61. Activity design and presentation on receptive skills

73. USING IT TASK MATERIALS IN TEACHING
Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) methodology builds upon the development of real-life language tasks in order to enable efficient communication through the cultural context. TBLT instructional materials development works based on students’ needs analysis, learners’ proficiency levels and the course curriculum. For a language course, basic task types are defined and designed in different modules. Task types are main building blocks of the TBLT modular design. For example, analyzing a case, narrating or describing an event, writing a report, summarizing an article, translating a text, presenting an oral report, participating in a debate, and following map instructions are considered task types and they can be applied to any specific theme or domain. A target task, however, is defined as a narrower topic based on a specific task type. For instance, "narrating a memorable event in your life" would be a target task module for an intermediate/advance language course. Pedagogical tasks (PTs) are building blocks of each individual target task. Each PT or subtask breaks down the target task from easier into more difficult and complicated instructional components. For instance, the first PT is a listening activity for which a language learner is required to find out the main topic. The second PT will address the similarities between two scenarios and the third PT will develop recognition of differences. PTs together will create main skills required for doing real-life target tasks just like what a native-speaker would do. Finally, TBLT defines a final "Exit" task to wrap up the learned language skills inductively and integrates them into a whole unity in the form of real life scenarios. For example, for the advanced "case analysis" task type, learners are presented with a social or cultural case in the society and asked to analyze it. TBLT is a proficiency-based learning system that efficiently addresses the kind of interaction and critical thinking skills needed in effective language communication and promotes the learning of language and culture by doing. In this presentation, a sample of Persian language materials will be demonstrated based on the said approach. The demo illustrates an interactive lesson that incorporates instructional technology to further enhance language learning process.