Becoming a More Active and Creative Language Learner with Digital Tools

Interacting with peers can be difficult for some students, due to their personality as well as to their learning styles. This paper shows how the Task-Based Approach (TBA) can be implemented and how digital resources can be used in language teaching and learning to enhance the students' experience and foster autonomy. To do so, I describe tasks I implemented for university students at A2/B1 level Japanese -- Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) -- delivered to a group of mainly Chinese students. Chinese students seem to be reluctant to speak up and share their opinions in class (Wu, 2015), which needed to be addressed in language classes. In order to encourage them to be more active and creative, TBA was deployed to help students perform tasks while using authentic materials, including online materials as well as digital tools to give more exposure to natural language. By adopting this method, language learning can be more heuristic for learners to achieve their learning goals, and students can be more engaged and motivated in tasks. At the same time, it was observed that students became more proactive to use prelearned language in more contextualised situations and showed more originality as a result. [For the complete volume, "Innovative Language Teaching and Learning at University: A Look at New Trends," see ED594807.]