Jane Willis
Honorary Visiting Fellow, Aston University, UK
IATEFL Cardiff 2009 Designing, refining and
using communicative tasks
Session Outline
1. What counts as a task? What types of task are there?
2. Using tasks to promote language development
3. Workshop 1 – From topic to task. Group reports 4. Refining and improving tasks – trouble shooting
5. Workshop 2 – Refining task instructions; lesson planning 6. Implementing and exploring TBL…
Characteristics of effective tasks
Does the activity engage learners’ interest?
Is there a primary focus on meaning?
Does it have a clear outcome for learners to achieve?
Is success judged in terms of outcome? Is completion a priority?
Does it relate to real world activities?
What a task is NOT…
Learners acting out a dialogue or a comic strip
A ‘free’ production activity to ‘personalise’ a pre-taught structure
e.g. Ask your partner what they are going to do this week-end.
Role-play activities where learners are not being
themselves (i.e. acting, not meaning what they say.) All these are perfectly viable practice activities,
but would not count as ‘tasks’.
To learn a language, learners need opportunities to engage in lots of
meaning-focused interaction – using whatever language they have at their disposal. ‘Use it to learn it’.
Tasks generate meaning-focused
language use.
Choose a TOPIC for your tasks
In groups, agree on a topic that you will design a series of tasks around. Ideally, choose one you could use in class next term. 2 minutes.
Examples: cell phones, after-school activities, an older person you remember, pets, your best
holiday, your worst journey, local transport,
business meetings, death in different cultures,
rivers… and other CLIL topics
Tell others your topic and why you chose it.
Using tasks to promote language development
Tasks are most effective when used flexibly within a coherent Framework:
Priming & Preparation Task Cycle
Task >> Planning >> Report of outcome Form focus
Seven types of task
1. Listing: brainstorming and/or fact finding
e.g. things, qualities, people, places, features, things to do, reasons.
2. Ordering and sorting: sequencing, ranking, classifying e.g. sequencing story pictures, ranking items according to cost, popularity, negative or positive.
3. Matching e.g. Listen and identify, listen and do (TPR), match phrases/descriptions to pictures, match directions to maps.
4. Comparing: finding similarities or differences
e.g. comparing ways of greetings or local customs, playing
‘Spot the Difference’, contrasting two seasons.
5. Problem-solving: logic puzzles, real-life problems, case studies, incomplete texts e.g. logic problems,
giving advice, proposing and evaluating solutions, predicting a story ending.
6. Projects and creative tasks e.g. doing and reporting a survey, producing a class newspaper, planning a radio
show, designing a brochure.
7. Sharing personal experiences: story-telling,
anecdotes, reminiscences, opinions, reactions e.g.
early schooldays, terrible journeys, embarrassing moments, personality quizzes.
Workshop 1 – From topic to task
Spend 10 minutes using the list of seven task types to brainstorm possible tasks for your topic - but no need to cover all seven types if one or two prove unsuitable.
Choose 1 or 2 that would be good introductory tasks for the ‘priming’ stage (These could be teacher-led tasks, or start off as teacher led, or they could be prepared out of class, involve web research…)
Choose a set of 2 or 3 tasks that learners could do independently, in pairs or groups
Prepare to report back to the whole class.
Build a task sequence
1. Listing: brainstorming and/or fact finding 2. Ordering and sorting: sequencing, ranking, classifying, prioritising
3. Matching
4. Comparing: finding similarities or differences 5. Problem-solving: logic puzzles, real-life
problems, case studies, incomplete texts 6. Projects and creative tasks
7. Sharing personal experiences: story-telling,
anecdotes, reminiscences, opinions, reactions.
Refining tasks and improving tasks:
four parameters you can adjust
Goal / outcome Devise a final goal / outcome that is clear to students.
Make it specific! Or break it down into stages (with opportunities for exposure and output) so learners know (precisely) how to achieve it.
Pre-task preparation time Individual learners can think ahead how to do the task (strategic planning) and plan the language they need. This helps to stimulate engagement and lengthens speaking turns.
But sometimes let them do a task without preparation, spontaneously (involves different skills).
Interaction patterns: individuals, pairs, groups, whole class.
Individual roles: chairperson, spokesperson, secretary, editor, language advisor.
4. Post-task activities
planning and giving a report of the task
reflecting, then repeating the task with other partners
comparing with recordings of same task done by others form focused study, noting useful words, phrases, patterns learners recording themselves summarising or repeating the task; transcribing one minute’s worth of their interaction reflecting and evaluating on the process, writing feed-back.
Trouble shooting
Making time for tasks in class
When to work on language form?
When to allow L1 use?
How to make time for tasks in class?
Devote class time to activities that give experience of real language in use, experience that learners might not get outside class, especially spontaneous and planned spoken interaction.
Outside class
Some text book activities are best done at the learner’s own pace – set these for homework, to be checked quickly at start of next lesson.
For example, learners can:
prepare topic and task related vocabulary at home prior to the task, do form-focused exercises (grammar, vocabulary) for homework, do the listening / reading and follow up activities in their own time.
Encourage independent vocabulary learning and out of class projects and surveys.
When to work on language and focus on form?
Priming & Preparation Key lexis & useful phrases
Task >> Planning >>>> Report of outcome
Language extension >> Prestige language use
Form focus
Analysis & practice of language features from
texts written or spoken that learners have read or heard
When to allow L1 use?
Priming & Preparation Task Cycle
Task >> Planning >> Report of outcome Form focus
Analysis & practice
Workshop 2 – refining task instructions
With a partner, go through your set of tasks again, and
1. Refine your task instructions (be specific about outcome, roles and what to report on.) Try them out on another pair.
2. Plan a lesson outline (Can learners prepare at home?) Include a purpose for the Report stage.
Share your plan with others in your group.
So why Task-based Learning?
TBL provides learners with natural exposure (input), chances to use language to express what they want to mean (output), to focus on improving their own language and to analyse and practise forms.
TBL is more likely to keep learners motivated since it builds on whatever language they know in a positive way. Learners are actively engaged throughout the task cycle, and get chances to think for themselves and express themselves in the security of their group.
Learners become more independent and feel empowered, gaining satisfaction from successfully achieving things through English.
Implementing and exploring TBL…
Aim at richer interactions in class – focus on meaning first, form later.
Use your text-books flexibly: ‘taskify’ them.
Explore what happens when you use tasks: get learner feed-back, adapt tasks and try again.
(Edwards and Willis (eds) Teachers Exploring Tasks)
Teachers’ advice on TBL
‘Collaborate with your colleagues – it saves time – and it makes teaching much more rewarding…’
‘Collaboration is the key’
‘Don’t give up - it really works!’
www.willis-elt.co.uk
www.willis-elt.co.uk
References
Edwards C. and J. Willis (eds) 2005. Teachers Exploring Tasks in ELT.
Palgrave MacMillan. British Council ELT Innovations Award 2006 Willis D. 2003. Rules, Patterns and Words: Grammar and Lexis in English Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press
Willis D. and Willis, J. 2007 Doing Task-based Teaching OUP Useful websites:
An excellent introductory article on TBL by Richard Frost:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/a-task-based-approach Four articles on TBL by Jane Willis can be found at:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/criteria-identifying- tasks-tbl
Free sample task-based lesson plans at http ://www.willis-elt.co.uk/taskbased.html
