INPUT BASED COMMUNICATIVE TASK

Theoretical Content INPUT PROCESSING

Task component

Content Expressions about the weather

Material Visual input, aural input.

Activities 1.- Previous knowledge activation 2.- Listening activity (expression about the weather) 3.- Oral Practice 4.- Reading Comprehension

Goals 1.- Student will learn how to talk about the weather 2.- Student will develop his/her listening skill 3.- Student will be able to create dialogues where the

main topic is the weather

Students A1 level (under MCRE)

Social Community Very cohesive group

A. It is a beautiful day today, isn’t it?

1.- What’s the weather like in your city?

e

It is sunny. It is a sunny day

It is cloudy. It is a cloudy day

It is windy. It is windy today

It is rainy. It is a rainy day

It is foggy. It is a foggy day

It is cold. It is a cold day

Comment: Remember that the purpose of designing an input processing task is to help learner to make

form-meaning connections, that is, to create activities where students do something to link new language

to existing meanings. It appears that in your material, the form is lexical (related to weather). In this first

activity it is not clear what students have to do with the input, other than identifying one picture with its

caption (language form) to an existing meaning (the particular weather conditions of the day). This single

activity may not be enough to internalize all the expression related to weather that you have identified.

One solution is to start with a matching activity where learners connect the pictures (meaning) to the

weather expressions (form). This may push students to do the cognitive effort to relate forms to

meanings. Then, this may be followed with a referential activity where two pictures are presented while

students listen to the description of one of them. This may encourage them to connect oral input (form) to

a meaning (provided by the pictures).

2.- Work in pairs. Complete these sentences. Example:

There are a lot of clouds. It’s very cloudy (this activity asks students to recall language (output) and not to

process input. Students have to produce language (complete the sentence) and the idea is to design

activities to make them connect weather expression in English to meanings (for example, concrete

pictures)

1.- It’s going to rain tomorrow. Tomorrow will be ……………………..

2.- There is a strong wind. It’s very …………………………………….

3.- We’ve had sunshine all day. It’s very ………………………………

4.- the wind has blown all day. It’s very ………………………………..

3.- Now listen to these ‘British’ conversations about the weather. Tick ( ) the expressions you hear

a. What wonderful weather!

b. Nice day, isn’t it?

c. Isn´t it beautiful?

d. It´s so nice and hot

e. Yes, wonderful weather we´re having

f. What terrible weather!

(activity number 3. Learners need to recognize the expression when they hear it. That is, they need to focus on form only (identify the expression) but they do not need to link it to any meaning (ticking the expression would not count as meaning. THIS IS A DRILL NOT FOCUSED ON MEANING.

Activity 4 below asks student to produce (output) and not to process input).

4. Now you work in pair and use the expression of section 3. Prepare a short dialogue following the example.

Frank: oh! What wonderful weather. We’ve had sunshine all day.

John: you are right. It is so nice and hot

B. Reading Comprehension

1.- Work in pairs. Read these extracts. They describe different kinds of weather.

2.- Work in pairs and answer these questions according to the texts of section 1

1.- How do we know it is Winter in the garden of the selfish giant?

2.- How is the weather ´different in extract B?

What was the weather like?

3.- How do we know it is early spring in extract C?

4.- When he thinks of early summer in Camusfearna, what does the writer in extract D think of?

What was the weather like?

5.- What season (s) is /are not mentioned in the extracts?

6.- Which extracts interests you most. Try and explain why?

3.- Work in pairs and discuss the following questions

1.- What is the weather like today? And what was it like yesterday?

2.- What is your favorite season? Explain Why?

3.- Does the weather affect how you feel?

(These activities are related to reading comprehension and not to input processing. As a final

comment for this first task, it is important to remember to design activities that push student to

connect form with meaning. The activities that I described in the first comment above are an

example. You need to redesign this task to reflect input processing methodology.)

FEEDBACK / INPUT BASED COMMUNICATIVE TASK

SECOND TASK: READING OR LISTENING TASK

Theoretical Content Comprehension in L2

TASK COMPONENT

Content

Literature Literary Genre: Tales

Material Oscar Wild’s Tales

Activities 1.- Previous knowledge activation 2.- Talk about tales students have read 3.- Presentation of some Wild’s well known tales 4.- Reading Comprehension

Goals 1.- Student will be able to develop reading strategies 2.- Student will be able to explain what a tales is 3.- Student will be able to write a summary of the tale

Students A2level (under MCRE)

Social Community Very cohesive group

A.- Previous Knowledge activation. Tales

A tale is a fictitious or true narrative or story, especially one that is imaginatively recounted

The selfish giant The nightingale and the

rose

The Happy Prince The Young King

B. Reading comprehension skills “The Happy Prince”

1.- Read the first page,

a.- number all paragraph of the story

b.- Now read the first page and look for those words you do not know,

c.- then find their meaning and

d.- Finally read the page again, do the same with the rest of the pages, until you get used to

the vocabulary.

