Rod Ellis, New Zealand/University of Auckland

An Options-based Approach to Doing Task-based Language Teaching


Tasks are activities designed to achieve interactional authenticity in the classroom. In the option-based approach to the design of task-based lessons described in this chapter, options for each of three possible phases of a task-based lesson are outlined and illustrated. Options for the pre-task phase include both teacher-centred activities (e.g. modelling performance of the task and pre-teaching vocabulary and grammar) and learner-centred activities (i.e. providing students with opportunities to plan before they perform the task). Options for the during-task phase include deciding whether to allow the students to see the input materials when they perform the task and whether to set a time-limit for completing the task. Options for the post-task can also be teacher-centred (e.g. using consciousness-raising tasks to develop learners’ explicit knowledge of aspects of language shown to be problematic when they performed the task). Task-based teaching seeks to develop communicative fluency. Also, by inducing attention to form while learners are communicating, it can promote linguistic development. ‘Focus-on-form’ – a key aspect of task-based teaching – can occur in all the three phases of a lesson.


1.Introduction

Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) has attracted considerable attention from both researchers and teacher educators in the last decade as evident in the number of full-length books on this topic (e.g. Skehan 1998; Ellis 2003; Nunan 2004; van den Branden 2006, Willis/Willis 2007; Samuda/Bygate 2008). One point that emerges quite clearly in these books is that TBLT is not monolithic phenomenon but, in fact, varies with regard to both the underlying theoretical principles and instructional practices. Table 1 (from Ellis 2009) compares three TBLT approaches in terms of a number of key characteristics. All three agree on the importance of providing opportunities for natural language use in the classroom but they differ in the other respects For example, Ellis does not see ‘learner-centredness’ as an essential characteristic of TBLT while Long and Skehan do. Long views focus-on-form, i.e. learner attention to form while they are communicating, as deriving from the negotiation of meaning that arises when there is a communication breakdown. Skehan sees giving students the opportunity to plan the performance of the task before they actually perform it as the principal way of motivating attention to form. I see focus on form as potentially occurring in all phases of a TBLT lesson – the pre-task phrase, the main-task phase and the post-task phase. It is important to acknowledge these differences in how TBLT is conceptualised and implemented as some critics of TBLT (e.g. Swan 2005; Sheen 1994) have mistakenly assumed that TBLT constitutes a uniform ‘approach’. It clearly does not.



Characteristics:	Long (1985)	Skehan (1998)	Ellis (2003)
Natural language use	yes	yes	yes
Learner-centredness	yes	yes	not necessarily
Focus on form	yes – through negotiation of meaning	yes – mainly through pre-task	yes – in all phases of a TBLT lesson
Tasks	yes – unfocused and focused	yes - unfocused	yes –
unfocused and focused
Rejection of traditional approaches	yes	yes	no


Table 1: A comparison of three approaches to TBLT

The lack of uniformity in TBLT raises a problem for this chapter. How can I present an account of how to do TBLT if there is no one way of doing it? My solution to this problem is to adopt an ‘options’ approach. That is, I propose to describe some of the key options available for each phrase of a TBLT lesson. First, though, I need to briefly consider what is meant by a ‘task’ – the unit around which a task-based lesson is built. Without a clear understanding of what a task is the whole idea of task-based teaching becomes meaningless.

2. What is a ‘Task’?

For a language teaching activity to be considered a task it must satisfy the following four criteria:

1.The primary focus should be on ‘meaning’, i.e. learners should be mainly concerned with processing the semantic and pragmatic meaning of the utterances.

2.There should be some kind of ‘gap’, i.e. a need to convey information, to express an opinion or to infer meaning.

3.Learners should largely have to relay on their own resources – linguistic and non-linguistic – in order to complete the activity, i.e. the task materials do not dictate what linguistic forms are to be used.

4.There is a clearly defined outcome other than the use of language, i.e. the language serves as the means for achieving the outcome, not as end in its own right.

These criteria effectively distinguish a ‘task’ from an ‘exercise’.
By way of example consider these two language teaching activities:

Activity 1: Dialogue

Students are given a script of a dialogue and put into pairs. Each student is allocated a part in the dialogue and asked to memorize the lines for this part. The students then act out the dialogue.

Activity 2: Spot the Difference

Students are placed in pairs. Each student is given a picture and told that the two pictures are basically the same but there are five small differences. Without looking at each other’s picture, they talk together to locate and write down the five differences.

