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- Herausgeber: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
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- Serie: narr STUDIENBÜCHER
- Sprache: Englisch
The focus on communication in TBLT often comes at the expense of form. In this book, the task-based approach is enhanced and coupled with insights into (cognitive) grammar, an approach which sees grammar as meaningful. The book shows how grammar teaching can be integrated into a communicative lesson in a non-explicit way, i.e., "by the backdoor". The learners are involved in situations that they may also encounter outside their classrooms and they are given communicative tasks they are to work on and solve, usually with a partner or in small groups. What teachers need to invest for preparing such lessons is their own creativity, as they have to come up with communicative situations which guide the learners into using a specific grammatical structure. The book first discusses the didactic and the linguistic theories involved and then translates these theoretical perspectives into actual teaching practice, focusing on the following grammatical phenomena: tense, aspect, modality, conditionals, passive voice, prepositions, phrasal verbs, verb complementation, pronouns and articles.
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Susanne Niemeier
Task-based grammar teaching of English
Where cognitive grammar and task-based language teaching meet
A. Francke Verlag Tübingen
© 2018 • Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen www.francke.de • [email protected]
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E-Book-Produktion: pagina GmbH, Tübingen
ePub-ISBN 978-3-8233-0035-9
Inhalt
Dedicated to my children Daria and Niclas – and to all my students in module 5.3 –
0.Introduction
Over the past two decades, task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been introduced quite successfully into foreign language teaching methodology in wide parts of the world and a sizable number of current and especially future foreign language teachers have become acquainted with this approach during their studies as well as during diverse internships and trainings-on-the-job. However, task-based teaching has not yet found a solid way into foreign language classrooms. Textbooks do not integrate this approach, nor do curricula, as task-based teaching is seen as being partly incompatible with current views on didactic progression. This situation is understandable insofar as task-based language teaching does not – and does not want to – follow the rigid routine of a traditional foreign language textbook. This may be seen as a disadvantage by those teachers who have learned to rely exclusively on a text book series, but for teachers with a more creative mindset the integration of task-based teaching bears many advantages, which outweigh the disadvantage just mentioned, as it allows the teachers (as well as their learners) a lot more freedom to deal with everyday situations and current issues, which is usually perceived as immensely motivating by both teachers and learners alike.
Task-based language teaching stands in the tradition of the multitude of available communicative approaches, which is the reason why it mainly focuses on communication. Fostering communicative skills is certainly far from being a bad idea, but at the same time an exclusive focus on communication may frequently come at the expense of form. Many task-based language classrooms (as well as a sizable part of the task-based language teaching literature) therefore largely avoid grammar teaching, as the concepts of ‘grammar teaching’ in the teachers’ minds are generally connected to something negative, something that “has to be done” but is not necessarily fun. This rather negative attitude towards grammar is observable in many teachers and teacher trainees, who transport it subconsciously – and probably unwillingly – to their learners.
Yet, how can grammar be seen as fun or even as interesting when not even the teachers like it? Such a view of grammar is presumably still heavily influenced by the grammar drills and/or PPP methods (“presentation, practice, production”) that the teachers have encountered in their own school, university or internship days, where grammar was presented as a set of abstract structures with rules and exceptions which had to be learned by heart, and where grammar was not necessarily related to meaning. However, today, as CELCE-MURCIA (2001: 466) correctly claims, “grammar can no longer be viewed as a central, autonomous system to be taught and learned independent of meaning, social function and discourse structure”.
This book even goes a step further because it argues that grammar is as meaningful as lexis (just in a more abstract way) and that teaching grammar is therefore at the same time teaching meaning. This perspective is owing to the fast-growing body of research in theoretical cognitive grammar and in applied cognitive grammar, an approach which is seen as usage-based, i.e., as a descriptive and not a prescriptive way of looking at grammar in usage events, and which has already managed to develop meaning-based explanations of various grammatical phenomena and has empirically proven their effectiveness (although hardly ever in task-based classrooms). According to ACHARD/NIEMEIER (2004: 7), applied cognitive grammar is a good starting point for grammar instruction, “because the kinds of generalizations it posits to describe linguistic organisation can easily be made explicit, and thus incorporated into classroom practices”.
As grammar will definitely be an ever-present ingredient in any foreign language classroom, grammar teaching will always be a necessity. What will hopefully change is the perspective that teachers have concerning the concept of ‘grammar’, no longer seeing it as a necessary evil but seeing it as what it really is, namely a tool in the learners’ hands which enables them to say exactly what they want to say, thus contributing to and sometimes even establishing the meanings of the utterances the learners intend to make. Only if learners know how to flexibly use this tool in diverse situations will they be able to communicate efficiently.
