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Task-based Research and Language Pedagogy

R. EllisLanguage Teaching Research 2000

By: Amirhamid Forough Ameri ahfameri@gmail.com

April 2016

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Two Theoretical Accounts of Task-based Language Use

Psycholinguistic perspective:draws on a computational model of L2 acquisition (Lantolf, 1996). tasks are viewed as devices that provide learners with the data they

need for learning; the design of a task determines the kind of language use and

opportunities for learning.provides information for planning task based teaching.

Three different psycholinguistic models are discussed: • Long’s Interaction Hypothesis, • Skehan’s ‘cognitive approach’ and• Yule’s framework of communicative efficiency.

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Two Theoretical Accounts of Task-based Language Use

Socio-cultural theory:participants co-construct the ‘activity’ in accordance with their own

socio-history and locally determined goals it is difficult to make reliable predictions regarding the kinds of

language use and opportunities for learning.

It emphasizes the dialogic processes (such as ‘scaffolding’) It illuminates the kinds of improvisation that teachers and learners

need to engage in.

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Introduction Recent years have seen an enormous growth of interest in task based

language learning and teaching:

Willis, 1996 Skehan, 1998 Bygate, Skehan and Swain, 2000

‘Task’ is both a means of eliciting samples of learner language for purposes of

research (Corder, 1981) and a device for organizing the content and methodology of language

teaching (Prabhu, 1987).

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Defining ‘task’ Bygate, Skehan and Swain (2000b): definitions of tasks are ‘context-free’ Ellis (2000): ‘task’ will have different meanings in different contexts.

A task is a ‘workplan’ involving:(1) some input (i.e. information that learners are required to process

and use); and (2) some instructions relating to what outcome the learners are supposed to achieve.

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Defining ‘task’ what distinguishes a ‘task’ from an ‘exercise’? Skehan’s (1998a) four defining criteria:

1. meaning is primary;2. there is a goal which needs to be worked towards;3. the activity is outcome-evaluated;4. there is a real-world relationship (p. 268).

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Defining ‘task’ An ‘exercise’ such as a fill-in-the-blank grammar exercise,

the learners are primarily engaged in producing correct forms, there is no obvious communicative goal, the outcome is evaluated in terms of whether the learners’ answers are

grammatically correct or not, and no direct relationship between the type of language activity and

naturally occurring discourse. Widdowson (1998a) is critical of such a definition of ‘task’

‘exercise’ and ‘task’ differ with regard to the kind of meaning, goal, and outcome they are directed towards.

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Defining ‘task’

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Task From A Psycholinguistic Perspective From this perspective a task is a device that guides learners to engage in

certain types of information-processing. This perspective is predictive, and, in some cases, deterministic.

Skehan, Foster and Mehnert (1998): ‘task properties have a significant impact on the nature of

performance’ (p. 245).The claim: there is a close correlation between the task-as-workplan

and the task-as-process because the activity that results from the task-as-work-plan is predictable from the design features of the task.

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Task From A Psycholinguistic Perspective The underlying theoretical position adopted by task-based researchers is

the ‘computational metaphor’. Lantolf sees Chomsky as the person most responsible for the dominance

of this metaphor in linguistics and applied linguistics since the 1960s . it quickly became regularized as theory within the cognitive science of the

1970s and 1980s.Tasks are seen as the external means by which we can influence the

mental computations that learners make. These computations determine how effectively they communicate and

how they acquire language.

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Task From A Psycholinguistic Perspective1. Long’s Interaction Hypothesis

What is important for acquisition is the opportunity for learners to engage in meaning negotiation in both forms.

Early Form (Long, 1983) Later Form (Long, 1996)Acquisition is facilitated when learners obtain comprehensibleinput as a result of the opportunity to negotiate meaning whencommunication breakdown occurs

• Other ways in which meaning negotiation can contribute to L2 acquisition are considered:

• the feedback that learners receive on their own productions when they attempt to communicate and through the modified output

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Task From A Psycholinguistic Perspective Research has sought to identify the task dimensions that impact on meaning negotiation (Pica,

Kanagy and Falodun, 1993).

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Task From A Psycholinguistic Perspective Swain’s different approach bases focuses on the role of output. Swain (1985; 1995): output serves to help learners notice gaps in their

linguistic knowledge and thus triggers both analysis of input and of their own existing internal resources

In addition it provides a means by which learners can test hypotheses about the L2.

The results of Swain’s research to date, however, are not very encouraging.

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Task From A Psycholinguistic Perspective2. Skehan’s (1998b)‘cognitive approach’ to tasks A distinction in the way in which learners are believed to represent L2

knowledge. Exemplar-based system

Rule-basedsystem

• lexical in nature• discrete lexical items • ready-made formulaic

language• for fluent language

performance

• abstract representations of language

• more processing • suited for more controlled,

less fluent language performance.

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Task From A Psycholinguistic Perspective Whereas Interaction Hypothesis has focused on meaning negotiation,

Skehan’s research has examined learner production. Skehan distinguishes three aspects of production: (1) fluency (i.e. the capacity of the learner to communicate in real time); draw on their memory-based system (2) accuracy (i.e. the ability perform in accordance with TL norms); and (3) complexity (i.e. the utilization of interlanguage structures that are

elaborate and structured) draw on their rule-based system

The research based on Skehan’s ‘cognitive account’ has been focused on discovering task variables divided into two broad groups:

(1) task features and (2) task implementation.

