Task-based or task-supported language education?

Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) has gained prominence in additional language education for its focus on fostering communicative competence through meaningful, real-world tasks. However, there are few longitudinal studies comparing the outcomes of TBLT with those of form-focused instruction (Boers & Faez, 2026). It is not yet clear to what extent TBLT supports the development of explicit linguistic knowledge alongside task-specific communicative proficiency. This issue is especially relevant in educational contexts where students’ progress is evaluated through high-stakes (explicit) language knowledge assessments. This quasi-experimental study reports on a yearlong comparative evaluation of a TBLT Business English course in a Chinese college and examines its effectiveness compared to a task-supported course. Student ( N = 80) learning outcomes were assessed through both task-based and discrete lexicogrammatical measures. Findings show that TBLT was at least equally effective in building students’ lexical and grammatical knowledge, and more effective in developing task-specific speaking proficiency.