Table 2 describes these two activities in terms of the four criteria above. In ‘Dialogue’ the focus is not primarily on meaning as students can perform it without having to understand what is being said. There is no gap because both students can see the whole dialogue. They do not have to use their own linguistic resources – just memorize and reproduce the text they are given. There is no communicative outcome – the only outcome is the performance of the dialogue – language practice for its own sake. In ‘Spot the Difference’, the focus is clearly on meaning (i.e. the students have to make themselves understood to each other), there is an information gap (i.e. each student has a different picture), they have to use their own linguistic resources (i.e. they are not given any language to use), and there is a communicative outcome (i.e. a list of the differences in the two pictures).



Criteria				Dialogue		Spot the difference
1.Primary focus on meaning		no			yes
2.Gap						no			yes (information)
3.One linguistic resources		no			yes
4.Communicative outcome		no			yes

Table 2: Comparing an ‘exercise’ and a ‘task’

The type of discourse that arises from these two activities is likely to be very different. In the case of ‘Dialogue’, the language use is likely to be mechanical – focused on an accurate rendition of the script. In the case of ‘Spot the Difference’, the discourse is likely to be ‘interactionally authentic’. That is, it will resemble the kind of language use that occurs outside the classroom where the aim is to encode and decode real messages. For example, it is likely that communication problems will arise leading to attempts by the students to resolve them.

My purpose, however, it not to suggest that an ‘exercise’ such as ‘Dialogue’ is pedagogically worthless and a ‘task’ such as ‘Spot the Difference’ is worthy. Both may have a place in a language course as they cater to different aspects of language learning. However, a course that consists only of ‘exercises’ is unlikely to develop the kinds of communicative skills that students need in order to cope with the exigencies of real-life communication outside the classroom. To achieve this, at least some of the teaching time will need to be centred around ‘tasks’.

There are many different types of tasks and many ways of classifying them. Nunan (1989) distinguished ‘real-world tasks’ i.e. tasks that replicated situations that occur in the real-world, and ‘pedagogic tasks’, i.e. tasks that seek to achieve interactional authenticity but not situational authenticity. A second distinction of importance is that between input-based and production-based tasks. The former consist of oral or written input and require listening or reading on the part of the learner. The latter require oral or written output from the learner. In a third distinction common in the TBLT literature, tasks are distinguished in terms of whether the gap involves information-providing or opinion-making. A fourth distinction is between unfocused and focused tasks. The difference here consists of whether the task has been designed to elicit language use in general or the use of some specific linguistic feature such as a grammatical structure. ‘Spot the Difference’ is a pedagogic task, it is production-based, it involves an information gap and it is unfocused. ‘Candidates for a Job’ (see Table 3) is more like a real-world task, it is production-based, it involves an opinion-gap and it is focused, i.e. it was designed to provide learners with the opportunity to use the present-perfect tense.

Candidates for a job

Imagine you are a student in a private language school. Consider the following four applications for a job as a teacher in your school. Which of the applicants would you hope would be chosen for the job? Discuss with the other students in your group.

 JOCK, aged 30.
B.A. in social studies.
Has spent a year working his way round the world.
Has spent six years teaching economics in state school.
Has written a highly successful novel about teachers.
Has lived in a back-to-nature commune for two years.
Has been married twice – now divorced. Two children.
Has been running local youth group for three years.

 BETTY, aged 45.
Has been married for 24 years, three children.
Has not worked most of that time.
Has done evening courses in youth guidance.
Has spent the last year teaching pupils privately for state exams – with good results.
Has been constantly active in local government – has been elected to local council twice.

 ROBERT, aged 27.
Has never been married, no children.
Has served a term in prison – killed a man in a drunken fight; but has committed no further crimes since release two years ago.
Has recently become a Catholic, regularly goes to church.
Has been working in school for mentally retarded in poor area – has been recommended by principal of the school.
Has followed no course of formal study.

 CLAIRE, aged 60.
Has been married, husband now dead, no children.
Has been a teacher for 35 years, mostly teaching English abroad.
Has lived many years in the Far East (husband was diplomat).
Has taught English in British Council school in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Has been Principal of British School for girls in Kuala Lumpur.
Husband died two years ago; since then has been in this country, doing voluntary youth work; has recently completed Diploma in Youth Counselling.

