4.4.3.1 Letting students learn
4.4.3.2 Teacher roles
4.4.3.3 Teacher roles at each lesson stage
4.4.3.4 Learner roles
4.4.3.5 Who does what, and when?
4.4.3.6 Teacher and learner roles at different stages of the lesson
4.4.3.7 Action point
4.4.3.8 Optional reading

4.4.3.1 Letting students learn
Since the individual activities used in a task-based approach may not be very different from the type you already use if you practise a communicative approach to teaching (it is the sequence in which they occur which is different), you may feel that your roles in a task-based lesson would be familiar ones. This is probably largely true, but it is worth remembering that TBL is more about letting the students learn than it is about direct teaching. Jane Willis emphasizes this point, and admits how difficult she found this at first: Video JW11 Transcript

JW11
I think the teacher teaches much less in a task-based lesson. And I always like to think of the teacher as someone who lets students learn, rather than actually teaches directly. There may be the odd occasion where the teacher needs to say, 'Well, this word means so and so' or 'Can you think of something ...?' and doing a little bit of direct teaching, but on the whole it's a process of letting go the reins, and giving the learners a chance to do what they can do. I'll never forget the first French lesson where I actually set up some pair work, and then I almost did it for them, and then I thought, 'No no no no! Stand back!' And I can remember holding on to the table to stop myself going round the class, you know, like this, and I was amazed, because they all did it. And I'd just never given them the chance before.

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4.4.3.2 Teacher roles
Bearing Jane's words in mind, brainstorm a list of teacher roles for a TBL approach. Looking back at the different stages in the framework might help you to think of different roles for each stage. See Commentary 4.4.3 for some suggestions.

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4.4.3.3 Teacher roles at each lesson stage
Here are some more clips of Jane Willis talking about teacher roles in TBL. In these, she mentions roles the teacher might adopt during the pre-task, task, planning and report stages. Identify the roles and match them to the stages.

JW12
I think one role would be 'teacher as setter of scene', teacher setting up an activity, so that the students can actually get on with it, on their own.

JW13
And also standing back and letting them do it, maybe not actually standing at the back of the room or anything, but walking around encouragingly but not actually interfering with the way that learners are doing the task.

JW14
Yes and I think maybe feeding back, you know, the stage of when they've done the task, saying, 'That was really interesting, I heard some really interesting things' even if the language they've used has been not terribly good, but where the focus has been on the message , then you react to the message. So knowing really how to feed back, a sort of feeding back role, an evaluatory role, which I think students expect.

JW15
And then teacher as linguistic adviser, yes, definitely, when they need a word for something or maybe when they're planning how to present their findings to the whole group they'll need quite a lot of linguistic support there ... so helping them with the grammar, with the vocabulary, with the collocations, sometimes helping with the structure, depending on what it is that they've got to report, if it's something quite lengthy then helping them organize it and if it's a written report then actually looking at what they've written and focusing on areas where they obviously need a bit of help and picking maybe one or two things to encourage them to look at again.

For feedback, see Commentary 4.4.4.

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4.4.3.4 Learner roles
Now consider the learners' roles. One thing is clear: if the teacher is 'standing back and letting them get on with it', learners will be quite active for much of the time.

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4.4.3.5 Who does what, and when?
Look at this jumbled list of roles and actions and decide:

1. which apply to the teacher and which apply to the students (or both);
2. which stage(s) of the TBL lesson each role description belongs in.

• acts as language adviser;
• rehearses what to say or drafts a written version for class to read;
• sets up activities to help recall/learning of useful words and phrases;
• may spend a few minutes preparing for the task on own;
• acts a chairperson, selecting who will speak next, or ensuring all read most of written reports;
• notes down useful words and phrases from the pre-task activities and/or the recording;
• does the task in pairs/small groups;
• ensures the purpose of the report is clear;
• introduces and defines topic;
• acts as monitor and encourages;
• prepares to report to the class how task was done and what was discovered/decided;
• ensures task instructions are understood;
• presents spoken report to class, or circulates/displays written reports;
• practises other features occurring in the task text or report stage;
• may play a recording of others doing the same or a similar task;
• enters useful language items in language notebooks;
• may give brief feedback on content and form;
• helps with rehearsal of oral reports or organization of written ones;
• may play a recording of others doing the same or a similar task;
• conducts practice activities after analysis activities where necessary, to build confidence;
• may ask about any other features noticed;
• does consciousness-raising activities to identify and process specific language features form the task text and/or transcript;
• brings to attention other useful words, phrases and patterns;
• may pick up on language items from the report stage;
• practises words, phrases and patterns from the analysis activities;
• reviews each analysis activity with the class.

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4.4.3.6 Teacher and learner roles at different stages of the lesson
Return to the diagram of the TBL lesson framework in section 4.4.2.10 of this activity cycle and in the spaces under the labels for the stages, fill in lists of teacher and learner roles. Compare your answer with the version of the diagram in Commentary 4.4.5 (which is a taken from Appendix B of Willis 1996:155).

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4.4.3.7 Action point
You might find it interesting to undertake a little informal research into roles in your own language classroom, or that of a colleague. Use a recent lesson plan of your own, or observe a colleague's class, and make a note of all the different roles adopted by the learners and teacher at each stage. Compare your findings with the roles that Willis has identified. Consider whether learning might be better facilitated if any of the roles changed in your lessons. If you think it would, you can turn this into a small 'action research' project by planning your next lessons to include the new roles, note what happens, reflect on this, and repeat the cycle, making further role adjustments as you think fit.

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4.4.3.8 Optional reading
This would be a good point to complete the third recommended reading for this activity cycle - see 4.4.9, Reading 3.

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