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Introducing Taskbased Language Teaching

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Introducing Task-based Language Teaching. Rod Ellis. University of Auckland ... Canterbury or things and after I came back. Teacher: Afterwards ... (Seedhouse 1997) ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Introducing Taskbased Language Teaching


1
Introducing Task-based Language Teaching
  • Rod Ellis
  • University of Auckland

2
Task-based teaching some introductory comments
3
TBLT advocates
  • Nunan
  • Long
  • Skehan
  • Ellis
  • Willis
  • Norris
  • Van den Branden

4
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.

5
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.

6
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?

7
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.

8
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.

9
The methodology of task-based teaching
10
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

11
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

12
Procedural Options for the Pre-Task Phase
  • Supporting learners in performing a task similar
    to the main task
  • Providing learners with a model of how the task
    might be performed.
  • Engaging learners in non-task activities designed
    to help them perform the task.
  • Providing learners with the opportunity to plan
    how to perform the task.

13
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.

14
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)

15
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)

16
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

17
Example of Guided Planning Foster and Skehan
1999
 
18
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)

19
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).

20
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)

21
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).

22
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

23
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)

24
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.

25
Explicit Focus-on-Form
  • Explicit correction (e.g. Not x, y)
  • Metalingual comment (e.g. Not present tense,
    past tense)
  • Query (e.g. Why is can used here?)
  • Advise (e.g. Remember you need to use the past
    tense).

26
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)

27
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.

28
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.

29
The Post-Task Phase
  • Three main options
  • Repeat performance
  • Reflection on performance of the task
  • Attention to form

30
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.

31
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.

32
Attention to Form
  • Options include
  • review of learner errors (proof listening
    Lynch)
  • CR tasks
  • Production practice
  • Noticing activities (dictation making a
    transcript)

33
Some Problems and their Solutions
34
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35
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36
Concluding comments
37
Advantages of task-based teaching
  • Task-based teaching offers the opportunity for
    natural learning inside the classroom.
  • It emphasizes meaning over form but can also
    cater for learning form.
  • It is intrinsically motivating.
  • It is compatible with a learner-centred
    educational philosophy.
  • It can be used alongside a more traditional
    approach.
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