Task-based language learning (TBLL)

Task-based language learning (TBLL) has been reported to provide this type of language production opportunity using ‘meaning focused’, ‘communicative’ task completion activities (Willis, 1996; Doughty & Long, 2003, pp. 58–64). Through these
communicative task completion activities students engage in the ‘authentic’, pragmatic, and contextual use of language (Doughty & Long), where language production is not the aim but ‘the vehicle for attending task goals’ (Willis, 1996, p. 25). In addition, while completing tasks, students have the chance to practice language extensively within a meaningful context, facilitating language acquisition (Anderson, 2000, p. 186), as suggested by connectionist theory. Among other variables:
the influence of the conditions under which tasks are done, or the manipulations in conditions available to experimenters have been one of the most active areas in task research, and one line of investigation concerns what happens before the tasks [i.e. pre-task activities]. (Skehan, 2003, p. 6)