Introducing Task-based Language Teaching

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Introducing Task-based Language Teaching

• Rod Ellis
• University of Auckland

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Task-based teaching some introductory comments
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TBLT advocates

• Nunan
• Long
• Skehan
• Ellis
• Willis
• Norris
• Van den Branden

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What is a task?

• A task involves a primary focus on meaning?.
• A task has some kind of gap.
• The participants choose the linguistic resources
  needed to complete the task.
• A task has a clearly defined outcome.

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An example

• I am going to play a number game with you.
  When I have finished
• 1. Play the game in pairs.
• 2. Imagine you are writing a book of games for
  children and want to include this game. Write an
  entry in the book for this game.
• 3. Compare your entry with that of another
  student. Whose entry is better?
• 4. Develop a set of criteria for evaluating
  written entries in the book.

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Some questions

• 1. What type of task is this?
• - information gap/ opinion gap
• - one way./ two way
• - open/closed
• 2. What language skills were involved in
  performing this task?
• 3. What kinds of processing demands does this
  task place on students?
• 4. Are there any linguistic forms that are
  essential or useful for performing this task?
• 5. How could you decide if this task has worked?

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Why do TBLT

• 1. Tasks can be easily related to students
  real-life language needs (i.e. pedagogic tasks
  can be designed to reflect target tasks).
• 2. Tasks create contexts that facilitate second
  language acquisition (i.e. an L2 is best learned
  through communicating).
• 3. Tasks create opportunities for focusing on
  form.
• 4. Students are more likely to develop intrinsic
  motivation in a task-based approach.
• 5. A task-based approach enables teachers to see
  if students are developing the ability to
  communicate in an L2.

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Using tasks in language teaching

• 1. Task-supported language teaching
• i.e. the syllabus is a structural one and the
  approach is focus on forms. Tasks (really
  situational exercises) are used in the final
  stage of a PPP methodology
• 2. Task-based language teaching
• i.e. the syllabus is task-based and the
  approach is focus on form. The methodology
  centres around students performing a series of
  tasks.

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The methodology of task-based teaching
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Two aspects of methodology

• The organisation of task-based lessons
• - pre-task phase
• - main task phase
• - post-task phase
• The participatory structure of task-based lessons
• - individual student activity
• - teacher-class activity
• - small group work

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Options for the Pre-Task Phase

• The purpose of the pre-task phase is to prepare
  students to perform the task in ways that will
  promote acquisition.
• Three approaches
• - motivational
• - focus on cognitive demands
• - focus on linguistic demands

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Procedural Options for the Pre-Task Phase

1. Supporting learners in performing a task similar
   to the main task
2. Providing learners with a model of how the task
   might be performed.
3. Engaging learners in non-task activities designed
   to help them perform the task.
4. Providing learners with the opportunity to plan
   how to perform the task.

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Performing a Similar Task

• See Prabhu (1987)
• the pre-task is a task in its own right
• it is performed through teacher-class interaction
  with the teacher using questions to guide the
  students to the task outcome
• Rationale can be found in sociocultural theory
  expert-novice interaction scaffolds zones of
  proximal development.

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Providing a Model

• Providing a demonstration of an ideal performance
• Analysing the features of an ideal text
• Training in the use of a strategy (e.g. learning
  to live with uncertainty)
• Effects of such task priming need
  investigating (cf. Lam and Wong 2000)

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Non-Task Preparation Activities

• These centre of reducing the cognitive or
  linguistic load
• Activating schema relating to topic of the task
  (e.g. brainstorming)
• Pre-teaching vocabulary (e.g. Newton 2001 -
  predicting, co-operative dictionary search,
  matching words and definitions)

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Strategic Planning

• Students have access to task.
• Options
• Unguided planning
• Guided planning (focus on content vs. focus on
  linguistic form)
• Time allocated (Mehnert 1998)
• Participatory organisation

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Example of Guided Planning Foster and Skehan
1999
 
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Options for the Main Task Phase

• Two sets of options
• Task-performance options (relating to decisions
  taken prior to performance of the task)
• Process options (relating to on-line decisions
  taken during the performance of the task focus
  on form)

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The Danger of Restricted Communication

• L1 What?
• L2 Stop.
• L3 Dot?
• L4 Dot?
• L5 Point?
• L6 Dot?
• LL Point, point, yeh.
• L1 Point?
• L5 Small point.
• L3 Dot
• (From Lynch 1989, p. 124 cited in Seedhouse
  1999).

