Rod Ellis - Using tasks in language teaching

Tasks play a key role in both online and face-to-face teaching. In the first part of my talk, I will define what a task is and illustrate how tasks differ from exercises. In the second part, I provide a classification of tasks with examples to illustrate different task characteristics, and also suggest which types of tasks are best suited to different groups of learners. The third part will then consider how tasks can be incorporated into language lessons in terms of task-supported and task-based language teaching, the rationale for these two ways of using tasks, and the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. The final part of the talk will then consider how teachers can tell if a task has worked. This involves defining what is meant by ‘worked’ and then evaluating whether a task has achieved what it was designed to achieve. The talk will conclude with an example of how a teacher can set about evaluating a task.

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