedback to the student on their performance paying
special attention to their use of the past tenses to tell their anecdote. Offer a mix of
praise/positive reinforcement and constructive error correction.

Expected Problems/Errors
Each lesson contains possible errors that we expect learners of this level to make.
These are based on the typical issues that Spanish and Italian speakers tend to
make. For example, when using past tenses students might make the following
mistakes:

· Student applies -ed ending to all verbs including irregular verbs 'goed'
'seed' 'sawed'
· Pronunciation problems with 3 -ed sounds /t/ /d/ /Id/
· Students can't form a negative in the past simple 'no went to school yesterday' or
‘no saw the TV last night'

Listen carefully to the student and see if they do make these mistakes.

Part 3 - Main Task

The teacher presents a model answer of the anecdote task to the student. The
teacher will read the text to the student at a natural pace with natural intonation
and pronunciation. The student can follow along as they will have access to the text
in the "content" box on the platform. Here is an example model answer:

Last year I went on a trip to Paris and it was a nightmare. First of all, while I was
taking the bus to the airport I got a notification from Ryanair saying that my flight
was delayed by 4 hours! So I had to wait in the airport. I got some food and had a
beer at the bar. It was about 10 o'clock at night and I still had to wait 2 more hours, so
I sat down to read my book. While I was reading I fell asleep! I woke up 2 hours later
when I heard the last call for my flight. I ran to the gate as fast as I could and got
there just in time, it was really stressful.
I arrived in Paris 2 hours later and got off the plane. While I was waiting for the
metro, a man came up to me and asked me something in French, but I didn't
understand him. Then, when I got to the hotel, I realised that my wallet was missing.
I think the man stole it while he was talking to me. I didn't have any money, credit
cards or ID! What a nightmare!

The teacher then clears up any doubts that the student might have about the model
answer and encourages the student to attempt to tell their own anecdote. While
they are speaking, take notes and also offer on the spot corrections and
reformulations of their output.

Part 4 - Feedback #2
The teacher provides further on the student's performance in the main task, be sure
to provide plenty of positive reinforcement for correct usage of the target
language.

Part 5 - Repetition
The teacher then asks the student to either repeat the same anecdote, taking on
board the feedback, or tell a new one about another topic:

Topics:
· a travel nightmare
· a great holiday
· a time you met a celebrity
· a funny thing that happened to you
· a time you had a funny/not serious accident
· the first time you met a good friend

Principles of Teaching Grammar

When teaching grammar, it's important to bear several things in mind.

Meaning, Form, Pronunciation (The Holy Trinity)

When learning new grammar structures, it is important that students take away
three things:

Meaning
What the structure is used to express. For example:
· Past simple - "I walked along the beach." - expresses past completed actions and
events
· Past continuous - "I was walking along the beach." - expresses unfinished past
actions or actions in progress at a specific past time.
· Past perfect - "I had walked along that beach many times, but I still enjoyed it." -
expresses past actions or events that happened before another time in the past.
Form
How to construct sentences using the structure. For example:
· Past simple - "I walked along the beach." - subject (I) + verb in past (walked)
· Past continuous - "I was walking along the beach." - subject (I) + was/were +
present participle (walking)
· Past perfect - "I had walked along that beach many times, but I still enjoyed it." -
subject (I) + had + past participle (walked)

Pronunciation
How to pronounce the target structure. For example:
· Past simple - "I walked along the beach." - walked - the -ed ending here is a /t/
sound because "walk" ends in a voiceless /k/ sound
· Past continuous - "I was walking along the beach." - was walking - "was" here is
unstressed so it would be pronounced in its weak form /wəz/
· Past perfect - "I had walked along that beach many times, but I still enjoyed it." - I
had walked - "I had" here might be contracted to "I'd"

These three features are vital to the proper acquisition of the target structure. While
we don't expect you to present them to the student, bear them in mind when
listening to your students and preparing to give them feedback. They will help you
identify the types of errors students make.

Grammar Cheat Sheets

If you are a less experienced teacher, and the idea of having to teach grammar
makes you nervous, don't worry. Each lesson comes with a grammar cheat sheet
which gives a short explanation and examples of each structure.

Reactive Teaching
One of the most effective ways of helping a student develop their speaking skills is
through reactive teaching, that is in response to the errors that they make or by
providing them with a word, expression or grammatical structure at the moment they
need it. Imagine your student is doing their best to tell you all about their amazing
horse riding experience in the Alps, but they're struggling to find the right words to
describe the experience. If you are able to provide them with the language they need
in the moment they're trying to express something that has great personal
importance to them, they will be far more likely to remember and acquire that
language than if they'd studied it out of context in a vocabulary list or gap-fill
exercise.
Student Expectations
As mentioned previously, the PPP model is the most commonly used framework for
grammar teaching. As a result, students may have a fixed idea of what a grammar
lesson should look like and will most likely be unfamiliar with a TBL class. While it's
doubtful that students will complain about following a TBL structure, if they do have
reservations, just reassure them that the aim of the class is to apply the grammar to
real-life communication. Hopefully, by seeing the improvements they can make based
on your feedback, they'll soon be won over to the TBL cause!

Let's Keep it Twenix

Although the lessons are based around specific grammar points, it's important that
they still feel like Twenix classes. As ever, the aim should be to get students talking as
much as possible, making mistakes and learning from them. The communicative aim
of the lesson "telling anecdotes" should take centre stage, the grammar is just a
supporting player.

Course Materials
If you would like to familiarise yourself with the TBL grammar micro courses, you can
access them via this link.