4A - Developing a Task-Based Approach

Summary

This research occurred in a unique context, namely an independent Vocational Education and Training (VET) school for older adolescent Australian Aboriginal students. Many of the students at this school, past and present, come from remote communities and speak Standard Australian English (SAE) as their second language or dialect. A previously conducted needs analysis that involved collecting data from various sources and stakeholders established that the students’ needs are wide-ranging and, although mostly concerned with vocational and behavioural requirements, they involved the students developing associated communicative skills. The case study presented below provides a description of one teacher’s efforts to address his students’ needs by developing and using authentic tasks. The ‘meaning focussed’ tasks he selected and/or developed required the students to use their own linguistic resources to negotiate to achieve understanding. The examples provided show how through a task-based approach the teacher has been able to provide pedagogical opportunities that served both his students’ communicative and real-life needs.