Task Based Learning y el Enfoque Léxico: Guía de Aprendizaje del Inglés

Task Based Learning (TBL)

*The task based learning approach, as the name says, focuses on learning language by making students pay attention to the task, using the language they need to develop rather than the language itself. Learners focus on meaning and they can use the language freely to achieve the task they were asked to do.
When students finish the tasks, the teacher draws attention to the language, making corrections, improvements and adjustments to the students’ performance.

According to Jane Willis, TBL has three stages to follow:

Stages of Task Based Learning

• Pre-task: the teacher presents the task he/she expects the learners to do, and also elicits or suggests some key words and grammatical constructs for the learners to use. The teacher can present an example of the task the students have to perform by presenting pictures, audio, etc.
• Task: students perform the task, which can be done in groups or individually depending on the activity. The teacher takes the role of monitor or counsellor.
• Language Focus: when learners have finished the task, they prepare a report to present to the class. The teacher asks questions and monitors the students. Then the teacher gives feedback to the students and analyses the language they use, the problems they had, and the forms that need to be covered. In the practice stage, the material mentioned before can be used, and the teacher can emphasize key language.

What is the Lexical Approach?

The lexical approach has emerged since 1993, when the term was coined by Lewis (1993). Lewis posits his ideas that vocabulary should be the most important aspect in teaching English, stating that “language is grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar” (Lewis, 1993, p. 95).

The principle of the lexical approach is to “allow learners to experience language items in natural contexts and to learn from their experience”. The approach relies crucially on the concept of the learners’ corpus (Willis, 1994, p. viii). It focuses on “developing learners’ proficiency with words and word combinations”. It is based on the idea that an important part of language acquisition is the ability to produce lexical phrases as chunks, and that these chunks become the raw data by which learners perceive patterns of language traditionally thought of as grammar (Lewis, 1993, p. 95).

Key Takeaways

In sum, the lexical approach gives more importance to vocabulary than grammar. One way to apply the lexical approach in the classroom is to focus on collocations.