The post-methods appeared because nowadays, the Grammar-translation, the direct method, and the audiolingual method are no longer appropriate for learners in our context. I wonder if they were they appropriate at the time when they were born and applied. Possibly not but there had to be more investigation in second language acquisition to understand that for a higher percentage of success, learners should receive more input in order to produce output, and then being able to notice what language processes take place in a given context; and moreover, taking into account that motivation plays an important role when someone learns a language (or any other subject).
INPUT + OUTPUT + NOTICING + MOTIVATION
And then that is when the TBL shows up:
“A task is a workplan that requires learners to process language pragmatically in order to achieve an outcome that can be evaluated in terms of whether the correct or appropriate propositional content has been conveyed. To this end, it requires them to give primary attention to meaning and to make use of their own linguistic resources, although the design of the task may predispose them to choose particular forms. A task is intended to result in language use that bears a resemblance, direct or indirect, to the way language is used in the real world. Like other language activities, a task can engage productive or receptive, and oral or written skills, and also various cognitive processes.” Ellis, 2003: 16
So basically any communicative task has to focus on meaning over the form/formS, it has to present a kind of gap for learners to fill —it can be either informational, or favourable for reasoning or giving their opinion—, the linguistic resources have to be chosen by the participants, and the outcome has to be non-linguistic. And finally I would also add that if the aim of a task could combine language, culture and personal growth, it would be more engaging and motivating for learners with a more enriching result.
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