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6УДК 373.1.02:372.8 ГРНТИ 14.25.09
PECULIARITIES OF THE ENGLISH
TASK-BASED METHOD THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING
Андатпа
Бершген макалада Task-Based Language Teaching эдшнщ теориялык негiздерi жэне оны icKe асырудын эдютемелш-техноло-гияльщ аспекта л ер карастырылады. Task-based эдшн колдана отырып, сабактын не-rÍ3ri кезендерi каралды жэне талданды. Б^л эдютщ артыкшылыктары мен кемшшк-терше ерекше назар аударылады. Макалада мотивация жэне тшдш кедергi мэселесiнiн шешiмдерi келтiрiлген. Сондай-ак, "тапсы-рма" ¥гьмыньщ бiрнеше аныктамалары берiлген, сонымен катар накты мысалдар келтiрiлген.
Аннотация Статья посвящена рассмотрению теоретических основ метода Task- Based Language Teaching (TBLT) и методико-технологичес-ких аспектов его реализации. Рассмотрены и проанализированы основные этапы урока с использованием метода TBLT. Особое внимание уделено преимуществам и недостаткам данного метода. В работе выдвигаются решения проблемы мотивации и языкового барьера. Дается несколько определений самого понятия «задание», а также приведены конкретные примеры.
Annotation
The article considers the features of the development of standard curricula and plans for post-secondary education with the provision of academic independence to colleges and the involvement of employers in the grain processing industry. The content of the new generation programs should ensure the development of basic and professional
Tilimissova D. S.,
English teacher, secondary school № 20, Nur-Sultan
Sembaeva A. N.,
English teacher, secondary school № 20, Nur-Sultan
Нег1зг1 свздер: мтдеттерге неггздел-ген ic, ттдт жэне коммуникативтт бтжтер, шет ттн оцыту.
Ключевые слова: метод, основанный на заданиях, языковые и коммуникативные умения, обучение иностранному языку.
Keywords: task-based method, language and communicative skills, foreign language teaching.
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competencies of the required level of qualification in the specialty.
English language teaching and learning receive considerable attention in Kazakhstani schools as seen in existing efforts of development. Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) is becoming a very popular method to use in the second language classrooms. The adoption of TBLT would be a more effective means of increasing the students' language awareness, achievement scores when compared to the traditional teaching method of the English language that involves prompting and drilling of students. A task-based curriculum allows the student to take a more active role and engaging role in the classroom. Task-based learning is a teaching methodology that involves the students interacting to perform a meaningful task in the target language [1].
The definition of task has a basic meaning; however, many researchers and authors are expanding the meaning. Tasks are a variety of activities, from simple to complex, and vary in length of time [2]. According to Professor Rod Ellis, "From a psycholinguistic perspective, a task is a device that guides learner to engage in certain types of information-processing that are believed to be important for effective language acquisition from some theoretical standpoint" [3, p. 19]. The overall goal of the activity is to s complete the task successfully, which will help < the development of language [4, p. 62]. o In TBLT, priority is placed on the completion
p£ of tasks that are assessed in terms of outcome.
w
^ A task-based teaching lesson contains three
g stages, which are the pre-task, during task, and
§ post-task. In the first stage, groups of students
§ engage in real life situations that are similar
w to the task they will perform in the classroom
s (pre-task stage). Linguists Sheila Estaire and
s Javier Zanon stress the importance of making
CL,
o learners aware of the objectives of a task and H the steps that will be involved. In the pre-task phase it gives them a sense of purpose while
at the end of the task cycle it should provide a sense of achievement [5]. It also avoids the problem mentioned by Foster that students sometimes view tasks as 'play' rather than serious pedagogical tools, a scenario also experienced by the researcher [6]. That is not to say, however, that learners should be discouraged from engaging in language play, because as noted earlier, language play is thought to have a potential role in the second language development.
The British linguist Keith Johnson conceptualises the pre-task phase as a form of scaffolding, with the teacher selecting and then evaluating the task to determine what support learners will require before the scaffolding can be removed and the learners get on with it [7, p.75]. It has already been mentioned that learners need to be introduced to the topic to engage their interest and activate and develop their existing knowledge and vocabulary.
In the second stage, groups of students perform the main task of the associated lesson or content (during task stage). It is often assumed that a task-based approach involves the task being performed by pairs or small groups of students. Ellis points out, this is not inherent in the approach [3]. Tasks can also be performed by the whole class with either the teacher or a student leading it and perhaps this structure may be appropriate at other stages of the task-cycle. In fact, there may be several disadvantages of pair and group work. For example, some learners may not feel comfortable working with a particular partner resulting in an affective filter [8]. One of the main advantages of setting up tasks in pairs or small groups is that it increases significantly the amount of student talking time allowing for greater opportunities for negotiation of meaning, and pushed output. Johnson, drawing on sociocultural theory, asserts that student-student interaction can also play a
role in students' social development, enhance their ability to work collaboratively and foster positive attitudes to the classroom [7, p. 113]. What is important then is that the composition of the group allows for effective collaboration. The way in which the students work together may have an impact on their performance. Neomy Storch compared the interactions of three pairs while carrying out a collaborative writing task. Each pair carried out the task in a very different way. One dyad co-constructing the text in a collaborative manner while in the other two dyads N. Storch found that one of the students dominated [9]. This study highlighted the importance of students within a group having a positive attitude to working together. In this case, the pair, which had the greatest difference in proficiencies actually collaborated better. This is where perhaps the teachers' knowledge of individual learners and their preferences for working with certain students can have more of a role to play than insights from research. This knowledge can enable the teacher to either make appropriate groupings or allow learners to self-select. Rod Ellis states that the group as a unit must have a sense of permanence and cohesion suggesting that groups should be maintained rather than changed from week to week [3, p. 271].
