In principle inquiry-based learning (IBL) means that student groups use critical thinking and try to answer a question or solve a problem by using the target language every step of the way.

The success of an IBL task depends more on the teacher’s ability to foresee and eliminate the problems that might emerge rather than the students themselves. If the students are accustomed to working in groups, inquiry-based learning is a natural way to bring some challenging change in the lessons.

What the students learn in doing an IBL task is much more than in an ordinary English lesson:

1. social skills by working with other students,
2. leadership and participants roles,
3. being critical about sources and other people’s opinions,
4. argumentation, reading comprehension and presentation skills,
5. evaluating the work and final product of their own and others … and
6. real usage of English as a by-product of it all
7. in brief, SKILLS NEEDED IN REAL LIFE

In practice an IBL task is very simple to realize following the recommended stages below.

• Step 1: Study a chapter or two in your textbook related to the future IBL question or topic. This way you introduce some of the vocabulary and ideas needed. This is the foundation for the IBL task.
• Step 2: At the beginning of the IBL task introduce the IBL task as a special kind of group work and explain the stages and time frame of the task.
• Step 3: Divide the class randomly into groups and appoint a good reliable student as the leader for the group to guarantee assistance and work ethics within the group.
• Step 4: Formulate the question(s) to be answered or introduce the problem(s) to be solved. This is the stage where you have a lot of options. See my discussion on them below.
• Step 5: The students search for sources of information or the teacher gives the sources to them. The students discuss and analyse the task-related matters in the sources and are critical about the ideas presented.
• In principle, the sources should be in English (or in any target language). In some groups the sources may be at least partially in the mother tongue but the the group should talk in English.
• Step 6: The students decide how to present their findings to the other groups. At the time of presentations everyone comes in the front and everyone has to say something.
• Step 7: Evaluation of the IBL task can take place in many ways. See my comments on it below.

WARNING: At first the teacher may be disappointed with the findings and presentations but remember that the PROCESS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PRODUCT.

In other words, in CLT terms the students use English as a tool and they have a real communicative purpose in trying to answer the question. The whole process of finding information, discussing it and presenting it will teach them a lot of English but other skills as well.

When the focus is directed away from traditional language learning, the students make use of all potential ways of learning in a relaxed rewarding atmosphere. You, as a teacher, simply have to rely on the effectivity of this kind of group work and you will see the effects in the long run.

In task-based learning (TBL) we typically rehearse coping with various everyday situations or how to use a particular grammatical structure in a real-life stuation.

In inquiry-based learning (IBL) the topic in focus could be just about anything and even if it is mostly presented as a question or a set of questions, it could be a problem or issue that needs in-depth research. Sometimes a statement or a provocative argument may be under scrutiny.

The whole class can work on the same question, or the question can be divided into sub-questions for each group or every group has a different topic altogether. Whatever makes sense to the teacher or/and the students will do.

Sometimes teachers mix TBL and IBL tasks but I don’t think it really matters if the students use English actively all the time. For example, we might first practise various situations at a hotel being a customer or someone working there and right after that lesson have an IBL group task on ‘What kind of hotel would attract more tourists to our hometown/region?’ It may well be that some of the issues came up already in the TBL sessions.