A close examination of Task-based language teaching in the Chinese context ??????????????

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A close examination of Task-based language
teaching in the Chinese context ??????????????

• ???????? ???
• Email Wenqiufang_at_teach.bfsu.edu.cn

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Topics to be addressed today

• General Views about Task-based language teaching
  (TBLT) in China
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• My personal view and explanations
• ?????????
• Suggestions about the adaptation of TBLT in the
  Chinese context
• ???????????????

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General views about TBLT in China

• Innovative, effective
• TBLT recommended as an effective teaching
  approach for primary and secondary schools in
  English Course Guidelines issued by Ministry of
  Education in 2001

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General views about TBLT in China

• Yue Shouguo, 2002, An introduction to task-based
  language teaching Approach, Foreign Language
  Teaching and Research, 5 364-367. (???????
  ????????)
• Huang, Yuanzheng, 2003, Teaching and learning the
  new English course, Fuzhou Fujian Education
  Press. (????????)

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Question

• Is Task-based language teaching importable to
  China?

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Sampson (1985)

• No teaching method can be value-free and hence no
  teaching method can be universally applicable.
• Exporting language teaching methods from Canada
  to China in Foreign Language Teaching and
  Research, 1 44-51.

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My personal views

• Innovative but not necessarily effective in China
  particularly for primary and secondary school
  students
• Adaptable for bettering ELT in China but not
  importable without any modifications

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Why innovative?
Previous teaching approaches (AL CLT) Task-based language teaching
Syllabus (What to teach) Linguistic content (structures/ functions or notions) Tasks
Procedures (How to teach) Presentation Practice Production Pre-task During-task Post-task
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Task-based language teaching (What)

• Treat tasks as teaching units and design a whole
  course around the tasks (Ellis, 2003)

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Prabhus view (cited by Ellis, 2003)

• It was necessary to abandon the pre-selection
  of linguistic terms in any form and instead
  specify the content of teaching in terms of
  holistic units of communication, i.e. tasks. In
  this way, he claimed, it would be possible to
  teach through communication rather than for
  communication.

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What is a task?

• Skehan (1996)
• A task is an activity in which meaning is
  primary there is some sort of relationship to
  the real world task completion has some
  priority and the assessment of task performance
  is in terms of task outcome.

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What is a task?

• Nunan (1989)
• A communicative task is a piece of classroom
  work which involves learners in comprehending,
  manipulating, producing, or interacting in the
  target language while their attention is
  principally focused on meaning rather than on
  form. The task should also have a sense of
  completeness, being able to stand alone as a
  communicative act in its own right

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Examples of tasks

• Borrowing a library book
• Making an airline reservation
• Writing a cheque
• Opening a bank account
• Post a letter in the post-office

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Six criterial features of a task (Ellis, 2003
9-10)

• A task is a workplan.
• A task involves a primary focus on meaning.
• A task involves real-world processes of language
  use.
• A task can involve any of the four language
  skills.
• A task engages cognitive processes.
• A task has clearly defined communicative outcome.

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Advantages of using tasks

• Authentic
• Motivating
• Challenging

Using language Active participation Cognitive
development
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Why not effective in China, particularly for
beginners and low-intermediates?

• Theoretically unjustifiable
• Pedagogically infeasible

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Theoretically unjustifiable

• The functions of a language
• Educational perspective
• Goals of learning English
• Formal/informal education
• Critical pedagogical perspective
• Psycholinguistic perspective

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Overemphasis on referential/transactional
functions




Core business talk
Work-related talk
Social talk
Phatic communion
Holmes continuum (2000, cited by David, 2003
p.72)
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The goals of learning a foreign language

• For performing communicative tasks
• For widening students horizons and sharpening
  them awareness of cultural differences

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Educational reforms in the Cultural revolution

• Teaching in middle school
• Physics (hand-tractor, motor, diesel engine and
  water pump) (????)
• Botany (rice, wheat and cotton)
• Teaching in university
• Open-door schooling
• Project-based and typical product-based teaching

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Problems in this kind of reform

• By nature, this kind of reform relegated
  whole-person-development education to specific or
  vocational skills training.
• Fragmentary and unsystematic knowledge
• Unsustainable improvement

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• TBLT not conducive to sustained improvement
• Tasks too specific without generalizability
• Unsystematic linguistic knowledge

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Formal/informal education

• Formal education should be more efficient than
  self-directed informal learning
• swimming, painting, driving
• Formal education should empower students

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Larsen-Freeman (2003)

• The point of education is to accelerate the
  language acquisition process, not be satisfied
  with or try to emulate what learners can do on
  their own.
• Grasping a language system can empower students.

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The critical pedagogy

• A critical pedagogy requires that any particular
  approach to language teaching be analyzed to
  uncover its underlying socio-political messages.
  (Ellis, 2003 331)
• What is the norm for EFL learners to follow in
  task-based teaching? Native speakers.
• What is the role of the learners mother tongue?
• Avoiding the use of L1.

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Vivian Cook (1999)

• The language used by successful L2 users should
  be a model for L2 learners.
• Treat L2 users in their own right but not
  deficient native speakers, failed natives.
• Comparing the characteristics of native speakers
  and of L2 users is like comparing tomatoes and
  apples, useful only at a gross level.