2.- Work in pairs and discuss the following

a. How many words did you have to look for their meanings?

b. Which are they?

c. Make sentences with them. And share your results with a partner

3.- Now, Keep in mind what the tale is about (that is the topic), Remember that topics

are concepts, no more than 2 or 3 words, and normally it is introduced in the first

paragraph, for example: Love, Happiness, Politics, Health, Countries, Sports, etc.

a. Read the first page and find out what is the story about

b. How did you know?

c. Work with a partner and discuss if he or she thinks the same

3- Remember that every single paragraph has its own main idea, and the rests are

secondary ones

a. Underline with a red pen, every main idea of each paragraph, and write it down in your

notebook specifying number of the page and number of the paragraph

b. Now underline with a green pen, the secondary ideas

Now you are ready to start your reading activity, enjoy yourself!!!

FEEDBACK SECOND TASK: READING OR LISTENING TASK I think the feedback you were provided by your peer is very useful. I will only add the

following: You can improve your material by identifying a purpose for the reading task: for example, you are going to read this story to retell it to a partner later; or you will read this story and write a review for the local school paper. Decide on a purpose that is communicative.

Then, it is important to clarify which specific reading strategies you need to implement. For example, activities 1 and 2 above seem to focus on lexical strategies such as making an inference for a new word. If this is the case, it may be useful to design a specific activity for this purpose. For example, a multiple choice task where learners are presented with the target word followed by two alternatives (definitions in English or translations in Spanish) and students need to figure out which meaning fits the context of the reading. I would recommend doing this with a small number of words. Then, activity 3 asks them to identify the gist of the story as the reading strategy. Again, you can improve your material by designing a specific activity for this strategy. For example: Read the story and put the following pictures in order (pictures show key aspects of the story) or Read the story and make corrections to the following summary of the story (learners are provided with a short summary that contains errors (not grammatical ones but of content). I hope these comments will help you improve this task that needs to be redesigned .

Third Task: OUTPUT BASED-INTERACTIVE TASK

Theoretical Content Production in an L2

TASK COMPONENT

Content Literature

Literary Genre: Tales

Material Oscar Wild’s Tales

Activities 1.- Previous knowledge activation 2.- Talk about the Happy Prince Story 3.- Discussion about the book 4.- Writing activity

Goals 1.- Student will be able to make textual inferences 2.- Student will be able to express his/her view point 3.- Student will be able to paraphrase a story 4.- student will be able to rewrite different ideas

Students B1 level (under MCRE)

Social Community Very cohesive group

The Happy Prince

A.- Work in pairs or group no more than 4 students and answer the following

General Questions

a. Who wrote the story?

b. Where does the Happy prince story take place?

c. Who are the characters?

d. What are the problems that the Prince had to face?

e. What is the message the story tells?

B.- Discuss with your group the following

a.- What does the word compassion mean?

b.- In which way does the Prince show compassion?

c.- Why do you think the swallow decided not to leave with the other birds?

d.- Do you think that this was a wise decision? Why?

e.- Why do the Prince and the swallow become in good friends?

f.- The end of the story is very sad. Why do you think the author decided to do this?

C.- Now in your own words retell the story and change the end of the story for a happy one.

An output task is one where learner produces communicative messages in the L2, very similar to what

would happen in the real world. Activities A and B look more like an exercise or language practice

activity. Students are provided with a set of focused questions and there seems to be no reason for

doing this in pairs. They could perfectly do them on their own as there is no purpose in

communicating this information to a partner who shares the same information (has read the same

story). It may be useful to check comprehension of the reading text.

Activity C has characteristics of an output task, that is, students are given a communicative purpose

(retell the story). However, why would they tell the story to another classmate who has already read

the same story? If they told each other a different story then the task would be more meaningful

especially if the student had to write a report for the new story they were told (to give them a purpose

for listening to their classmates). You need to rethink this task a little further.

FEEDBACK / Third Task: OUTPUT BASED-INTERACTIVE TASK