The teacher must also consider his or her own role during the task phase. It is generally considered advantageous for the teacher to monitor as unobtrusively as possible to encourage group collaboration and to intervene only when a group obviously requires assistance.
In the third stage, groups of students display or provide an indicator that they have successfully completed the task for the purposes of assessment and evaluation (post-task stage). Several investigations have revealed the potential benefits gained from asking students to repeat a task [11]. Two main benefits of task repetition have been reported in these studies. First, students experience
decreased anxiety at the repetition stage as they are familiar with the task. Secondly, task repetition allows for a shift in attention from the content of the task to the language employed, in other words from fluency to accuracy. In order to avoid the risk of inducing boredom, however, both T. Lynch and J. Maclean recommend that partners be changed [12]. Willis recommend a report stage to redress the fluency/accuracy balance. During the report stage, students are given time to prepare either an oral or written report, which details the outcomes of the task. During the preparation of the report, the teacher acts as language advisor and students are able to attend more to accuracy than during the task itself. In this approach, the reporting, if oral, becomes a listening task for the other groups and if written, a reading task [10].
According to Michael P. Breen (1989: 202), the evaluation which follows the completion of any task is the most important and potentially productive moment of classroom work [13, p. 202].
Breen points out, all learners already critically evaluate the tasks they undertake and task evaluation can become a useful language learning activity in itself. This can take one of two forms [13, p. 205]. One approach is to enable students to evaluate their own performance by providing them with transcripts of their interactions. Lynch
extended this idea further. The students in his s
w
study recorded and then transcribed their own <
oral performances [12, p. 157]. o Susan Gass limits her definition of tasks
w
to those which involve some oral exchange ^
among or between learners [15, p. 153]. s
Jane Willis defines a task as a goal-oriented §
activity in which learners use language to §
achieve a real outcome. In other words, learners w
use whatever target language resources they s
have in order to solve a problem, do a puzzle, s
play a game, or share and compare experiences o
[10, p. 53]. k Another authority outlines the pedagogical
task is a piece of classroom work that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is focussed on mobilizing their grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning, and in which the intention is to convey meaning rather than to manipulate form. The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone as a communicative act in its own right with a beginning, a middle and an end. [16, p. 4].
The task as a workplan is specified by the four competencies it can serve: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic. The inner design or "complexity" of the task itself can be viewed from both cognitive and sociocultural perspectives.
Cognitively, the task is a means of carrying topics into classrooms, setting the discourse motion, and encouraging students to produce an output [17]. Tasks require that learners build (a) an exemplar-based system that is lexical in nature and includes both discrete lexical items and - importantly - ready - made formulaic chunks of language; and (b) a rule-based system that consists of abstract representations of the underlying patterns of the language, requires more processing, and is best suited for more controlled, less fluent language performance. When performing tasks, learners pass through three stages during the process s of producing the language: conceptualization,
< formulation, and articulation.
m
o Socioculturally, tasks are designed to
qh provide students with dialogic interaction
o that can provide a "window for viewing the
g cognitive processes the learner is internalizing"
§ [3, p. 184]. In this way, learning is mediated
§ through interaction with others [18]. w TBLT has also been studied from a
H
s sociocultural perspective. According to s Vygotsky, learning develops as a result of
CL,
o interaction, which is justification in itself for H a central role for tasks in the second language learning [18].
Many researchers working in a SCT framework have focussed on how tasks can provide opportunities for scaffolded learning within learners' ZPDs, particularly peer scaffolding. Richard Donato, for example, showed how learners provided support to their peers in what he called "collective scaffolding" [19]. A study by linguists Maria De Guerrero and Olga Villamil, demonstrates how one student scaffolded another students' learning using a range of different mechanisms in the revision of a narrative text [20]. Amy Snyder Ohta too, found many examples of peer-to-peer scaffolding and she had similar findings to Donato in that the terms expert' and "novice" as proposed by L. Vygotsky are often fluid in the second language learning [21]. During the same task, one learner could be viewed as an expert, as he helps another learner with a vocabulary item for example, while later on in the task that "expert" could be supported by the "novice" to produce a complex form.
Activity theory is another aspect of sociocultural theory that has been used to support TBLT. In TBLT, the task acts as both a work plan and a process [13]. The teacher can select and implement the task but the learner can interpret it in his or her own way. As Joseph A.Foley explains, the learner is able to superimpose their own learning strategies and preferred ways of working upon classroom methodology [22, p. 92]. In this way, tasks can also provide the balance between planning and improvisation in the classroom. This is an important characteristic of tasks and further studies relating to how different students interpret tasks will be described towards the end of this chapter.
