In this short paper, I would like to set out some basic principles of task-based language teaching in the Asia context. In 1976, the British applied linguist David Wilkins suggested a basic distinction between what he called 'synthetic approaches' to syllabus design and 'analytical' approaches. All syllabuses, he suggested, fitted one or other of these approaches.

In 'synthetic' approaches,

Such approaches represent the 'traditional' way of organizing the syllabus, and reflect the common-sense belief that the central role of instruction is to simplify the learning challenge for the student. One way to simplify learning is to break the content down into its constituent parts, and introduce each part separately and step-by-step. A related concept that was popular in the 1960s was that of mastery learning. Having broken the subject matter down and sequenced it from easy to difficult, each item of content was introduced to the learner in a serial fashion, and a new item was not supposed to be introduced until the current item had been thoroughly mastered (thus the label 'mastery learning').

The dominant approach to language teaching in Asia (and, indeed, most of the rest of the world), has been, and remains, a synthetic one. Teachers who have learned their own languages through a synthetic approach, and see this as the normal and logical way of learning language.

In his book Notional Syllabuses, however, Wilkins offered an alternative to synthetic approaches. These are known as 'analytical' approaches because the learner is presented with holistic 'chunks' of language and is required to analyze them, or break them down into their constituent parts.

All syllabus proposals that do not depend on a prior analysis of the language belong to this second category. In addition to task-based syllabuses, we have project-based, content-based, thematic, and text-based syllabuses. Despite their differences, they all have one thing in common - they do not rely on prior analysis of the language into its discrete points. Task-based language teaching, then, grew out of this alternative approach to language pedagogy.

Since then, the concept of 'task' has become an important element in syllabus design, classroom teaching and learner assessment, although teachers brought up in tradition methods still struggle with the concept. It underpins several significant research agendas, and it has influenced educational policy-making in both ESL and EFL settings.

Pedagogically, task-based language teaching has strengthened the following principles and practices.

Task have been defined in various ways. Nunan (2004) draws a basic distinction between real-world or target tasks, and pedagogical tasks. Target tasks, as the name implies, refer to uses of language in the world beyond the classroom. Pedagogical tasks are those that occur in the classroom.

Long (1985 p. 89) frames his approach to task-based language teaching in terms of target tasks, arguing that a task is

The first thing to notice about this definition is that it is non-technical and non-linguistic. It describes the sorts of things that the person-in-the-street would say if asked what they were doing. (In the same way as learners, if asked why they are attending a Spanish course, are more likely to say, "So I can make hotel reservations and buy food when I'm in Mexico", than "So I can master the subjunctive.") Related to this is the notion that in contrast with most classroom language exercises, tasks have a non-linguistic outcome. Non-linguistic outcomes from Long's list above might include a painted fence, possession, however temporary, of a book, a driver's licence, a room in a hotel etc. Another thing to notice is that some of the examples provided may not involve language use at all (it is possible to paint a fence without talking). Finally, individual tasks may be part of a larger sequence of tasks, for example, the task of weighing a patient may be a sub-component of the task 'giving a medical examination'.

When they are transformed from the real world to the classroom, tasks become pedagogical in nature. Here is a definition of a pedagogical task.

In this definition, we can see that the authors take a pedagogical perspective. Tasks are defined in terms of what the learners will do in class rather than in the world outside the classroom. They also emphasize the importance of having a non-language outcome.

Here is another definition of a pedagogical task.

This definition is very broad, implying as it does, that just about anything the learner does in the classroom qualifies as a task. It could, in fact, be used to justify any procedure at all as 'task-based', and, as such, is not particularly helpful. More circumscribed is the following from Willis (1996), cited in Willis and Willis (2001). A classroom undertaking "…where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose (goal) in order to achieve an outcome". Here the notion of meaning is subsumed in 'outcome'. Language in a communicative task is seen as bringing about an outcome through the exchange of meanings. (p. 173).

Skehan (1998), drawing on a number of other writers, puts forward five key characteristics of a task.

(See, also, Bygate, Skehan and Swain 2001, who argue that the way we define a task will depend to a certain extent on the purposes to which task are used.)

Finally, in a recent book that looks at 'task' more from a language acquisition perspective than a pedagogical one (although it does also deal with aspects of pedagogy), Ellis (2003 p. 16) defines task in the following way:

My own definition is that a task is a piece of classroom work that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is focused on mobilizing their grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning, and in which the intention is to convey meaning rather than to manipulate form. The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone as a communicative act in its own right with a beginning, a middle and an end.

While these definitions vary somewhat, they all emphasize the fact that tasks involve communicative language use in which the user's attention is focused on meaning rather than grammatical form. This does not mean that form is not important. My own definition refers to the deployment of grammatical knowledge to express meaning, highlighting the fact that meaning and form are highly interrelated, and that grammar exists to enable the language user to express different communicative meanings. However, as Willis and Willis (2001) point out, tasks differ from grammatical exercises in that learners are free to use a range of language structures to achieve task outcomes - the forms are not specified in advance.