1、英语教学理论与方法,6. Task-based Approaches,INTRODUCTION,As with content-based instruction, a task-based approach aims to provide learners with a natural context for language use. As learners work to complete a task, they have abundant opportunity to interact. Such interaction is thought to facilitate langua
2、ge acquisition as learners have to work to understand each other and to express their own meaning.,By so doing, they have to seek clarification. By interacting with others, they get to listen to language which may be beyond their present ability, but which may be assimilated into their knowledge of
3、the target language for use at a later time. As Candlin and Murphy (1987:1) note, The central purpose we are concerned with is language learning, and tasks present this in the form of a problem-solving negotiation between knowledge that the learner holds and new knowledge.,Experience,The following l
4、esson is one that has been adapted and expanded from Prabhu (1987). It takes place in Southern India. The class consists of 40 ten-year-old children who are advanced beginners in English. As we enter the classroom, the teacher is speaking:We are going to do a lesson today on timetables. OK?,The teac
5、her draws the columns and rows of a class timetable on the blackboard. At the head of the first column, she writes 9:30-10:15. The students understand that the teacher has written the duration of the first class period of the day.,“What should I write here?” asks the teacher, pointing to the head of
6、 the second column. The students respond, Ten fifteen. And then Eleven oclock, as the teacher moves her finger across the top row. The teacher points in turn to the top of each column and the students chorus the time that each class period begins and ends.,Then the teacher asks: Who will write the n
7、ames for the days of the week here? Several students raise their hands. The teacher calls on one. Come, she says. The student she has called on comes to the front of the room, takes the chalk, and writes the names of each weekday beside each row, Monday to Friday, correctly as the rest of the class
8、helps with the spelling.,Is that correct? the teacher asks. Correct! the students chorus back. What about Saturday? Do we have school on Saturday? The students reply in unison, Noholiday. The teacher responds, Holiday. Yes. Saturdays a holiday.,Next the teacher divides the class into eight groups of
9、 five students. Each student in a group receives a card with the schedule for one day of the week. The students task is to complete the weeks schedule by sharing the information on their cards with each other. There is much discussion as each group works to draw up a full schedule. As she moves abou
10、t the room listening to the groups, the teacher reminds the class to speak in English. The first group that is finished comes to the blackboard and writes the schedule on the board.,After the students have checked their work, the teacher collects each groups timetable so she can read it and return i
11、t to them the next day. She checks their timetables mainly to see that the content is correct. Next, still working in their groups, the students are told that they are to find a way to survey their classmates preferences of their favorite school subjects. They must find out which are the three most
12、popular subjects among class members. Each group is to discuss ways they might find out the information.,They might design a questionnaire, for instance, or go around the room interviewing other students. After they have completed their survey, they have to summarize and report the results. They hav
13、e to determine how to do this. For example, they may use percentages, a bar graph, a pie chart, or come other visual display. Once again, much interaction takes place. Students are busily talking about how they will gather the information they need to complete the task and later report their finding
14、s.,Thinking about the experience,We have seen that tasks are used in Communicative Language Teaching, so at first glance what we have just observed may not seem so different. But notice that while the task in our CLT lesson was designed to get students to practice making predictions, a communicative
15、 function, the task-based lesson we have just observed did not focus on a particular function, or even a particular form of the language.,In fact, the teacher used a wide variety of linguistic forms, which the context made clear. The departure from CLT in such lessons lay not in the tasks themselves
16、, but in the accompanying pedagogic focus on task completion instead of on the language used in the process (Long and Crookes 1993:31). This is a major shift of perspective, one characteristic of all of the methods dealt with in this chapter.,Let us compile the principles underlying task-based instr
17、uction depicted in the lesson from Prabhu (1987) by making some observations and then attempting to infer the underlying principles from them.,Prabhu identified three types of tasks, all of which were represented in the lesson we have just observed. An information-gap activity, which we saw used in
18、the previous chapter and in this one, involves the exchange of information among participants in order to complete a task. For example, and information-gap activity might involve a student describing a picture for another student to draw or students drawing each others family trees after sharing inf
19、ormation. In this lesson, students had to exchange information within their groups in order to complete the timetable.,An opinion-gap activity requires that students give their personal preferences, feelings, or attitudes in order to complete a task. For instance, students might be given a social pr
20、oblem, such as high unemployment and be asked to come up with a series of possible solutions. Another task might be to compose a letter of advice to a friend who has sought their counsel about a dilemma. In our lesson, the students were only at the advanced-beginning level. Their opinion-gap task wa
21、s a rather simple one which involved students surveying their classmates about their favorite subjects.,A reasoning-gap activity requires students to derive some new information by inferring it from information they have been given. For example, students might be given a railroad timetable and asked
22、 to work out the best route to get from one particular city to another or they might be asked to solve a riddle. In the lesson we observed, students were asked to use their findings to figure out how best to discover their classmates three most popular subjects.,Prabhu (1987) feels that reasoning-ga
23、p tasks work best since information-gap tasks often require a single step transfer of information, rather than sustained negotiation, and opinion-gap tasks tend to be rather open-ended. Reasoning-gap tasks, on the other hand, encourage a more sustained engagement with meaning, though they are still
24、characterized by a somewhat predictable use of language.,Long and Crookes (1993) have identified three different types of task-based approaches (they call them syllabi). The first of these is procedural, which is illustrated in the lesson. The second is based on Breen and Candlins (1980) notion that
25、 language learning should be seen as a process which grows out of communicative interaction. As such, students and teachers decide together upon which tasks to do. The third type of approach is their own task-based language teaching, which focuses on meaningful interaction while still drawing studen
26、ts attention to language form as needed.,Whereas in Prabhus approach, the teacher designs which tasks are to be worked on, others believe that the way to begin is to conduct a needs analysis of real-world tasks that learners are likely to need to perform (Long forthcoming, cited in Skenhan 1998). Th
27、en pedagogic tasks, which are more accessible to the students and more manageable by the teacher than real-world tasks, can be designed.,Another approach, which is also concerned with real-world language use, but is distinctive enough to merit special consideration, is Project Work. As with a task-b
28、ased approach, the language practiced in the classroom is not predetermined, but rather derives from the nature of a particular project that students elect to do. For example, students might decide to take on a project such as publishing a school newspaper in the target language.,This project would
29、follow the same three stages of all projects (based on Fried-Booth 1986). During the first stage of their project, the students would work in their class, planning, in collaboration with the teacher, the content and scope of the project and specific language needs they might have. They might also de
30、vise some strategies for how they will carry out the tasks, such as assigning each other specific roles to fulfill.,The second stage typically takes place outside the classroom and involves the gathering of any necessary information. For example, if the students have decided to publish a school news
31、paper, then this stage might involve their conducting interviews, taking photographs, and gathering printed or visual material. It would also include writing up their interviews and laying out and printing and distributing the first edition of their newspaper. During this stage, students may well us
32、e all four skills in a natural, integrated fashion.,In the third and final stage, students review their project. They monitor their own work and receive feedback from the teacher on their performance. At each of these three stages, the teacher will be working with the students acting as counselor and consultant, not as the project director. By encouraging students to move out of the classroom and into the world, project work helps to bridge the gap between language study and language use.,
