Task-based research and language pedagogyRod Ellis

g9641076 Brenda 張琳美Date:2008/03/07

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Outline of the Presentation

I Introduction II Defining Task III Task from a psycholinguistic perspective1 The Interaction Hypothesis 2 A ‘cognitive approach’ to tasks 3 Communicative effectiveness. 4 Evaluating the psycholinguistic perspective.

IV Task from a social-culture perspective V Task in language pedagogy

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I Introduction What is “Task” ? Pica (1997) A construct of equal importance to (SLA) researchers and teachers.

Corder, (1981), Prabhu (1987). Both clinically eliciting for research and a device for organizing the

content and methodology

Bygate, Skehan and Swain(2000b) Viewed differently whether the perspective is.

The purpose To examine theoretical views of language use, learning a

nd teaching.

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I Introduction

Lantolf (1996) The first view computational models of (L2) acquisition. Long and Crookes ( 1987) ‘psycholinguistically motivated dimensions’ of tasks. Vygotsky The second view is socio-cultural in orientation.

Ellis He is arguing that language pedagogy needs to take account of b

oth views in order to accommodate Van Lier’s (1991) two essential teaching dimensions – ‘planning’ and ‘improvising

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II Defining Task

Bygate, Skehan and Swain (2000b) ‘context-free’

Breen(1989) task-as-workplan Skehan (1998a) 4 defining criteria: 1. meaning is primary;2. there is a goal which needs to be worked towar

ds;3. the activity is outcome-evaluated;4. there is a real-world relationship (p. 268).

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II Defining Task

Widdowson (1998a) 1.he is critical and arguing that the ‘criteria do not i

n themselves distinguish the linguistic exercise and the communicative task’ (p. 328).

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

Ellis –see Table 1 It is an attempt to incorporate Widdowson’s insight into Skehan’s definition.

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Table 1

1

2

3

4

5

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III Task from a psycholinguistic perspective A task is a devise Skehan, Faster and Mehnert (1998)1. Task properties the nature of the performance.2. The task –as- workplan and the task-as- process.

3. The design features of task. Lantolf (1996) -‘computational metaphor’. Chomsky (1960) as the person Mainstream cognitive science so strongly believes in th

e metaphor .(1970s-1980s)

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computational metaphor

The first, in the 1980s is Long’s Interaction Hypothesis .

The second, in the 1990s is Skehan’s ‘cognitive approach’.

Two types of processing (lexical processing and rule-based processi

ng). The third is Yule’s model of communicative ef

fectiveness. Language pedagogy is concerned.

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1.The Interaction Hyphothesis

Theoretical Background Long’s Interaction Hypothesis (1983) L2 acquisition is from..1.Comprehensible input 2.Negotiate meaning

3.Feedback from the production 4.Output

Ellis-Table 2 Swain’s Output Hypothesis (1985,1995) Long’s Interaction Hypothesis (1996)

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Table 2

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Swain’s Output Hypothesis (1985,1995)

learners’ pushed output in conversation

notice the gap between interlanguage and target language, improve/correct

L2 acquisition

negotiation

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Long’s Interaction Hypothesis (1996)

negotiation

promote comprehensible input

make linguistic forms salient

Learners modify their output

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2.A ‘cognitive approach’ to tasks

(1)Fluency Fluency concerns the learner’s capacity to produce language in

real time without undue pausing or hesitation. (2)Accuracy Accuracy concerns how well language is produced in relation

to the target language (3)Complexity Complexity concerns the elaboration or ambition of the

language which is produced. E.g., Fluency : memory-based system Accuracy and Complexity: rule-based system and syntactic processing

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Table 3

3

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B.Task implementation

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3.Communicative effectives

Yule (1997) distinguishes two broad dimensions of communicative effectiveness:

(1) the identification-of-referent dimension. (2) the role-taking dimension.

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(1)the identification-of-referent dimension. 1. to encode the referents 2. to notice specific attributes of the referent3. to distinguished from other referents

(2) the role-taking dimension. 1. to take account of their communicative partners 2. to make inferences about the other speaker’s

perspective 3.to take these inferences into account when encoding a

message 4. to attend to the feedback provided by the other

speakers

3. Communicative effectives

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Table 4

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4. Evaluating the psycholinguistics perspectiveThe approach adopted has been as follows: 1. Determine what effect task variables have on task performance. 2. Draw on a theory of L2 acquisition/communicative effectiveness to make claims regarding the relationship between specific types of language performance and L2 acquisition/communicative effectiveness. 3. Infer which kinds of tasks will work best for promoting L2 acquisition/communicative effectiveness. As Skehan (1998a) has pointed out, the inherent weakness of this approach lies in the failure to show a direct relationship between task-design and L2 acquisition.

