PPP? TBLT? What’s the difference?

and why it matters

Shona Whyte 2017

PPP versus TBLT

• What are the main differences in the two approaches?

• What is your view of the arguments presented in favour of each?

• What do you see around you in your school - more PPP or more TBLT?

PPP: presentation, practice, production

• Byrne 1976

• Teaching Oral English, Byrne 1986

Presentation

Language features are selected and sequenced in advance for explicit instruction, involving contextualised presentation followed by clarification of meaning, form and use.

Practice

Controlled practice of the feature is provided (e.g. in gap-fill exercises, ‘closed’ speaking practice activities and oral drills)

Production

Opportunities for use of the feature is provided through free production activities that attempt to simulate real-world usage (spoken or written) such as in role-plays, discussions and email exchanges.

Criticisms

1. The synthetically-sequenced, isolated focus on form of PPP does not reflect how languages are learnt (e.g. Ellis 1993a; Lewis 1993; Willis 1994; Skehan 1998);

2. PPP focuses on teaching to the detriment of learning, making it incompatible with learner-centred approaches to education (e.g. Lewis 1996; Scrivener 1996);

3. It is prescriptive and inflexible, describing only one of many possible types of lesson (e.g. Scrivener 1996).

it has continued to

remain popular as a paradigm

for initial teacher training courses such

as the Cambridge

CELTA and the Trinity

CertTESOL

Ellis and Shintani 2013 (1)

research . . . suggests that there is merit in teaching explicit

knowledge of grammar as an end in itself and in supporting this with teaching some metalanguage. It casts doubt on the value of the

second P (controlled practice) in the PPP sequence

Ellis and Shintani 2014 (2)

The research also suggests that explicit instruction is much more likely to be effective if it is

directed at grammatical features that learners have

partially acquired, rather than at new

features...

Explicit grammar instruction has a place in language

teaching but not based on a grammatical syllabus. Instead it should draw on a checklist of problematic

structures and observational evidence of their partial acquisition

Arguments in favour of PPP

• PPP reflects well how many of us expect to be taught a new skill (even if we don’t learn language like other skills)

• It stands to reason that demonstrations or presentations should precede practice, and that slow, careful practice should precede more automated, fluent practice.

• PPP is often culturally much closer to learner and teacher expectations than alternative lesson frameworks based on for example task-based learning

• PPP has dominated the organisation of the majority of mainstream ELT coursebooks ever since Abbs and Freebairn used it for their Strategies series in the 1970s

Good contexts for PPP

• new teachers

• low-income countries (teaching in difficult circumstances)

• lower level learners (beginners, special needs)

Limitations: PPP is less appropriate for

• higher levels of proficiency

• very young learners

• continuous, systematic use at all times

teacher educators are likely to make greater gains by helping teachers to understand how to use PPP more

effectively

Task-based language teaching (TBLT)

• Long

• Ellis

• Skehan

• Willis

What is a task?

• a task is a workplan

• the plan engages learners in authentic language use

• the task includes materials to help learners achieve an outcome

• the outcome is specified in communicative, not linguistic terms

in the Heart Transplant

Task learners are given information about four

people requiring a heart transplant, told that only one heart is available, and asked

to decide who is most deserving of the

transplant.

Second language acquisition research suggests

• language learning is best achieved not by treating language as an ‘object’ to be dissected into bits and learned [..], but as a ‘tool’ for accomplishing a communicative purpose.

• ‘learning’ does not need to precede ‘use’, but rather occurs through the efforts that learners make to understand and be understood in achieving a communicative goal.

• the interactions resulting from the performance of tasks in a classroom resemble - in many respects - those found in child language acquisition in the home

TBLT does not just serve as a means of helping students to use the linguistic knowledge

they have already acquired but serves as a

source of new linguistic knowledge.

They do not just contribute to the

development of learners’ fluency and confidence in communicating in the L2 but also as a means for

building on and adding to existing linguistic

resources.

Tasks, then, serve a dual purpose.

Focus on form

• As learners communicate, attention is drawn to the specific linguistic features that learners need to comprehend or to produce in pursuit of achieving the outcome of the task.

• The teacher can prime the learner with the language they will need to perform a task or he/she can feed this language into the actual performance of the task by responding to their efforts to communicate

• attention to form is contextualized in learners’ own attempts to make meaning.

• it helps learners to see how form is mapped onto the meanings that are important to them as they perform a task

Task-supported language teaching

• tasks serve as a means of providing opportunities for practising pre-determined linguistic items.

• tasks will by necessity be of the ‘focused’ kind.

• rather than serving as stand-alone activities they fit into the ‘production’ phase of a traditional present-practice-produce (PPP) methodology

input versus output-based tasks

• input tasks: listening or reading

• output (production) tasks: speaking or writing

since TBLT constitutes a radical departure from

traditional approaches to language teaching based on a linguistic syllabus, it has aroused considerable

criticism

Misconceptions about TBLT

• it is not suited to beginners

• it neglects grammatical accuracy

• it requires extensive use of groupwork

• it requires avoidance of L1 and is not suited to foreign language contexts (i.e., learning English in France)

tasks can be used at low levels of proficiency,

for grammar, without group work, and with

L1 use

Potential problems

• teachers do not always have a clear understanding of what a ‘task’ is and as a result the tasks end up as ‘practice’ rather than affording opportunities for genuine communication

• there may be tension between the need to get the students talking and the need to maintain class discipline

• teachers’ lack of confidence in their own L2 oral ability and the fear that TBLT places too much emphasis on oral communication

• teachers are also wary of adopting TBLT in situations where they need to prepare students for high-stakes tests that emphasize grammatical accuracy rather than communicative effectiveness

• TBLT threatens the established role of teachers by re-positioning them as co-communicators rather than as sources of knowledge about the L2

PPP versus TBLT

• What are the main differences in the two approaches?

• What is your view of the arguments presented in favour of each?

• What do you see around you in your school - more PPP or more TBLT?

• Anderson, J. (2016). Why practice makes perfect sense: The past, present and future potential of the PPP paradigm in language teacher education. ELTED, 19: 14-21.

• Edwards, C., & Willis, J. R. (Eds.). (2005). Teachers exploring tasks in English language teaching. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

• Ellis, R. (2013). Task-based language teaching: Responding to the critics. University of Sydney Papers in TESOL, 8(1), 1-27.

• Ellis, R., & Shintani, N. (2013). Exploring language pedagogy through second language acquisition research. Routledge.