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Task Performance Options

• Main options are
• Performance of task with or without task pressure
  (Yuan and Ellis 2003)
• Performance of task with or without access to
  input data (borrowing Prabhu)
• Introduction of surprise element (cf. Foster and
  Skehan 1997)

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Theoretical rationale for focus on form

• To acquire the ability to use new linguistic
  forms communicatively, learners need the
  opportunity to engage in meaning-focused language
  use.
• However, such opportunity will only guarantee
  full acquisition of the new linguistic forms if
  learners also have the opportunity to attend to
  form while engaged in meaning-focused language
  use.
• Given that learners have a limited capacity to
  process the second language (L2) and have
  difficulty in simultaneously attending to meaning
  and form they will prioritize meaning over form
  when performing a communicative activity
  (VanPatten 1990).
• For this reason, it is necessary to find ways of
  drawing learners attention to form during a
  communicative activity. As Doughty (2001) notes
  the factor that distinguishes focus-on-form from
  other pedagogical approaches is the requirement
  that focus-on-form involves learners briefly and
  perhaps simultaneously attending to form, meaning
  and use during one cognitive event (p. 211).

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Incorporating a Focus on Form

• Attention to form in the context of performing
  a task can occur
• Reactively (through negotiation of meaning or
  form)
• Pre-emptively
• cf. Ellis, Basturkmen and Loewen

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Implicit Focus-on-Form

• Two principal procedures
• Request for clarification (i.e. Speaker A says
  something that Speaker B does not understand B
  requests clarification allowing A opportunity to
  reformulate)
• Recast (i.e. Speaker A says something that
  Speaker B reformulates in whole or in part)

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An Example of an Implicit Focus on Form

• Learner He pass his house.
• Teacher He passed his house?
• Learner Yeah, he passed his house.
•  
• Recasts provide learners with the
• opportunity to uptake the correction but
• they do not always make use of it.

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Explicit Focus-on-Form

1. Explicit correction (e.g. Not x, y)
2. Metalingual comment (e.g. Not present tense,
   past tense)
3. Query (e.g. Why is can used here?)
4. Advise (e.g. Remember you need to use the past
   tense).

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Example of Explicit Focus-on-Form

• Learner 1 And what did you do last weekend?
• Learner 2 I tried to find a pub where you
  dont see where you dont see
  many tourists.
• And I find one
• Teacher Found.
• Learner 2 I found one where I spoke with two
  English
• women and we spoke about life in
• Canterbury or things and
  after I came back
• Teacher Afterwards
• (Seedhouse 1997)

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Picas research

• Pica (2002) examined the extent to which
  learners and their teachers modified the
  interaction that arose in content-based
  instruction in order to attend to developmentally
  difficult form-meaning relationships (for
  example, English articles) - Pica reported very
  little attention to form.
• She commented one of the most striking findings
  of the study was that the majority of student
  non-target utterances went unaddressed in any
  way (p. 9). One reason for this was that the
  students utterances, although often
  ungrammatical, did not require any adjustment in
  order to be understood.
• In other words, the interesting and meaningful
  content that comprised these lessons drew
  learners attention from the need to attend to
  form.

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Addressing the problem

• Three ways
• 1. Pica (2005) suggested that one way of
  addressing this is to develop focused tasks
  (especially information-gap tasks) that direct
  learners attention to form.
• 2. Negotiation of form i.e. teachers
  didactically address form even though no
  communication breakdown has occurred.
• 3. Reviewing the linguistic problems learners
  experienced in the post-task phase of the lesson.

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The Post-Task Phase

• Three main options
• Repeat performance
• Reflection on performance of the task
• Attention to form

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Repeat Performance

• Research shows that when learners repeat a
  task their production improves in a number of
  ways (e.g. complexity increases, propositions are
  expressed more clearly, and they become more
  fluent).
• A repeat performance can be carried out under
  the same conditions as the first performance
  (i.e. in small groups or individually) or the
  conditions can be changed.

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Reflecting on the Task Performance

• Students present an oral or written report
• summarising the outcome of the task.
• reflecting on and evaluating their own
  performance of the task.
• commenting on which aspect of language use
  (fluency, complexity or accuracy) they gave
  primacy to
• discussing communication problems
• reporting what language they learned from the
  task
• suggesting how they might improve their
  performance of the task.

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Attention to Form

• Options include
• review of learner errors (proof listening
  Lynch)
• CR tasks
• Production practice
• Noticing activities (dictation making a
  transcript)

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Some Problems and their Solutions
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Pedagogical problems Solutions
1. Students lack proficiency to communicate in the L2 Devise activities that develop ability to communicate gradually.
2. Students unwilling to speak English in class. Use small group work allow planning time learner training
3. Students develop pidginized language system Select tasks that demand fully grammaticalized language
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Educational problems Solutions
1. Emphasis on knowledge learning Review philosophy of education.
2. Examination system Develop new more communicative exams
3. Large classes Use small group work develop tasks suited to large classes.
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Concluding comments
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Advantages of task-based teaching

1. Task-based teaching offers the opportunity for
   natural learning inside the classroom.
2. It emphasizes meaning over form but can also
   cater for learning form.
3. It is intrinsically motivating.
4. It is compatible with a learner-centred
   educational philosophy.
5. It can be used alongside a more traditional
   approach.