Van den Branden thought that the purpose of tasks is to attain an objective in an activity, and tasks include meaning-orientation, goal-orientation, outcome evaluation and real-world relationship (Ellis 2003; Skenhan 1998). There are some elements of most TBLT approaches, such as needs analysis, task selection and sequencing, materials and instruction development, teaching, etc.

Theory:

According to Byram (1997), the goal of raising intercultural awareness in language courses is to enhance learners’ intercultural understanding through cognitive and social activities instead of changing people into cultural natives. He stated that an intercultural competent person should have developed attitudes, knowledge, skills, and awareness about his/her own culture and other culture.

Methodologies:

    The researchers collected the data via a questionnaire in order to answer the question “How successful were our intercultural online tasks in meeting educational goals?” the participants in the study were an intact class of 27 first-year students of Spanish in Utrecht University and 14 native speakers of Spanish. Additional data of four online sessions was analyzed by two triads carrying out the same two task each.

     In my opinion, a virtual environment takes an important role in language learning because it provides an opportunity to negotiate with less disruption and embarrassment than in a formal classroom, and in this environment, learners can share cultural opinions and information which can enhance intercultural competence. Besides, tasks of virtual worlds (VW) and video-web communication (VWC) are beneficial to English learners since these tasks can provide the motivation and raise awareness of cultural contrast and similarities. 

Reference:

Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Canto, S., de Graaff, R., & Jauregi, K. (2014). Collaborative tasks for negotiation of intercultural meaning in virtual worlds and video-web communication. (pp. 183-211) doi:10.1075/tblt.6.07can

Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford, UK: OUP.

Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford, UK: OUP.