Murphy considered the way that students interact with the task itself as an important aspect of interaction. The research and studies reveal many positive aspects of task-based learning and how it can be an extremely beneficial classroom methodology [2]. However, additional research needs to be
Ю
conducted on the negative aspects of task-based learning.
Teaching (TBLT) uses meaningful, inquiry-based, real world activities. Many researchers view this method as emerging from Communicative Language Teaching. Others see it as a new approach to the English language teaching and learning. Task-based learning is a teaching methodology that involves the students interacting to perform
a meaningful task in the target language. The definition of task has a basic meaning; however, many researchers and authors are expanding the meaning.
Despite a large amount of support for TBLT, it is not without its critics and there are several issues which must be considered. Among possible advantages and disadvantages of TBL the following have to be mentioned (Refer to figure 1):
- no language control in production stage;
- offers reflection on language usage;
- learners experiment with language during task completion;
- learners communicate and collaborate during activities;
TBLT
- no language control in production
stage;
- offers reflection on language usage;
- learners experiment with language during task completion;
- learners communicate and collaborate during activities;
Figure 1 - Advantages and disadvantages of TBLT
The evidence for the beneficial nature of tasks outweighs the negatives. The TBLT method, as a constructivist practice, is a better way for the English language teaching and has involved practices that are desired in a modern educational context when compared to the traditional teaching method of the English language. It is necessary to explain several concepts.
Firstly, a distinction must be made between explicit and implicit knowledge of grammar [3, p. 214]. Implicit knowledge is the kind of unconscious knowledge which native speakers usually draw upon when communicating spontaneously and which non-native speakers use when a target form has been acquired. Implicit knowledge includes formulaic expressions such as 'I don't know' as well as rule-based knowledge which allow us to construct novel sentences. Explicit knowledge is the conscious knowledge of language, which allows abstraction of the rules associated with a particular grammatical, phonological or lexical form [3, p. 93].
This distinction is important since it is
central to the Interface Hypothesis. The Interface Hypothesis provides three possible roles for grammar instruction in the second language pedagogy, an issue which remains highly controversial [3]. Stephen Krashen sees no need for grammar instruction at all, and as a result of his influence, grammar instruction became largely unfashionable in English language teaching (ELT) for a long period. He believes that learning and acquisition are two distinct processes so that explicit knowledge can never lead to implicit knowledge [8]. Ellis ® holds a weak-interface position, believing that explicit knowledge can, albeit indirectly, R lead to implicit knowledge. A further position ^ mentioned in Ellis is the Delayed Effect ^ Hypothesis [3, p. 48]. This is supported by £ other researchers such who suggest that g grammar instruction may not lead directly to K
rS
acquisition but may facilitate the process.
Despite the effectiveness of TBLT reported ® in a number of studies, the issues of designing s and developing a task-based lesson is still § significant from teachers' perspective. Some teachers feel that designing a task-based lesson
is very complex.
The complexity here comprises understanding the nature a task designing the sequence that integrate a good scaffolding technique, a distinguished way in teaching forms. With regard to those
^ Through the study of specific
£ assignments, students are given the g opportunity to work through their own ^ issues through the experiences. The obvious h benefit of TBLT is that it allows students ® to experience conditions and contexts that § they might not have encountered in other w situations. This method also incorporates the idea that students can learn from each other by arguing with each other, asserting
items of complexity, some teachers are not confident and reluctant to employ TBLT in their teaching.
Jane Willis proposes six types of tasks as the basis for TBLT (Refer to table 1) [23]:
something, and then questioning it.
Overall, it must be said that the key to the success of the task-based method is prior preparation by the teacher, consistency with the curriculum, student motivation, authenticity of the materials and activities in which the students are involved, and the adequacy of the assessment measures and goals pursued in the case.
Effective tasks Examples
Listing and/or brainstorming Can you remember your partner's busiest day? On your own, make a list of all the things he/she did. Then check with your partner. Were there any things you forgot?
Ordering and sorting Look at the four pictures. They are mixed up. Work in pairs. Put the four pictures in a sequence so that they tell a story. Prepare to tell your story to another pair.
Matching Read the four headlines A to D. Match two pieces of information (given in 1-8 below) to each headline. Explain to your partner how you did this. What clues did you find? Did you both use the same clues?
Comparing: finding similarities and differences Tell your picture story to another pair and listen to theirs. Compare stories and make a list of the main similarities and differences.
Problem-solving Think of a town centre where there is too much traffic. In pairs, think of three alternative solutions to this problem. List the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative. Then decide which alternative would be the cheapest one, the most innovative one and the most environmentally friendly one. Report your decisions to another pair / group / the class, and discuss with them which solution would be the best one to put forward to the local government.
Sharing personal experiences and story telling Work in pairs. Talk about your relatives. Tell each other what you know about their past lives. Use the phrases and patterns from the box above.
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