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Vivian Cook (1999)

• Apart from the never-dying but usually decried
  grammar-translation method, virtually all
  language teaching methods since the Reform
  Movement of the 1880s, whether the audiolingual
  and audiovisual methods, the communicative
  method, or the Silent Way, have insisted that
  teaching techniques should not rely on the L1.
  (p. 201)

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Psycholinguistic perspective

• Limited attentional resources
• Automaticity
• Frequency effects

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A dangerous moment

• Student A
• Have you ever been in a situation where you
  tell your life was in danger? Describe the
  situation to your partner. Tell him/her what
  happened. Give an account of how you felt when
  you were in danger and afterward.
• Student B
• Listen to your partner tell you about a
  dangerous moment in his/her life. Draw a picture
  to show what happened to your partner. Show
  him/her your picture when you have finished it.

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Pedagogically infeasible

• Difficult to cover the whole language system
• Lack teachers who are sufficiently proficient in
  English to engage easily and comfortably in
  face-to-face interaction.
• Reducing students confidence

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Rod Ellis view (2003)

• It should be noted that the rationale for
  task-based syllabuses is largely theoretical in
  nature, there being little empirical evidence to
  demonstrate that they are superior to linguistic
  syllabuses (p. 210)

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Ellis framework (2003, p. 206)

• Tasks
• Task types
• Themes/topics
• Sequencing criteria

Language Forms Functions
Task-based syllabus Unfocused tasks Focused
tasks
Teaching materialstask workplans
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Two options (Ellis, 2003)

• Option One unfocused tasks
• Specify the tasks to be included
• Determine their thematic content
• Sequence the tasks
• Option Two focused tasks
• Specify the tasks while considering the forms and
  functions of language
• Introduce a focus on form into a meaning-centered
  curriculum

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Option One Neglect the linguistic content
Linguistic content Pronunciation Notions
Grammar Functions Vocabulary
Discourse
Tasks Unfocused-tasks
?
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Option Two Difficult to implement
Linguistic content Pronunciation Notions
Grammar Functions Vocabulary
Discourse
?
Tasks Focused-tasks
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Lack English teachers with high L2 oral
proficiency

• First, task-based instruction is seen as
  impractical in foreign language contexts because
  of the limited class time available for teaching
  the L2.
• Second, task-based teaching is seen as difficult
  to implement by non-native speaking teachers
  whose L2 oral proficiency is uncertain.

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English teaching in China
Level of education Number of students
Tertiary institution 16 million
Senior middle school 29 million
Junior middle school 67 million
Total 112 million
(Jan. 6, 2004, Chinas Ministry of Education)
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Without capitalizing on non-native teachers
strengths

• Medgyes (1994) points to several advantages of
  teachers being non-native speakers they provide
  good models for their students, they know what
  learning strategies can be usefully taught, they
  can supply information about the English
  language, they can anticipate and prevent
  difficulties, they are good at showing empathy,
  and, most obviously, they can exploit the use of
  the students L1. Task-based teaching, however,
  may not be the most obvious vehicle for
  maximizing these strengths.

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Reducing students confidence

• Without adequate practice of the needed
  structures, students were reluctant to speak in a
  so-called meaning-driven communication.
• One highly possible explanation is that they lack
  adequate practice in doing so.
• (Larsen-Freeman, 2003, p. 100)

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Adaptable but not importable

• Rod Ellis view (2003)
• Task-based language teaching
• Task-supported language teaching

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Ellis suggestion

• It suggests that a clear distinction needs to be
  made between asking teachers to adopt a
  task-based course and asking them to experiment
  with individual tasks alongside their existing
  practices. The former is challenging and one
  would predict that the innovation would run into
  problems. The latter is relatively unthreatening
  as it requires only modification to the way
  teachers teach, rather than a radical change. It
  is likely to succeed. (p.323)

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Task-supported language teaching

• Teaching based on a linguistic content, whether
  this is specified in structural terms as a list
  of grammatical features or in notional/functional
  terms
• Using tasks in the last stage in a methodological
  sequence consisting of present-practice-production
  (Ellis, 2003)

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Suggestions

• Modify what has been done in presentation,
  practice and production
• Presentation input, interaction
• Practice from grammar to grammaring
• Production tasks

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Why ELT in China is ineffective?

• Factors accounting for ineffectiveness
• Teaching methods
• Students efforts
• Unrealistic goals
• Wen Jin (1998 156)
• The major factor accounting for low efficiency
  in ELT is great discrepancy between English and
  Chinese which requires a lot of efforts and time
  on the part of the learner.

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Problem for education in general

• Prepare students for future life
• Solid theoretical foundation
• Learn what has been needed in the society
• The theory-practice continuum
• Theory Practice

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• Systematic training to foster abilities rather
  than specific skills
• Learning through doing

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• Accelerating natural learning is, after all, the
  purpose of formal education. And helping our
  students learn faster than they would on their
  own way may well call for explicit teaching and
  learning to complement the implicit learning that
  they naturally do (Larsen-Freeman, 2003, p.25).

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References

• Block, D. 2003. The social turn in second
  language acquisition. Edinburgh Edinburgh
  University Press.
• Ellis, R. 2003. Task-based language learning
  and teaching. Oxford Oxford University.
• Larsen-Freeman, D. 2003. Teaching language
  From grammar to grammaring. Boston Heninle.
• Sampson, G. P. (1985). Exporting language
  teaching methods from Canada to China. Foreign
  Languages Teaching and Research 61 44-51.
• Savignon, S. J. 2002. Communicative competence
  Theory and classroom practice. Boston The
  McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
• Skehan, P. 1998. A cognitive approach to
  language learning. Oxford Oxford University.

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• Yue, S. G. 2002. Task-based language teaching
  approach An Introduction, rationale and
  application. Language Teaching and Research, 5
  364-367.