This idea is quite close to PENNINGTON’s view, who argues that “grammar is a process of choosing forms and constructing language to respond to communicative demands, it essentially involves the learner’s creative response to context and circumstance” (1995: vii). If such a functional concept of grammar is then coupled with insights from cognitive grammar, which presents grammatical phenomena as bearing meaning and as the language users’ deliberate choices of construal and not just – as in traditional views on grammar – as prescriptive and rule-governed ways of using the language, learners have the chance to stop seeing grammar as a straightjacket and to start seeing it as the tool it is, which should also enable them to use the foreign language creatively and not just reproductively. This is certainly easier the more advanced a learner is, but also less advanced learners can use language creatively, although with certain restrictions, as of course their linguistic repertoire is smaller than that of more advanced learners. Using language creatively will also benefit an outside-of-the-classroom use of the foreign language, as a creative use of language is exactly what happens in ‘real’ communication, which is quite different from the pseudo-communication that can be found in the majority of more conventional foreign language classrooms.
According to ALLWRIGHT/HANKS (2009: 51), task-based language teaching “puts learners in an unconventional and perhaps unusually proactive relationship to their classroom learning. They have more room to show seriousness of purpose, some capacity for decision-making and space to be unique”, an important quote which already mentions several crucial aspects of this approach. Task-based language teaching can be seen as an action-oriented approach, which can be enhanced by integrating grammar teaching in a non-explicit way, i.e., “by the backdoor”, while the learners may not even notice that what they are learning IS indeed grammar. They will be involved in situations that they may, at least to a certain extent, also encounter outside their classrooms and they are given communicative tasks they are to work on and solve, usually with a partner or in small groups.
These situations and tasks have to be carefully chosen and developed by the teacher so that in order to fulfil a task the learners need to use a specific grammatical phenomenon. In this way, not only the communicative topic is foregrounded in the lesson, as is usual in task-based classrooms, but the lesson focus is instead two-pronged, as a grammatical topic goes hand-in-hand with the communicative topic. What teachers need to invest for preparing such lessons is especially their creativity, as they have to come up with communicative situations which more or less force the learners to use a specific grammatical structure and which additionally cater to different learner types. This book suggests to use WILLIS’ task cycle in a modified way (cf. WILLIS1996). During the pre-task the teacher already uses the grammatical phenomenon in question but does not yet expect the learners to use it, while during the task itself the structure may and should already be used by the learners. Only after the learners have presented their task outcomes is the grammatical structure in question explicitly focussed upon. In other words: in this book, the task-based approach is enhanced and coupled with insights into (cognitive) grammar, and these two approaches jointly become a very useful tool for the foreign language classroom.
So far, tasked-based language teaching and cognitive grammar have not frequently been brought together. TYLER (2012) has presented some suggestions, but has not delved deeply into the topic. CADIERNO/ROBINSON (2009) have used pedagogic tasks to teach the construal of motion events and JACOBSEN (2016) has conducted an experiment on the task-based teaching of the English conditional from a cognitive grammar perspective, the results of which show that the cognitively based way of teaching was more successful than the task-based approach on its own and that both of these ways of teaching worked better than traditional methods. The connection between task-based teaching and cognitive grammar definitely seems to be a fruitful one, although this can only be claimed with caution, as there is still a lack of studies.
This book intends to show that a connection of task-based teaching and cognitive grammar is indeed a very fruitful one, as the two approaches can be integrated in order to yield the approach of task-based grammar teaching (TBGT). The book consists of two main parts, a more theoretical one and a more practical one, and is structured as follows. The first part discusses the didactic as well as the linguistic theoretical background, starting with some general reflections on the role of grammar teaching in various didactic approaches and pointing out the necessity of grammar instruction. Chapter 2 summarises the development of task-based language teaching, discusses its advantages and disadvantages as well as various unresolved questions that researchers do not all agree upon, such as the role of grammar in this approach. It furthermore outlines general ways of implementing the approach into the foreign language classroom, focusing mainly on WILLIS’ task cycle. Chapter 3 offers a concise introduction to cognitive grammar and its applications and additionally outlines their potential for the foreign language classroom. Chapter 4 then brings the two approaches of task-based language teaching and applied cognitive grammar together and explains how one can profit from the other.
