Introduction

All language instruction aims to intervene in the process of learning a second language in one way or another. Intervention can be direct or indirect. Direct instruction specifies what it is that learners are supposed to learn and sets out to help them by explicitly informing them of the learning targets and through practice activities that cater to intentional learning. Indirect instruction, in contrast, aims to set up opportunities for learners to learn without specifying the specific learning targets. In this way, it caters to incidental acquisition by exposing learners to input and engaging them in the meaningful use of the L2. Examples of direct instruction are traditional language teaching based on a structural syllabus – what Long (1981) called ‘focus-on-forms’ (FonFs). Examples of completely indirect instruction are immersion language programmes and content-based language teaching where the focus is entirely on meaning (FonM) and there is no attempt to induce learners’ attention to form. Task-based language teaching is also primarily an indirect form of acquisition – what Long called FonF. It differs from FonM types of indirect instruction in that it incorporates various ways of attracting learners’ attention to form as they are communicating.

Task-based language teaching, therefore, is best characterized as a hybrid form of language instruction. Its primary goal is to facilitate incidental language learning through the performance of tasks where learners are primarily engaged with the effort to communicate. In this respect it is clearly a type of indirect instruction. However, as we saw in Chapter 4, an essential feature of task-based language teaching (TBLT) is ‘focus on form’ where learners’ attention is attracted to form either before they perform a task (as with the kinds of task-preparation activities considered in Chapter 5) or by means of pre-emptive and reactive strategies while the task is being performed. Where the focus on form is implicit in nature (i.e. it occurs spontaneously and unobtrusively) it can be seen as indirect.