Before making some suggestions concerning the handling of task-based learning, let me give the discussion a Japanese dimension. A survey of recent issues of this journal reveals that many language teachers in Japan are cautious about the implementation of Monbusho's Oral Communication Guidelines. However, there appears to be a larger group of teachers who are aware of the difficulty of importing western communicative approaches into Japanese education, and who see the need for various kinds of compromise to make the mixture work. In keeping with this cautious approach, a number of writers argue for techniques which involve careful, structured preparation for communicative tasks. Let me look briefly at each stage in turn.
Teachers frequently select tasks to practice certain grammatical patterns.
Thus narratives may be chosen to provide a free stage for a lesson on past tense, and problem-solving tasks requiring the giving of advice may serve to give practice in certain modals or conditional clauses. Taking notes on student task performance can open up important and interesting areas for pre-task preparation when the task is run again. The conditions under which the task is performed are likely to influence performance. Task follow-up is all too often neglected, or is so brief as to be useless. Problem areas should ideally be isolated for attention, form-focused practice, and later reintegration into a similar task.