TBL and PBL: Two learner-centred approaches

Many newly qualified or inexperienced teachers tend to base their lesson planning on
the traditional PPP approach (Presentation, Practice, Production) because it is reliable
and it is a valid framework around which to base a series of classroom activities.

It is also usually the best way of covering all the lexical areas and grammar points in the
course book or syllabus. All good and well. The problem is that PPP serves the
teacher’s needs but it is debatable whether or not it fulfills the needs of the learner.

The language presented and practiced does not take into account the particular needs
of each learner; the language content is almost always dictated by the coursebook
and/or syllabus. For this reason, many teachers, having experimented with the PPP
approach turn to more learner-centred approaches where the needs of the learner are
central to the lesson content. Two such approaches are TBL (Task-Based Learning)
and PBL (Project-Based Learning).

What is TBL?

In task-based learning, the central focus of the lesson is the task itself, not a grammar
point or a lexical area, and the objective is not to ‘learn the structure’ but to ‘complete
the task’. Of course, to complete the task successfully students have to use the right
language and communicate their ideas. The language, therefore becomes an
instrument of communication, whose purpose is to help complete the task successfully.
The students can use any language they need to reach their objective. Usually there is
no ‘correct answer’ for a task outcome. Students decide on their own way of completing
it, using the language they see fit.

Different teachers use TBL in different ways. Some integrate it into the existing syllabus,
some use it to replace the syllabus altogether, some use it as an ‘extra’ to their
traditional classroom activities. But generally, teachers using a TBL approach divide
their task-based classes into three stages:

Stage 1: The pre-task. The teacher introduces the topic and familiarizes students with
situations/lexical areas/texts (reading and listening)). This draws the students into the
topic and brings up language that may be useful. The teacher then explains what the
task is and sets up the activity.

Stage 2: Students perform the task in pairs or groups. They may then present their
findings/conclusions to the rest of the class. In this stage, mistakes are not important;
the teacher provides support and monitors. The learners focus on communication,
perhaps at the expense of accuracy, but this will be dealt with in the next stage.

Stage 3: The teacher works on specific language points which come up in stage 2.
(During the monitoring stage, most teachers make notes of common errors and
students’ particular learning needs). Students reflect on the language needed to
complete the task and how well they did. This is their opportunity to concentrate on
accuracy and make sure they resolve any doubts or problems they had.

Tasks can be as simple as putting a list of animals in order from fastest to slowest and
then trying to agree with a partner on the correct order. Or it could be something more
complicated like a survey to find out which parts of town your classmates live in and
how they get to school, ending in visual information presented in the form of pie charts
and maps. Or it could be something really complicated like a role-play involving a
meeting in the Town Hall of the different people affected by a new shopping centre
development and the consequent demolition of a youth centre and old people’s home.
Whatever the task, it should always have some kind of completion; and this completion
should be central to the class - the language resulting naturally from the task and not
the other way round.

The advantage of TBL over more traditional methods is that it allows students to focus
on real communication before doing any serious language analysis. It focuses on
students’ needs by putting them into authentic communicative situations and allowing
them to use all their language resources to deal with them. This draws the learners’
attention to what they know how to do, what they don’t know how to do, and what they
only half know. It makes learners aware of their needs and encourages them to take
(some of the) responsibility for their own learning. TBL is good for mixed ability classes;
a task can be completed successfully by a weaker or stronger student with more or less
accuracy in language production. The important thing is that both learners have had the
same communicative experience and are now aware of their own individual learning
needs.

Another advantage of this approach is that learners are exposed to a wide variety of
language and not just grammar. Collocations, lexical phrases and expressions, chunks
of language, things that often escape the constraints of the traditional syllabus come up
naturally in task-based lessons. But this can also be a disadvantage. One of the
criticisms of TBL is this randomness. It doesn’t often fit in with the course book/syllabus,
which tends to present language in neat packages. Some teachers (and learners) also
find the move away from an explicit language focus difficult and anarchistic. Many
teachers also agree that it is not the best method to use with beginners, since they
have very few language resources to draw on to be able to complete meaningful tasks
successfully.

What is Project-Based Learning (PBL)

The PBL approach takes learner-centredness to a higher level. It shares many aspects
with TBL, but if anything, it is even more ambitious. Whereas TBL makes a task the
central focus of a lesson, PBL often makes a task the focus of a whole term or
academic year.

Again, as with TBL, different teachers approach project work in different ways. Some
use it as the basis for a whole year’s work; others dedicate a certain amount of time
alongside the syllabus. Some use projects only on short courses or ‘intensives’. Others
try to get their schools to base their whole curriculums on it. But there are generally
considered to be four elements which are common to all project-based
activities/classes/courses:

1. A central topic from which all the activities derive and which drives the project
towards a final objective.

2. Access to means of investigation (the Internet has made this part of project work
much easier) to collect, analyse and use information.

3. Plenty of opportunities for sharing ideas, collaborating and communicating.

Interaction with other learners is fundamental to PBL.

4. A final product (often produced using new technologies available to us) in the form of
posters, presentations, reports, videos, webpages, blogs and so on.

The role of the teacher and the learner in the PBL approach is very similar to the TBL
approach. Learners are given freedom to go about solving problems or sharing
information in the way they see fit. The teacher’s role is monitor and facilitator, setting
up frameworks for communication, providing access to information and helping with
language where necessary, and giving students opportunities to produce a final product
or presentation. As with TBL, the teacher monitors interaction but doesn’t interrupt,
dealing with language problems at another moment.

The advantages and disadvantages of PBL are similar to those of TBL, but the obvious
attraction of project-based learning is the motivating element, especially for younger
learners. Projects bring real life into the classroom; instead of learning about how plants
grow (and all the language that goes with it), you actually grow the plant and see for
yourself. It brings facts to life. The American educational theorist John Dewey wrote
“education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself”. Project work allows ‘life
itself’ to form part of the classroom and provides hundreds of opportunities for learning.
Apart from the fun element, project work involves real life communicative situations,
(analyzing, deciding, editing, rejecting, organizing, delegating …) and often involves
multi- disciplinary skills which can be brought from other subjects. All in all, it promotes
a higher level of thinking than just learning vocabulary and structures.

Conclusion

Both TBL and PBL focus primarily on the achievement of realistic objectives, and then
on the language that is needed to achieve those objectives. They both treat language
as an instrument to complete a given objective rather than an isolated grammar point or
lexical set to learn and practise. They give plenty of opportunity for communication in
authentic contexts and give the learner freedom to use the linguistic resources he/she
has, and then reflect on what they learned or need to learn. Finally, as EFL teachers are
eclectic by nature, teachers often use a combination of TBL, PBL and traditional
techniques such as PPP. Some teachers use TBL and PBL as a small part of a more
conventional approach and many teachers on 100% TBL/PBL courses resort to PP type
activities when dealing with grammar or vocabulary problems. As always, the important
thing is to use what works best for you and your learners.