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3.

Problem-solving tasks

4.

Decision-making tasks

  • Pre-task activities
  • Task activities
  • Post-task activities

1. Learners first take part in a preliminary activity that introduces the topic, the situation, and the “script” that will subsequently appear in the role-play task. Such activities are of various kinds, including brainstorming, ranking exercises, and problem-solving tasks.

2. Learners then read a dialogue on a related topic. This serves both to model the kind of transaction the learner will have to perform in the role-play task and to provide examples of the kind of language that could be used to carry out such a transaction.

3. Learners perform a role play. Students work in pairs with a task and cues needed to negotiate the task.

4. Learners then listen to recordings of native speakers performing the same role-play task they have just practiced and compare differences between the way they expressed particular functions and meaning and the way native speakers performed.

- T conducts practice activities as needed, based on the language analysis work already on the board, or using examples from the text or transcript.

- Practice activities can include:

Practice

5.

Opinion exchange tasks

Risk-taker

and Innovator

Many tasks will require learners to create and interpret messages for which they lack full linguistic resources and prior experience. In fact, this is said to be the point of such tasks. Practice in restating, paraphrasing, using paralinguistic signals (where appropriate), and so on, will often be needed. The skills of guessing from linguistic and contextual clues, asking for clarification, and consulting with other learners may also need to be developed.

Selector and Sequencer of Tasks

Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun(1993)

A central role of the teacher is in selecting, adapting, and/or creating the tasks themselves and then forming these into an instructional sequence in keeping with learner needs, interests, and language skill level.

Learner roles

other characteristics of tasks

Teacher roles

Preparing Learners for Tasks

Monitor

1.

Jigsaw tasks

2.

Information-gap tasks

Group Participant

Learners should not go into new tasks “cold” and that some sort of pre-task preparation or cuing is important. Such activities might include topic introduction, clarifying task instructions, helping students learn or recall useful words and phrases to facilitate task accomplishment, and providing partial demonstration of task procedures.

Many tasks will be done in pairs or small groups. For students more accustomed to whole-class and/or individual work, this may require some adaptation.

In TBLT, tasks are not employed for their own sake but as a means of facilitating learning. Class activities have to be designed so that students have the opportunity to notice how language is used in communication. Learners themselves need to “attend” not only to the message in task work, but also to the form in which such messages typically come packed.

Current views of TBLT hold that if learners are to acquire language through participating in tasks they need to attend to or notice critical features of the language they use and hear. This referred to as “Focus on Form.” TBLT proponents stress that this does not mean doing a grammar lesson before students take on a task. It does mean employing a variety of form-focusing techniques, including attention-focusing pre-task activities, text exploration, guided exposure to parallel tasks, and use of highlighted material.

Consciousness-raising

2.

ordering

& sorting

3.

comparing

1. listing

Willis(1996)

4.

problem

solving

six task types

built on more or less traditional knowledge hierarchies

The role of instructional materials

1.One-way or two way

6.

creative

tasks

5.

sharing

personal

experiences

Crookes

Realia

p. 233

“a piece of work or an activity, usually with a specified objective, undertaken as part of an educational course, at work, or used to elicit data for research”

Summaries, essays, and class notes

Drills, dialogue readings, and any of the other “tasks”

Pedagogic materials

Newspapers

TBI proponents favor the use of authentic tasks supported by authentic materials wherever possible. Popular media obviously provide rich resources for such materials. The following are some of the task types that can be built around such media products.

Description of a task

Breen

Instructional materials play an important role in TBLT because it is dependent on a sufficient supply of appropriate classroom tasks, some of which may require considerable time, ingenuity, and resources to develop. Materials that can be exploited for instruction in TBLT are limited only by the imagination of the task designer. Many contemporary language teaching texts cite a “task focus” or “task-based activities” among their credentials, though most of the tasks that appear in such books are familiar classroom activities for teachers who employ collaborative learning, Communicative Language Teaching, or small-group activities.

A number of task collections have also been put into textbook form for students use. Some of these are in more or less traditional text format, some are multimedia, and some are published as task cards.

