This chapter outlines a number of key issues that will be addressed more fully in subsequent chapters. We trace the origins of TBLT in communicative language teaching and second language acquisition research. We then examine the developments that have taken place in TBLT, pointing to the multiple influences that have helped to shape its evolution. We address key issues such as how to define ‘task’, how tasks have been classified, how they can be sequenced into a syllabus and how a complete lesson can be built around a task. We also discuss the use of tasks in computer-mediated language teaching and task-based assessment. We introduce the key construct of ‘focus-on-form’ and explain its importance in TBLT and consider the difference between ‘task-based’ and ‘task-supported’ language teaching.

Chapter 6 presents an educational perspective on TBLT. The chapter begins by summarizing general educational theories that support an approach to learning that emphasizes experience and ‘doing’ over knowing and ‘telling’ - such as that of Dewey (1938) - and recent work on complex skill acquisition and training. It then considers research that draws on educational accounts of the role of ‘engagement’ in task performance and learning and the importance of investigating learners’ perceptions of the tasks they perform as well as their actual performance.

Task-based teaching has faced considerable criticism from teachers and teacher educators who maintain allegiance to more traditional approaches to teaching. Chapter 12 considers these outsider-criticisms (i.e. criticisms that originate from opponents of TBLT) and the misunderstandings that underlie them while also acknowledging a number of real issues they raise that need to be addressed if TBLT is to progress in the future. The chapter also looks at insider-critiques (i.e. issues raised by advocates of TBLT). One such issue concerns how to define and investigate the complexity of tasks as a principled basis for sequencing tasks in a syllabus. We discuss the different positions regarding such issues.