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Task From A Psycholinguistic Perspective

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Task From A Psycholinguistic Perspective3. Yule’s Communicative effectiveness Yule’s research examined task-processes that contribute to communicative

effectiveness, and the extent to which task design and implementation impacts on the skilfulness of L2 learners’ performance.

Yule proposed a theory for referential tasks of the Same-or-Different kind. Yule (1997) distinguishes two broad dimensions of communicative

effectiveness:(1) the identification-of-referent dimension and (2) the role-taking dimension. In Yule’s theory, communicative effectiveness is determined not just by the

nature of the task but also by learner factors, such as personality and cognitive style.

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Task From A Psycholinguistic Perspective Yule and Powers (1994) propose a framework for the micro-analysis of communicative outcomes.

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Evaluating the Psycholinguistic Perspective

The approach adopted has been as follows: Determine what effect task variables have on task performance. Draw on a theory of L2 acquisition/communicative effectiveness Infer which kinds of tasks will work best for promoting L2 acquisition/ communicative effectiveness. Weaknesses:

failure to show a direct relationship between task-design and L2 acquisition/communicative efficiency.

Reason: the research to date has been invariably crosssectional.examining tasks without any consideration of other general factors:

• learner factors setting the teacher’s role

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Task from a socio-cultural perspective It has grown out of the work of Vygotsky (1986) and Leont’ev (1981), etc. A central claim: participants always co-construct the activity they engage

in, in accordance with their own socio-history and locally determined goals.

Performance depends on the interaction of individual and task rather than on the inherent properties of the task itself. the same task can result in very different kinds of activity when

performed by the same learners at different times. Coughlan and Duff (1994) distinguish between

‘task’ (i.e. the workplan) and ‘activity’ (i.e. the actual language that occurs when learners perform

the task).

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Task from a socio-cultural perspective

To perform a task, the learners have to ‘interpret’ it:Orientating to the task and establishing their goals for performing it.

learning arises not through interaction but in interaction. Learners first perform a new function with the assistance of another

person and unassisted. In this way, social interaction mediates learning. Scaffolding is the dialogic process by which one speaker assists another

to perform a new function.

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Task from a socio-cultural perspective Task-based research in the socio-cultural tradition demonstrates how

scaffolding may help learners achieve a successful task outcome. Collective and implicit scaffolding useful in performance of

new grammatical constructions

Socio-cultural researchers have focused on how tasks are accomplished by learners and teachers and how the process of accomplishing them might contribute to language acquisition.

They view the learners, the teacher and the setting as important as the task itself.

Swain (2000): a constructionist account of tasks is needed to understand how learning arises out of performance.

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Limitations of the socio-cultural perspective

Describing the social interactions that arise when learners perform tasks rather than demonstrating if these interactions contribute to acquisition.Reasons:

• ‘use’ = ‘acquisition’ (i.e. what learners have been shown to do in interaction is taken as evidence of internalization).

• the lack of a longitudinal dimension.

It rejected the deterministic view of tasks but failed to acknowledge that task features and variables do impact on task performance.

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Tasks in language pedagogy Two distinctions:

The ‘goal’ of task-based instruction

communicativeeffectiveness

L2 acquisition

Two dimensions of teachingidentified by Van Lier (1991)planning

improvising

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Tasks in language pedagogy TBLI has a number of purposes. Willis (1996) identifies eight:1. to give learners confidence in trying out whatever language they know;2. to give learners experience of spontaneous interaction;3. to give learners the chance to benefit from noticing how others express similar meanings;4. to give learners chances for negotiating turns to speak;5. to engage learners in using language purposefully and cooperatively;6. to make learners participate in a complete interaction, not just one-off sentences;7. to give learners chances to try out communication strategies; and8. to develop learners’ confidence that they can achieve communicative goals.

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Tasks in language pedagogy Seven of Willis’s purposes relate primarily to communicative

effectiveness; only one, (3), relates specifically to L2 acquisition.Achieving communicative effectiveness in the performance of a task will set

up the interactive conditions that promote L2 acquisition.

Not True Students may succeed in performing a task successfully without the need

to participate in much meaning negotiation or the need to attend to linguistic form. In so doing, they may emphasize fluency over accuracy or complexity.

Skehan’s cognitive approach and Yule’s theory of communicative effectiveness appear most promising.

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Tasks in language pedagogy Van Lier (1991; 1996) suggests that planning is one of two dimensions of

teaching, the other being ‘improvisation’ (i.e. the actual behaviours that arise during the process of a lesson which have not been planned for).

He sees both as important for a teacher’s professionalism. Any lesson needs to achieve a balance between these two dimensions.

Research in the psycholinguistic tradition of Long, Skehan and Yule has an obvious role to play in the ‘planning’ dimension of language teaching.

It provides information that can be used to select and grade tasks to suit the needs learners.

It can assist in the design of task-based courses.

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Tasks in language pedagogy In contrast, research in the socio-cultural tradition can make teachers

aware that the activity that arises from a task may not be exactly what was planned and that the participants adapt the task to their own purposes.

It illustrates the processes involved in determining task goals, Establishing intersubjectivity and scaffolding learners’ attempts to perform beyond their current level.

The two research traditions need not be seen as incompatible. Rather they mutually inform task-based instruction.

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Thank You Very Much