Innovation in Language Learning

Most language practitioners advocate for the introduction of ICT in their teaching since this is a motivation booster for students of all levels and, above all, because it prevents them from sticking to the textbook. This idea paved the way for reinventing the language teaching praxis and adding a sense of realism to whatever happens in the language classroom. To achieve this, we designed a training course for teacher trainees where ICT and Task Based Language Learning Approach (TBLL) merged together. This is the underlying premise behind the European-funded project PETALL (Pan European Task-Based Activities for Language Learning, Reference number 530863-LLP-1-2012-1-NL-KA2-KA2MP). We will examine the structure, contents and delivery of the national training course held in Spain. Thus, this is geared towards the development of strategies to provide teachers with the necessary tools to include ICT-based tasks in their teaching activities. Contents shift from the theoretical tenets of TBLL to the practical empowerment of attendees so that they get a clear idea of how this approach can be part of their future lessons. In this sense, participants were taught first how to do the task, then they we did the task together, and finally they transferred the leading role and they were requested to do the task on their own (I do, we do, you do). At the end, we present some conclusions based on the feedback provided by teacher trainees who kindly pinpointed areas for the betterment of the original plan.