In the second installment of his thought-provoking and
thoroughly enjoyable “Dissing Dogme” series (see here), Hugh Dellar addresses the touchy
topic of language input in Dogme but this time Task-Based Learning (TBL) is
also thrown in the mix. Why has TBL come under attack?
I enjoy reading Hugh Dellar’s posts, especially his latest
anti-Dogme series which he pulls off with such ease and eloquence (and often
withering sarcasm). For those who don’t know, Hugh Dellar is an advocate of the
Lexical Approach and, together with Andrew Walkley, the co-author of Innovations
and Outcomes, the only EFL textbooks available on the market written from a
lexical perspective (you can read my very favourable post about Innovations here)
I’ve always thought that TBL and Lexical Approach with their
focus on meaning and the emphasis on use and exposure are close cousins. That’s
why I was surprised to see that while pulling Dogme to pieces Hugh Dellar also talks
disparagingly of TBL. In doing so, he draws on Anthony Bruton who has emerged
in recent years as a sort of enfant terrible of ELT who has criticized
practically everything: from TBL to the notion of World English (see ELT
Journal 56/3 and 59/3 respectively) and – most recently CLIL (see his talks at
last year’s and this year’s IATEFL conferences). But what surprised me was not Hugh’s reference
to Anthony Bruton’s articles but his criticism of the absence of proactive
language focus in TBL. Let’s have a closer look…
TBL model(s)
There is no definitive model for task-based instruction and
various models proposed by Scrivener, Skehan and Willis are slightly different.
However, what they all have in common is more or less the same three stage
structure: pre-task, task and post-task.
The pre-task serves the same purpose as any other pre-
(reading or listening) activity: it introduces the task – and this is one of
Anthony Bruton’s issues with TBL: its similarity to skills based teaching. Note
that this pre-stage can also include pre-teaching of some useful phrases and
expressions which students may need later when performing the actual task.
A task itself can include a very wide range of
activities – and that’s another thing Anthony Bruton seems to take issue with.
For example, David and Jane Willis suggest that processes involving listing,
sorting, matching, problem-solving, sharing personal experiences to name but a
few can all qualify as tasks.
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| Photo by Aryanaslam [CC-BY-SA-3.0 ] via Wikimedia Commons |
In the following post-task feedback stage the teacher
points out specific problematic language features which arose during the task
stage, highlights useful language, draws students’ attention to the gaps between their interlanguage and the target equivalent – all these are often described as
consciousness-raising (CR) activities. Now – and this is important - this stage
can be followed up by a repetition of the task or doing a similar task
in which students are given the opportunity to improve their performance.
Let’s apply this model to a lexical lesson…
_____________________________
Example 1: Describing a photograph.
Pre-intermediate
level - teen / adult learners.
PRE-TASK: Show childhood photos of famous people /
celebrities on the board to lead in to the topic. Ask students to guess who
these people are.
TASK: In pairs / groups, students show each other their childhood
photographs they have brought from home. They describe what is depicted in the
photo and talk about that stage of their lives. Teacher monitors and notes down
students’ errors as well as lexical deficiencies. Students then report to the
rest of the class on any new or interesting things they have learned about
their partners
POST-TASK: Students listen to a recording of a native
speaker / competent language user describing his or her photo. Students then
work with a transcript of the recording and analyse interesting linguistic
features. These might include but not be limited to the following chunks:
Back then...
Before I came over here…
We used to… we would... and then we'd...
It was in the summer when I’d just + past participle
When I turned 13…
Teacher can also focus here on the mistakes students made,
e.g. wrong past forms etc.
REPEAT TASK: students change partners and repeat the task
incorporating (hopefully) the language dealt with in the previous stage OR
students upload their photos to the class blog and write brief informal
descriptions.
_____________________________
Example 2: Talking about a newspaper article.
Upper-intermediate level – a small group of Business English students
PRE-TASK: whole class watches 3 or 4 videos from Fox Business Brief http://video.foxbusiness.com (each one usually lasts under a minute) and
discusses which news stories they find most interesting / relevant etc.
TASK: in pairs / groups, students talk about different news
articles they read at home. Teacher monitors and notes down students' mistakes on slips of paper and discretely hands them to students. These may
include:
*my article tells about…
*it’s deals with the problem of…
*I’m not agree with…
POST-TASK: live-listening. Students listen to the teacher
talking about an article (s)he read. As they listen they note down useful
chunks (in this case discourse markers) the teacher uses, such as
Basically what it talks about…
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| Photo by Lily Bar Am Kazado |
Apparently…
The main point he’s making is
What really surprised me was…
Another interesting thing is..
One more thing I forgot to mention is…
Going back to what I was saying…
But that’s not the end of the story.
POST-TASK: Teacher elicits from students and boards the chunks they
have written down
REPEAT TASK: Students talk about the news articles they have read in
front of the whole class trying to incorporate the above chunks
For more on "live listening" see my article here or Ken Lackman’s
article "Teacher as input"in ETp, Issue 48, Jan. 2007
_____________________________
Example 3: Creating an online poster as part of a
school linking project with an English-speaking country. Pre-intermediate level
– Young learners.
PRE-TASK: teacher and students discuss what information
should be included into a biography poster and brainstorm the language they
need. Useful patterns may include:
was born in… (place)
… was published in…
got married
won an award
is famous for his/her short stories / crime novels etc…
TASK: students work in groups to research the biography of a writer (from their
country) they’ve chosen and create a poster using Glogster – this stage can be
spread over a couple of lessons. Then they share their posters with other
groups.
POST-TASK: students view the posters created by their
English-speaking peers. Together with the teacher, they highlight useful chunks:
was born into a wealthy family (extension of was
born in…learners are already familar with)
she went to school (learners may have produced she
learnt at school)
went on to become…
Students incorporate appropriate changes in their Glogster
posters before uploading them to a class wiki and sharing with the linked school.
_____________________________
TBL & Lexical Approach
As you can see there is room for both reactive and proactive
language input as well as teacher-fronted language work within communicatively
negotiated interaction in TBL. Moreover, Ellis (2003) stresses that in order to
promote language acquisition tasks need to have a communicative as well as a linguistic
focus.
Unfortunately I have not gathered from Anthony Bruton’s
articles (which are soundly researched by the way) what his views on language
are. Nor have I observed him teach. But the way I see it, the task cycle
perfectly fits the lexical view of language and language teaching Hugh espouses
- as do I since I’ve always considered him to be my mentor.
Unlike TBL, the Lexical approach is often criticized for the
lack of clear instructional sequence (see, for example, this Scott Thornbury's article), which
is perhaps the unfortunate reason why it has never been taken up by the
mainstream ELT. Hence Hugh Dellar’s criticism of the paradigm perfectly
compatible with and suitable for lexical teaching came as a surprise to me – unless
I grossly misunderstand the TBL framework.
References & further reading
Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. OUP
Willis, D. & Willis, J. (2007). Doing task-based teaching. OUP
Willis, J. (1996). A framework for task-based learning. Longman
see also Willis' website: http://www.willis-elt.co.uk/
Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning teaching (2nd ed.). Macmillan
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