Subsequently, the second part of this book translates the rather theoretical perspectives of the first part into actual teaching practice. It discusses ten case studies on diverse grammatical phenomena, which were chosen according to their relevance for the foreign language classroom, starting out with the TAM complex that every verb entails (tense, aspect, modality – treated separately due to ease of explanation although they actually belong together), continuing with conditional clauses and the passive voice, tackling prepositions and phrasal verbs, and finally focusing on verb complementation in complex sentences as well as on pronoun usage and article usage. The book does not intend to provide model lessons or teaching recipes but instead uses one teaching example in each of the chapters to explain in detail how the grammatical phenomenon in question can be implemented in a task-based way into a communicative situation. Further possible communicative situations and tasks are briefly indicated after the explanations of the teaching examples. Most grammar topics are discussed with a secondary school audience in mind. Those topics which are also suitable for a primary school audience (or for (pseudo-) beginners in secondary school who do not have a solid foundation from their primary school English years), such as prepositions, pronouns and articles, are discussed for an audience of less advanced learners but can also be used with more advanced learners in order to help them reorganise their grammar skills.
The references following each chapter list the publications which are quoted in the chapters and which can be consulted for more in-depth information. In some instances, further basic texts have been added.
Further reading
ACHARD, Michel/NIEMEIER, Susanne (2004): “Cognitive linguistics, language acquisition and pedagogy”. In: ACHARD, Michel/NIEMEIER, Susanne (eds.): Cognitive linguistics, second language acquisition, and foreign language teaching. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1–12.
ALLWRIGHT, Dick/HANKS, Judith (2009): The developing language learner: An introduction to exploratory practice. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
CADIERNO, Teresa/ROBINSON, Peter (2009): “Language typology, task complexity and the development of L2 lexicalization patterns for describing motion events”. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics6, 245–277.
CELCE-MURCIA, Marianne (2001): Teaching English as a second or foreign language. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
JACOBSEN, Natalia D. (2016): “The best of both worlds: Combining cognitive linguistics and pedagogic tasks to teach English conditionals”. Applied Linguistics, https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw030.
PENNINGTON, Martha C. (1995): “A situated process view of grammar”. In: PENNINGTON, Martha C. (ed.): New ways in teaching grammar. Alexandria, VA: TESOL Inc., i-xvi.
TYLER, Andrea (2012): Cognitive linguistics and second language learning: Theoretical basics and experimental evidence. London: Routledge.
WILLIS, Jane (1996): A framework for task-based learning. Harlow: Longman.
PART I: Didactic and linguistic theory
Introduction to part I
This part of the book starts off from a didactic perspective on grammar teaching, elaborating its role in various approaches and methodologies and then concentrates on the approach of task-based teaching, especially focusing on its development, the definition of the concept “task”, on a suitable methodological framework for an implementation of this approach, and on the role of grammar in this approach. Subsequently, the discussion turns towards the linguistic theory, which is based upon the research area of cognitive grammar. The cognitive-linguistic paradigm and its major tenets and beliefs are introduced before the more specialised area of cognitive grammar is explained in detail. The connection between cognitive grammar and foreign language teaching is scrutinised and, in a final chapter, the didactic and the linguistic theories are brought together.
1.Grammar in the foreign language classroom
This chapter starts with some brief comments on the current situation of grammar teaching in English classrooms in Germany, in the majority of which the PPP method (presentation – practice – production) is used, before describing the role that has been devoted to grammar in different language teaching approaches over the ages, starting with the Grammar-Translation Method, continuing with the Audiolingual Approach, ending with the communicative approaches, including the relatively recent focus-on-form movement, and leading up to task-based language learning.
1.1Current situation
In most German foreign language classrooms, the so-called PPP (presentation – practice – production) approach is currently chosen when it comes to grammar teaching. In this approach, a new grammatical feature is first presented to the learners, normally via the coursebook, which usually contains one or more didacticised texts with an inauthentically high number of occurrences of the phenomenon in question. In a second step, the teacher then explains this phenomenon deductively or lets the learners discover it inductively. This is followed by an analysis of the form and use of the new structure, and finally rules (and sometimes signal words) are formulated, which have to be written down by the learners and learnt by heart. The third step focuses on the learners’ controlled production and use of the targeted phenomenon, frequently in exercises consisting of isolated sentences. However, the meaningfulness of the new grammatical structure is hardly ever touched upon and the PPP procedure does not necessarily enable the learners to use the grammatical phenomenon in naturally occurring conversation outside of the classroom.
