Task Based Language Teaching TBLT is one of the learner centered approaches to language teaching which supports the fact that the teacher and the learner should work collaboratively in decisions on content selection methodology and evaluation Under TBLT noticing activities have a crucial role as it is believed that once learners pay attention to form and notice the gap between their current level of grammatical knowledge and the communicative demand of the context L2 development may be assumed to start This study investigates the effects of TBLT on learners’ proficiency and noticing levels with respect to gender in a primary school setting in Turkey It was carried out in Ufuk İlköğretim Okulu on the sixth grade students in the academic year 2004 2005 The Simple Present Tense was chosen as the grammar unit to be studied A proficiency test and a noticing test on the Simple Present Tense were developed as pre and post tests of the study by the researcher and two classes were randomly assigned as the experimental 6B and the control 6C groups The lessons in both groups were delivered by the researcher who followed the principles of TBLT in the experimental group and the principles of Presentation Practice Production PPP approach in the control group These groups were given pre and post tests to elicit data on learners’ proficiency and noticing levels in the use of the Simple Present Tense Both the proficiency and the noticing post test scores indicated no significant difference between the mean score of the TBLT and that of the PPP group In other words TBLT did not prove to be superior to PPP in the teaching of the Simple Present Tense in a public school in Turkey Besides gender did not play a significant role in the scores the learners achieved in the pre and post tests Keywords: Task Based Learning Tasks Proficiency Noticing