Table 3: ‘Candidates for a Job’ task (based on Ur 1998)



3.Options in Task-based Teaching

Drawing on previous proposals for TBLT, a task-based lesson can be seen as consisting of three possible phases:

1-The pre-task phase, i.e. the various activities that the teacher and students can undertake before they perform a task.

2.The during-task phase, i.e. the actual performance of the task.

3.The post-task phase, i.e. the various activities that the students and the teacher can undertake to follow-up on the performance of the task.

However, not all task-based lessons will include all three phases. The only essential phase is the during-task phase; the pre-task and the post-task phases are optional. Potentially, then a lesson can consist of:

● just the during-task phase
● the pre-task phase and the during-task phase
● the during-task phase and the post-task phase
● all three phases

The design of a particular lesson will depend on a number of factors – the extent to which the teacher considers the students need some kind of preparation before they perform the task, the difficulty of the task itself, and the extent to which linguistic problems emerge during the actual performance of the task. A number of different options are possible for each phase of the lesson. These are discussed below.

Pre-task Phase Options

These really divide into two types; (1) teacher-centred options and (2) student-centered options.

 1. Teacher-centred-options

These involve a number of different activities that the teacher carries out with the whole class. Learners need to have a clear understanding of the contribution that performing tasks can make to language learning. That is, they need to recognize that performing tasks will not only help them to develop greater communicative fluency but also to acquire new language, albeit ‘incidentally’ rather ‘intentionally’. This is especially important if the students are used to a more traditional approach to language teaching based on exercises. Such students may treat tasks as ‘games’ to have fun with rather than as serious activities that will help them to learn (Foster 1998). How the students orientate to task-based teaching will determine what they gain from it.

Teachers also need to ‘frame’ the task for the students. This can involve suggesting how they might undertake the task, letting them know what they are required to do, and specifying the nature of the outcome they should arrive at (Lee 2000). For example, the students might be told prior to performing ‘Candidates for a Job’ that they should first make a list of the criteria they would use to evaluate the four teachers and then systematically apply these to each applicant. Dörnyei (2001) emphasized the importance of motivating students by whetting their appetite to perform a task. One way that this might be achieved could be by choosing students to be each of the candidates and then having the rest of the class fire questions at them that they have to answer in character.

Other teacher-centred-options involve modelling the performance of the task for the students. One way of achieving this is by the teacher performing a similar task with the whole class. For example, the teacher could devise another ‘Candidates for a Job’ task with information about four other applicants and then complete this task with the students before setting them to work in groups on the task. The advantage of this option is that it allows the teacher to scaffold the students into using the language they will need when they perform the task by themselves. In terms of sociocultural theory, it constitutes an attempt to provide ‘other-regulation’ in order to facilitate the ‘self-regulation’ students will need when working independently. Prabhu (1987) adopted a similar approach to this in the Communicational Teaching Project which he lead in southern India. Students first completed a ‘pre-task’ with the teacher. They then worked independently on a task of the same kind and with similar content. Another way of modelling the task for the students might be to ask them to listen to a performance of the task by native speakers (or other learners). In this case they can be provided with a transcript of the interaction to help them follow what is said. As Wills (1996) noted observing others performing a task can make it easier for students to perform the task themselves.

Another possibility is to pre-teach the vocabulary and structures that will be useful for performing the task. For example, the teacher might select lexical items that the students are unlikely to know, e.g. for ‘Candidates for a Job’ these items might be chosen: back-to-nature commune, mentally retarded, voluntary, and devise exercises to practice their use. Or the teacher might revise the present-perfect tense (the grammatical focus of this task). However, there are dangers in this option. Students may feel that they have to use the linguistic forms that have been pre-taught when performing the task and, as a result, fail to use their own linguistic resources. If this happens there is a real danger of the task becoming an exercise. This danger is perhaps less acute when the pre-teaching focuses on vocabulary rather than grammar.


 2 Learner-centred options

Learned-centred options centre around providing students with an opportunity to plan the performance of a task before they undertake it. Pre-task planning has been shown to assist learners both cognitively and effectively. It helps the retrieval and rehearsal of language from long-term memory, it can promote attention to form, and it can foster automatisation of linguistic knowledge. It also reduces the anxiety that many learners feel when asked to speak spontaneously in the L2.

