Project-based learning and task-based language teaching: continuities, differences and the potential for integration

Abstract This article offers a historically-informed, critical comparison of project-based learning (PBL) and task-based language teaching (TBLT) in language education. It discusses their distinctive origins, theories of learning and composite features to identify elements of a shared underlying ethos and a number of important continuities. It also highlights important differences, particularly in the areas of cross-curricular learning, transferrable skills, opportunities for creativity and process versus product orientations, all of which have implications for their feasibility and impact in different educational contexts. The article also explores the potential integration of the two approaches. As well as proposing an original task-integrated project framework for occasions when integration is possible, it cautions that there are, nonetheless, a number of project and task types that do not lend themselves well to integration. It identifies an almost complete absence of comparative research on the two approaches, despite their widespread use and offers a number of suggestions and critical cautions for potential research in the future.