Widgets Inc.: A task-based course in workplace English

Widgets Inc. is an ESL/EFL course employing a communicative language teaching approach called task-based learning (TBL or TBLT). Widgets employs a 'strong' version of TBLT, which makes it unlike other language coursebooks you may have seen before. For instance, lessons are organized according to task complexity rather than by language forms, and their primary goal is to develop communicative competence rather than grammatical accuracy. Self, peer, and teacher assessment is based on the appropriate completion of tasks.

Something else that makes Widgets different from other courses is its focus on creating a “real-life” English-speaking environment in the classroom. Students simulate being interns at a technology startup called Widgets Incorporated, where they work together in small groups to perform workplace and business related tasks. In this way, all classroom activities are realistically connected; all conversations, discussions, presentations, video calls, and interviews have a contextual purpose, and build from one to the next.

Widgets Inc: A task-based course in workplace English (120 pp., A4 paperback, ISBN 978-194-11-4000-0) is available from englishbooks.jp and published by Atama-ii Books (2018). It was written by Marcos Benevides and Chris Valvona, and originally published in 2008 by Pearson Longman. For more information, visit Widgepedia.com.