There is now a rich body of research that has investigated ‘pre-task planning’ (see, for example, Ellis 2005). This shows that when learners are given time to plan, their performance of a task improves in a number of ways. They speak more fluently, they use more complex language and often they produce more accurate language.

The optimal time for pre-task planning is ten minutes (Skehan 1998). Students can be given a piece of paper to make notes as they plan but it is probably advisable to collect this in before they start to perform the task to prevent them simply reading from their notes. Pre-task planning can be unguided or guided. In guided planning the focus can be placed on either language or content or on both. Here are three examples of different types of pre-task planning for the ‘Candidates for a Job’ task.

Types of pre-task planning	Example
Unguided planning	Students are given the materials for the task and told they have ten minutes to plan what they want to say about each applicant when they get into their groups.

Guided planning – content focus	Students are given the materials for the task and asked to think of the criteria they would use to evaluate the applicants. They can consider each applicant in terms of the criteria and rate their suitability.

Guided planning –
Language focus	Students are asked to look carefully at the information about each applicant and pay attention to the verb tense that is used. They then work out sentences they can say to give their opinion about who should get the job and who should not get the job and think of reasons for their opinions using the information about the applicants.


Table 4: Types of pre-task planning


During-task Phase Options

Two kinds of options are available in the during-task phase; task-performance options (i.e. options that teachers can consider when constructing their lesson plan for a task-based lesson) and process options (i.e. the online choices available to the teachers as the task is being performed). I will consider only the former here, reserving discussion of one of the key process options (‘focus on form’) to a later section in this chapter.

A key decision concerns the participatory structure of the during-task phase. There are three possibilities. The first is a teacher-class participatory structure where the teacher performs the task with the whole class. If the task is of the input-based type, e.g. involves students listening to descriptions of instructions and demonstrating comprehension of the input by performing some action, a teacher-class participatory structure is required. It is also possible with some production-based tasks. For example, ‘Spot the Difference’ can be performed in a whole class setting if the teacher holds one of the pictures and all the students the other picture. One advantage of a teacher-class participatory structure is that it enables the teacher to monitor students’ performance online – i.e. it provides a context for the kind of focus on form features described later. The second possibility is the one most commonly associated with TBLT – pair-work or small group work. The advantages of this are well-established but there are also dangers, including the possibility that students overuse their first language (L1) or are so outcome-oriented that they make little effort to utilize their full L2 resources and their speech becomes pidgin-like. The third possibility is the one exploited by Prabhu (1987) – students perform the task individually. This, of course, is only possible if the task does not involve speaking and the outcome is written.

In Ellis (2003) I described three other task-performance options. The first concerns whether the teacher selects to set a time limit for performing the task or allows the students whatever time they need to complete it. This option determines the extent to which the learners are able to undertake on-line planning. If students are not pressured to complete the task rapidly they will have time to access their linguistic resources and also to monitor and reformulate their utterances for correctness. Yuan and Ellis (2003) reported that when students were given unlimited time to perform a narrative task their language was both more complex and more accurate than when they had to perform the task under time pressure. However, a case can also be made for setting a time limit for a task. Students need to get used to communicate under pressure as this is what they will often be faced with outside the classroom. The case for setting a time limit is perhaps stronger if students have had time for pre-task planning.


The second task-performance option involves deciding whether to allow learners access to the input-data while they perform a task. For example, the teacher could allow students to keep the information about the four applicants in the ‘Candidates for a Job’ task or could take it from them once they had had a chance for pre-task planning. The issue here is whether the teacher wants to encourage ‘verbatim’ or ‘generated’ use of the LS2 (Joe 1998). If the students continue to have access to the input-data they are likely to ‘borrow’ from it when performing the task, e.g. by reading chunks from the data out aloud. However, if the information is removed they are forced to generate their own utterances. There are pros and cons regarding this option. The input-data can be viewed as a form of ‘scaffolding’, assisting learners to perform utterances that would be beyond them without it. Seen from this perspective, ‘borrowing’ supports participation in the task and thereby fosters learning. However, there is always a danger of ‘borrowing’ becoming a very mechanical process, obviating the learner’s need to engage in the struggle that generated use of the L2 entails. The decision about whether to allow access to input-data will involve careful consideration of the complexity of the task for a particular group of students. If the task is demanding on learners’ processing capacity, then the opportunity to borrow from the input will be beneficial; if the task is viewed as easy, then it would be preferable to encourage generated use by removing the input-data.