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IV Task from a social-culture perspective

1. sociocultural theory has grown out of the work of Vygotsky (1986) and Leont’ev (1981), among others.

2. As Appel and Lantolf (1994) point out ‘performance depends crucially on the interaction of individual and task’

3. Coughlan and Duff (1994) distinguish between what they call ‘task’ (i.e. the workplan) and ‘activity’ (i.e. the actual language that occurs when learners perform the task).

4. According to socio-cultural theory, learning arises not through interaction but in interaction.

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IV Task from a social-culture perspective

5. functions are ‘scaffolded’ by the participants. Scaffolding is the dialogic process by which one

speaker assists another to perform a new function.

According to Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976), it can (1) involve recruiting interest in the task, (2) simplifying the task as necessary, (3) maintaining pursuit of the goal of the task, (4) Marking critical features and the ideal solution, (5) controlling frustration during problem solving.

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IV Task from a social-culture perspective

6. Donato (1994), 7. Swain (e.g. Swain and Lapkin, 1998) 8. Samuda (2000) 9. Socio-cultural theory, offers a very different perspective on tasks. 10. Swain (2000) argues that a constructionist account of tasks is needed 11. Samuda (2000), the importance of examining th

e task and teacher ‘in action’ but also illustrates how a task can be designed to create a ‘semantic space’ so as to provide opportunities for learners to use a specifically

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V Task in language pedagogy

1 Task-based language instruction whether this is ‘communicative effectiveness’ or ‘L2 acquisition’.

Van Lier (1991) 2 dimensions of teaching. -‘planning’ and ‘improvising’ Willis(1996: 35–6) identifies 8 purposes : To give learners …

(1). confidence & trying out (2). experience & interaction (3). to give the chance to benefit from others; (4). negotiating turns to speak;

SLA

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V Task in language pedagogy

(5). using language purposefully & cooperatively; (6). to make a complete interaction,

not just one-off sentences; (7). to try out communication strategies; (8). to develop learners’ confidence. Interestingly, seven of Willis’s purposes relate

primarily to communicative effectiveness; only one, (3), relates specifically to L2 acquisition.

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V Task in language pedagogy

2. The theoretical perspectives 3. The assumption -language performance will result

from specific tasks. 4. Good reasons from Ellis

First, recognition can be given to the propensity of certain tasks to lead to particular types of language behaviour.

Second, given the strong theoretical rationale for task based courses, teachers need to be able to design such courses.

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V Task in language pedagogy 5. Van Lier (1991; 1996) suggests that planning is on

e of two dimensions of teaching, the other being ‘improvisation’

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

7. From a pedagogic perspective (1) Van Lier argues that teachers need to develop a

‘dual vision’ –to keep long-term sense of direction and make on-line decision.

(2) Plattand Brooks (1994), and, instead, accept the need for a pluralistic research agenda capable of addressing the multi-faceted nature of ask-based instruction.

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A few references…Rod Ellis University of Auckland, r.ellis@auckland.ac.nz Appel, G. and Lantolf, J. 1994: Speaking as mediation: a study of L1 and L2 text recall tasks. The Modern Language Journal 78: 437–52. Breen, M. 1989. The evaluation cycle for language learning. In Johnson, R.K., editor, The second language curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brooks, F.B. and Donato, R. 1994: Vygotskyan approaches to understanding foreign language learner discourse during communication tasks. Hispania 77: 262–74. Brown, G. 1995: Speaker, listeners and communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bygate, M., Skehan, P. and Swain, M., editors, 2000a: Researching pedagogic tasks: second language learning, teaching and testing. Harlow, Essex: Longman. Bygate, M., Skehan, P. and Swain, M., editors, 2000b: Introduction. In Bygate, M. et al. (editors). Corder, S.P. 1980: Second language acquisition research and the teaching of grammar. BAAL Newsletter 10. –––– 1981: Error analysis and interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coughlan, P. and Duff, P. 1994: Same task, different activities: analysis of SLA from an activity theory perspective. In J. Lantolf and G. Appel, editors, 173–94. Donato, R. 1994: Collective scaffolding in second language learning. In J. Lantolf and G. Appel, editors, 33–56. Ellis, N. 1996: Sequencing in SLA: phonological memory, chunking, and points of order. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18: 91–126. Ellis, R. forthcoming: Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellis, R. and He, X. 1999: The roles of modified input and output in the

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Thank you very much

for your kind attention!