The French Digital Kitchen: Implementing Task-Based Language Teaching Beyond the Classroom

Background: Task-Based Language Teaching

The pedagogical design of the French Digital Kitchen employs Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), a well-established approach to language learning which prompts learners to achieve a goal or complete a task (Skehan, 1998; 2003). Much like real-world tasks, such as asking for directions, TBLT seeks to develop students’ language through providing a task and then using language to solve it. Some of the main features of TBLT are that: meaning is primary (language use rather than form); there is some communication problem to solve; a classroom task relates directly to real world activities; the assessment is done in terms of outcomes (Ellis, 2003). Willis (1996, p. 1) defines the aims of tasks as “to create a real purpose for language use and to provide a natural context for language study”. It is generally assumed (Ellis, 2003, p. 263) that tasks are carried out in pairs or small groups in order to maximise interaction and autonomy. There has been a substantial programme of research in relation to TBLT, summarised in Skehan (2003). Ellis (2003, p. 320) suggests that “there is a clear psycholinguistic rationale (and substantial empirical support) for choosing ‘task’ as the basis for language pedagogy.” Skehan (1998, p. 95) suggests that transacting tasks “…will engage naturalistic acquisitional mechanisms, cause the underlying interlanguage to be stretched, and drive development forward”.