The third option consists of introducing a surprise-element into the task (Skehan/Foster 1997). For example, halfway through the ‘Candidates for a Job’ task the teacher could introduce some new information in the form of references for each applicant (see Table 5 for some suggestions), thus forcing the students to review their opinions of them. One obvious advantage of selecting this option is that it can prolong the talking time. It might also prompt the learners to produce more complex language. For example, the surprise information for the ‘Candidate for a Job’ task might encourage them to mitigate their opinions by using expressions of concession (e.g. ‘Well, I know Claire has had a lot of teaching experience but I think her perfectionist tendencies will cause problems for the school.’) and in this way increase utterance complexity.





Now consider the following information about each applicant that has been provided their referees. Do you want to revise your opinion about who should be offered the job?

 JOCK, aged 30
‘Jock has matured considerably in the last few years. In his twenties he had difficulty in accepting authority and responsibility for his family. But he is clearly a changed man now and is looking to settle down into a regular job.’

 BETTY, aged 45
‘Betty has shown herself to be a born leader. She will contribute enormously to your school, both in the energy she puts into her teaching and in improving organisational systems in the school. She is an activist by nature.’

 ROBERT, aged 27
‘Although lacking a university degree, Robert is a highly educated man. He is widely read. He is also highly committed to anything he chooses to take on. In the last year, however, he has been struggling with depression largely as a result of guilt over killing a man.’

 CLAIRE, aged 60
‘Claire is very young for her age. She has demonstrated enormous energy and is able to channel this effectively into any task she takes on. She is, however, something of a perfectionist and is easily frustrated if decisions do not go the way she wants them to.’

Table 5: Introducing a surprise element in the ‘Candidates for a Job’ task

Post-task Phase Options

Post-task activities afford an opportunity to focus learners’ attention on form. Given that tasks aim to induce primary attention to form, it is possible that learners will neglect to attend to form, especially if the task is performed in pairs or groups. Given the importance of ‘noticing’ in L2 acquisition (Schmidt 1994), the failure to attend to form may have deleterious effects on their learning. Thus, post-task activities need to shift the emphasis from ‘fluency’ to ‘accuracy’. There are a number of ways in which this can be achieved.

Research (e.g. Bygate 2001; Lynch/Mclean 2000) has shown that when students are given an opportunity to repeat a task, their production involves in a number of ways – complexity increases and propositions are expressed more clearly. The first performance of a task enables the learners to formulate ‘what’ they want to say; the second performance allows for the greater attention to be paid to the selection of linguistic forms for encoding the already-established propositions. Task repetition can be carried out under the same conditions as the original performance or under different conditions. For example, if the first performance was unpressured, the second could be pressured. Or, if the first performance involved group work, the second could demand individual student performances.

Various options exist for dealing directly with the linguistic problems that became evident during the performance of the task. These can also be teacher-centred or student-centred.

 1.Teacher-centred options

The most obvious way of addressing the students’ linguistic problems is for the teacher to closely observe the students performing the task and make notes of both any errors they make and cases of avoidance, i.e. failure to use a particular form that would have been ‘natural’ in the context created by the task. The teacher can then undertake a review of these problem areas with the whole class. Rolin-Ianziti (2010) identified two approaches that teachers of L2 French used when providing delayed feedback following a role-play task. In both cases the teachers initiated correction but in the first approach they provided the correction themselves while in the second they attempted to elicit correction from the students. However, at the moment we have no clear idea of which approach is more effective, so teachers may like to experiment with both.

It would also be possible for the teacher to devise a traditional language lesson involving presentation and controlled practice. The feature targeted in such a lesson would be one that constituted a problem for the students when they performed the task. In effect, then, the traditional sequence of present-practice-produce (PPP) has been modified with the main task providing an initial opportunity for free production and the post-task activities subsequent presentation and practice, i.e. produce-present-practice. This makes good sense as it ensures that such a lesson is directed at an attested linguistic problem as opposed to a presumed one.

 2.Learner-centred options

Consciousness-raising tasks (Ellis 1991) are a special type of task. They involve presenting students with some data related to a particular linguistic feature, e.g. the use of the prepositions in, on and at in expressions of time, guiding the analysis of the data to help them discover the underlying rule, and then asking students to state the rule explicitly. They constitute a kind of discovery-based grammar activity.

