Qualitative differences in teachers approaches to taskbased teaching and learning in ESL classrooms

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Qualitative differences in teachers approaches
to task-based teaching and learning in ESL
classrooms

• International Conference on task-based language
  teaching organised by the Centre for Language
  and Migration Katholieke Universitei
• Ms Sui Ping CHAN
• The Hong Kong Institute of Education

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Background of the Study

• In 1994, a new curriculum reform called
  Target-oriented Curriculum was introduced and
  Task-based approach to teaching and learning
  (TBTL) was recommended as a key teaching approach
  in the new curriculum.
• This approach has been recommended to teachers
  in Hong Kong for nearly ten years.

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Teachers questions

• What is a task?
• What is the relationship between tasks and
  activities?
• How should we sequence tasks and activities?
• Should we just look at fluency? What is the place
  of grammar in developing accuracy?
• Can my pupils do tasks in English?

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Literature Review

• View of language learning
• Constructivism- knowledge construction through
  social interaction, process-oriented
• How can teachers gauge the outcomes of learning
  to maximise the benefits of L2 learning in a
  task-based environment?
• Successful move to autonomous use of language in
  communication requires considerable mastery on
  the part of the teacher in engineering classroom
  activity which brings about language learning.

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Thesis of the study

• A meaningful and purposeful language learning
  experience requires the presence of a careful
  scaffolding of both the linguistic and cognitive
  knowledge and skills building processes in which
  the linguistic and communicative properties of
  language are meaningfully presented, examined,
  practised, evaluated, reinterpreted and applied.

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Scaffolding

• Scaffolding means providing a learner with a
  great deal of support during the initial stages
  of learning. Such support will be gradually
  reduced with the learner taking up more
  responsibility when they are ready.
• In scaffolding, the adult does not simplify the
  task, but the process of learning will be
  carefully supported through the graduated
  intervention of the teacher.

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Scaffolding

• Create verbal and instructional scaffolds that
  enable students to practice the individual parts
  of a task within the context of full performance
• Modelling, questioning, explaining and making the
  critical features of the task explicit.

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Critical issues in Task-based pedagogy

• Linguistic consideration- balanced development in
  accuracy, fluency, complexity (Bachman 1990
  Skehan 1998)
• Interaction perspective- modified input,
  negotiation of meaning, focus on form, noticing
  the salient features of input is incidental,
  non-predetermined. (Long 1998)
• Pyscholinguistic perspective- attention,
  practice, restructuring (McLaughlin 1990)
  noticing, consciousness-raising (Schmidt 1990)
• Learning involves the process of noticing the
  salient features of the target language to be
  acquired. In the process of restructuring, our
  current state of knowledge is challenged and
  refined.

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Bringing about noticing

• Marton and Booth (1997), Marton and Tsui (2004)
• Theory of variation
• By paying attention to the relevance structure
  of the learning situation and the way in which
  variation is designed, the teacher can be
  instrumental to the constitution of the learners
  awareness of the phenomenon being addressed.
  Learning is learning to experience. Being good at
  something is to be capable of experiencing or
  understanding it in a certain way. (Marton and
  Booth 1997 210)

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Bringing about noticing

• Based on the pyscholinguistic perspective of
  language learning, conscious attention to
  linguistic features in the input is a necessary
  condition and creation of conditions for
  consciousness raising, noticing, practice and
  restructuring is needed. Pyscholingustic
  perspective proposes what needs to be done in the
  learning process.
• Martons theory of variation explains how to do
  it.

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An analytical framework

• Task Design
• Dimension 1 Task demand
• Linguistic demands
• Cognitive demands
• Interactional demands
• Dimension 2 Task types
• Dimension 3 Task selection and sequencing

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An analytical framework

• Task Implementation
• Dimension 1 Managing linguistic demands
• Dimension 2 Managing cognitive demands
• Dimension 3 Managing interactional demands

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Dimension 1 Task demand

• Linguistic demand
• Judging ease and difficulty is no simple matter ?
  question of learning rather than linguistics
  (White 1998)
• Nature of input- literature on vocabulary
  learning or grammar teaching suggests that new
  linguistic code can be made accessible to
  learners when one or more of the following
  conditions are created (Carter,1998 Johnson and
  Johnson, 1998 Nation, 1990)

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Linguistics demands

• Nature of input
• Provision of visual support
• Presence of context
• Frequency of occurrence and recycling
• Familiarity of information

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Nature of outcome

• Medium- visual, oral, written
• scope closed or open linguistic outcomes
• Complexity- degree of precision
• Language demand inherent in a task is a function
  of the nature of input and outcome, but not code
  complexity, per se.

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Cognitive demand

• Cognitive familiarity familiarity of topic,
  predictability, discourse genre and task type
• Cognitive processing types of cognitive
  processes involved number of steps in operation
• Information type and information structure
  static, dynamic, abstract well structured or
  loosely structured

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Interactional demand

• Interactional relationship one-way or two -way
• Interactional requirement optional or required
• Goal orientation convergent or optional
• Outcome options closed vs open

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Dimension 2 Task types and task features

• Interactional perspective different task types
  have impact on the opportunities afforded for
  negotiation of meaning
• Information processing perspective implications
  for the task demand on the learners attentional
  resources
• The relationship between the task type and task
  demand is critical in the framework.
• Different task types make different demands on
  the learners
• Pedagogical activities and knowledge development

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Dimension 3Task selection and task sequencing

• Task selection consideration of goal development
  (i.e. accuracy, fluency, complexity)
  incorporating a range of task types focus on
  form
• Task sequencing progressive development of
  declarative and procedural knowledge enhancing
  scaffolding

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Task implementation

• Dimension 4 Managing linguistic demands
• Making language accessible
• Progression in linguistic complexity

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Task implementation

• Dimension 5 Managing cognitive demands
• Activating background knowledge
• foregrounding
• Noticing salient features of input patterns of
  variation as learning strategies contrast,
  generalisation, fusion, separation (Marton and
  Tsui 2004)
• Creating semantic fields
• Creating conditions for restructuring
• Task repetition

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Task implementation

• Dimension 6 Managing interactional demands
• Teacher or Pupils as assessor
• Progression in interactional demands

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Feedback

• Thank you!
• shirley_at_ied.edu.hk