Prabhu

p.233

A language learning task can be regarded as a springboard for learning work. In a broad sense, it is a structured plan for the provision of opportunities for the refinement of knowledge and capabilities entailed in a new language and its use during communication. Such a work plan will have its own particular objective, appropriate content which is to be worked upon, and a working procedure. . . . A simple and brief exercise is a task, and so also are more complex and comprehensive work plans which require spontaneous communication of meaning or the solving of problems in learning and communicating.

p.233

“an activity which requires learners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some process of thought, and which allows teachers to control and regulate that process”

2. Convergent or divergent

Television

Types of learning and teaching activities

Internet

3. Collaborative of competitive

Procedure

The way in which task activities are designed into an instructional bloc can be seen from the following example from Richards (1985). The example comes from a language program that contained a core component built around tasks. The program was an intensive conversation course for Japanese college students studying on a summer program in the United States. Needs analysis identified target tasks the students needed to be able to carry out in English, including:

p.238

Task activities

role-play

4. Single or multiple outcomes

Pre-task activities

Post-task activities

- Basic social survival transactions

- Face-to-face informal conversations

- Telephone conversations

- Interviews on the campus

- Service encounters

Willis (1996: 56-57)

5. Concrete or abstract language

recommends a similar sequence of activities:

Pre-task

Introduction to topic and task

- T helps Ss to understand the theme and objectives of the task, for example, brainstorming ideas with the class, using pictures, mime, or personal experience to introduce the topic.

- Ss may do a pre-task, for example, topic-based odd-out-games.

- T may highlight useful words and phrases, but would not pre-teach new structures.

- Ss can be given preparation time to think about how to do the task.

- Ss can hear a recording of a parallel task being done(so long as this does not give away the solution to the problem).

- If the task is based on a text, Ss read part of it.

The task cycle

Task

- The task is done by Ss (in pairs of groups) and gives Ss a chance to use whatever language they already have to express themselves and say whatever they want to say. This may be in response to reading a text or hearing a recording.

- T walks round and monitors, encouraging in a supportive way everyone’s attempts at communication in the target language.

- T helps Ss to formulate what they want to say, but will not intervene to correct errors of form.

- The emphasis is on spontaneous, exploratory talk and confidence building, within the privacy of the small group.

- Success in achieving the goals of the task helps Ss’ motivation.

The task cycle

Planning

- Planning prepares for the next stage, when Ss are asked to report briefly to the whole class how they did the task and what the outcome was.

- Ss draft and rehearse what they want to say or write.

- T goes round to advise students on language, suggesting phrases and helping Ss to polish and correct their language.

- If the reports are in writing, T can encourage peer editing and use of dictionaries.

- The emphasis is on clarity, organization, and accuracy, as appropriate for a public presentation.

- Individual students often take this chance to ask questions about specific language items.

The task cycle

Report

The language focus

- T asks some pairs to report briefly to the whole class so everyone can compare findings, or begin a survey. (mark[note] well: There must be a purpose for others to listen.) Sometimes only one or two groups report in full; others comment and add extra points. The class may take notes.

- T chairs, comments on the content of their reports, rephrases perhaps, but gives no overt public correction.

The task cycle

Analysis

Post-task listening

- Ss listen to a recording of fluent speakers doing the same task, and compare the ways in which they did the task themselves.

- T sets some language-focused tasks, based on the texts students have read or on the transcriptions of the recordings they have heard.

- Examples include the following:

Find words and phrases related to the title of the topic or text.

Read the transcript, find words ending in s or ’s, and say what the s means.

Find all the verbs in the simple past form. Say which refer to past time and which do not.

Underline and classify the questions in the transcript.

- T starts Ss off, then Ss continue, often in pairs.

- T goes round to help; Ss can ask individual questions.

- In plenary, T then reviews the analysis, possibly writing relevant language up on the board in list form; Ss may make notes.

6.Simple or complex processing

The language focus

Practice

Choral repetition of the phrases identified and classified

Dictionary reference words from text or transcript

Memory challenge games

7.Simple or complex language

Kim’s game

(in teams) with new words and phrases

Sentence completion

Matching the past-tense verbs with the subject or objects they had in the text

Conclusion

8.Reality-based or not reality-based

Few would questions the pedagogical value of employing tasks as a vehicle for promoting communication and authentic language use in 2nd language classrooms, and depending on one's definition of a task, tasks have long been part of the mainstream repertoire of language teaching techniques for teachers of many different methodological persuasions.

It is the dependence on tasks as the primary source of pedagogical input in teaching and the absence of a systematic grammatical or other type of syllabus that characterizes current versions of TBLT, and that distinguishes it from the use of tasks in CBLT, another task-based approach but one that is not wedded to the theoretical framework and assumptions of TBLT.

Choral repetition of the phrases identified and classified

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