Task-based approaches and interaction in the 1:1 classroom: A teacher’s perspective

This account describes an Action Research study conducted by the teacher of two classes within a Polish Business English context. This cyclical inquiry sought to identify potential obstacles in the application of task-based language teaching in 1:1 classes, and to devise possible means to overcome these. The observations from these research cycles offer implications for classroom practice, particularly the potential consequences of exclusive reliance upon task-based approaches. While task-based lessons in this context appear to partially emulate authentic communication, this seems to offer few overt focus-on-form episodes by virtue of the teacher’s non-interventionist stance. As a result, it will be argued that triggering a reactive language focus is highly challenging for the teacher under supposedly natural conditions. While no attempt is made to generalise from this small-scale study, it is argued that teacher research can offer a valuable means to communicate actual classroom experience to the wider research community, thus potentially informing future research.