Such tasks can be used in the during-task phase of the lesson (see, for example, Eckerth 2008) but they also provide a means of focusing students’ attention on how to solve a linguistic error in the post-task phase. When used for this purpose the data for the task could be usefully taken from the students’ performance of the main task.

Another way of raising students’ consciousness about their use of language when they performed the task is through ‘proof listening’ (Lynch 2001). The students play a recording of the task and attempt to edit their own performance. Other students can also be asked to listen to the recording and comment, correct or ask questions. Lynch also suggests asking the students to make a transcript of an extract of their task performance and then to edit it.

4.Focus-on-form

The goal of TBLT is not just to provide learners with the opportunity to communicate using their existing linguistic resources and thereby to improve their fluency but also to help them acquire new linguistic resources. In other words, TBLT seeks to be both ‘skill-using’ and ‘skill-developing’ (Rivers / Temperley 1978).

However, unlike more traditional approaches to teaching, TBLT does not distinguish skill-using from skill-developing activities. Rather, it combines them by asking students to perform tasks that involve them using their own linguistic resources in such a way as to afford opportunities for the acquisition of new language. How then can teachers help students (or students help each other) to acquire new language through performing tasks that, by definition, require a primary focus on meaning?

One of the principle ways is through ‘focus on form’. Long (1991:45f.) defines this as:

Focus on form overtly draws students’ attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communication.

Ellis, Batsurkmen and Loewen (2002) described the various ways in which focus-on-form can be accomplished (see Table 6). A basic distinction is drawn between ‘reactive focus-on-form’, where attention to form arises out of some problem in a participant’s utterance, and ‘pre-emptive focus on form’, where the participants make a particular linguistic form the topic of the conversation even though no actual problem has arisen. These can be viewed as options for managing this key process aspect of TBLT.

Options	Description
A.Reactive focus-on-from




1.Negotiation
a.Conversational




b.Didactic




2.Feedback

a.Implicit feedback





b.Explicit feedback

	The teacher or another student responds to an error that a student makes in he context of a communicative activity.

The response to the error is triggered by a failure to understand what the student meant. It involves ‘negotiation of meaning’.


The response occurs even though no breakdown in communication has taken place; it constitutes a ‘time-out’ from communicating. It involves ‘negotiation of form’.


The teacher or another student responds to a student’s error without directly indicating an error has been made, e.g. by means of a recast.


The teacher or another student responds to a student’s error by directly indicating that an error has been made, e.g. by formally correcting the error or by using metalanguage to draw attention to it.

B. Pre-emptive focus-on-form





1.Student-initiated



2.Teacher-initiated



	The teacher or a student turns a linguistic form into the topic of the discourse even though no error has been committed.


A student asks a question about a linguistic form.

The teacher gives advice about a linguistic form he/she thinks might be problematic or asks the students a question about the form.



Table 6: Doing focus-on-form (Ellis et. al. 2002)

The research casts some doubt on whether students engage extensively in focus on form when performing a task in groups (see, for example, Williams 1999). This is one reason for adopting a teacher-class participatory structure where students are given the opportunity to initiate pre-emptive focus on form and the teacher takes up opportunities for reactive focus on form. A study by Ellis, Batsurkmen and Loewen (2001) reported a total of 448 focus-on-form episodes (FFEs) in 12 hours of adult ESL task-based lessons – a rate of one EFE every 1.6 minutes. Other studies (e.g. Loewen 2005) have provided evidence that such focus on form results in learning.

5.Conclusion

There is general acceptance that tasks provide learners with valuable opportunities for developing fluency but some critics of TBLT have expressed scepticism that tasks are the most effective way to promote linguistic development. Sheen (2003), for example, claimed that there is “no grammar syllabus” in TBLT and that proponents of TBLT “generally offer little more than a brief list of suggestions regarding the selection and presentation of a new language”. Swan (2005) insisted that TBLT “outlaws” the grammar syllabus. In this chapter, I have attempted to show that TBLT is in fact much more versatile than Sheen and Swain claim. It offers plentiful opportunities for teaching and learning grammar – through the use of focused tasks such as ‘Candidates for a Job’ and through a range of options in all three phases of a lesson. An options-based approach to TBLT of the kind I have presented in this chapter allows teachers to select options that prioritize fluency but also ensure that learners’ attention is focused on form as they communicate.