R. ELLIS (2003: 29) mentions that “implicit in PPP is the idea that it is possible to lead learners from controlled to automatic use of new language features”. However, such use would normally still be decontextualised, i.e., it is not pragmatically anchored in a specific usage context. R. ELLIS continues his convincing arguments against the PPP approach by criticising that “PPP views language as a series of ‘products’ that can be acquired sequentially as ‘accumulated entities” (ibid.), that “SLA research has shown that learners do not acquire a language in this way” (ibid.) and that “L2 acquisition is a ‘process’ that is incompatible with teaching seen as the presentation and practice of a series of ‘products’” (ibid.). Furthermore, PPP is a very teacher-centred approach and the learners normally only react to the teacher’s and/or the coursebook input, but do not become the pro-active and collaborative learners which they are meant to be from a more modern perspective, which is also the perspective of task-based language teaching.
Grammar is an omnipresent phenomenon in the foreign language classroom and it is generally not liked too much, neither by the learners nor by the teachers. Learning to master a foreign language certainly involves learning (about) the grammar of this language as well, however, there are many different opinions on what ‘grammar’ actually is. Most people would probably say that the term relates to the structural aspects of language and they would contrast it with the notion of ‘vocabulary’. Indeed, when it comes to the competences to be acquired in foreign language teaching, most current EFL textbooks still differentiate between ‘vocabulary’ and ‘grammar’ / ‘structures’ in their tables of contents. Cognitive grammar, on the other hand, argues that lexis and grammar are inseparably intertwined and form two ends of a continuum, sharing many organisational principles (such as categorisation, (un)boundedness and metaphorization, among others) – this is explained in more detail in the third chapter.
Language cannot be defined without these two poles of the continuum. If there was only vocabulary, people would run around and utter single words – and this is certainly not what is meant by “communication”. If there was only grammar and no words, nothing could be said or even thought at all. Both ingredients are necessary and work together. Even a very simple sentence like “Mary runs” does not only contain words, but is full of grammar as well. On the one hand, the sentence follows the English word order in that the subject is placed before the verb. As the verb is intransitive in its motion meaning1, it cannot have an object. Furthermore, the sentence is tensed (third person singular present tense) and the non-use of the progressive aspect states that the sentence does not describe an ongoing activity but instead a habitual one, as Mary may be a member of a running team with regular running meetings, or that Mary always runs when under stress, for example. What is still more, the sentence talks about reality, as otherwise modal auxiliaries would be used (Mary could run, Mary may run, Mary ought to run etc. – all of them indicating various extents of distance towards reality and all of them indicating that it is not a proven fact that Mary runs).
Therefore, even in the very first English lessons for beginning learners, in which simple sentences such as the one mentioned above are used on a regular basis, grammar is an ever-present asset and contributes a lot to the meanings of the utterances made, although in a more abstract way than vocabulary does. This is why grammar should never be neglected in the foreign language classroom and why learners need to be made aware of the meaning components that grammar contributes to the overall meaning of an utterance. Although WIDDOWSON (1990: 97) correctly argued already thirty years ago that “language learning is essentially learning how grammar functions in the achievement of meaning”, this sound piece of advice has hardly been accepted and grammar has rather been taught “for grammar’s sake”.
1.2A brief history of grammar teaching
Over the history of second language acquisition theories, the importance of grammar instruction has varied quite extensively, from playing a key role to being of hardly any importance, depending on the theories that were fashionable at certain times. The following paragraphs briefly elucidate in a simplified way the major theories on second language acquisition with respect to the role that grammar plays in them.
Foreign languages have been taught since the Middle Ages, when Latin and Ancient Greek were the languages to be learnt. When at a certain point of time foreign language teaching no longer focused on the teaching of ancient languages that were no longer spoken but turned towards modern languages instead, the way of teaching foreign languages did not change but was simply taken over from the teaching of the classical languages. This first approach to the teaching of modern foreign languages was called the ‘Grammar-Translation Method’ – definitely a misnomer, as a method needs a theory behind it, which was absent in this case.
Similar to the teaching of classical languages, the language of instruction for the modern languages was usually the learners’ mother tongue, and when learners left school after many years of foreign language instruction they were in most cases utterly unable to hold a conversation in the foreign language, as this had usually never happened in the classroom, in which the focus was nearly exclusively on written and not on spoken language. Sophisticated texts were read and translated in class and grammar structures in these texts were explained and discussed, not with the aim to prepare the learners for being able to communicate with native speakers of the foreign language but with the aim of acquainting the learners with the literature of the foreign culture and educating them to be persons with a taste for what was seen as ‘high culture’ in those days.
The aim of language education was not to enable the learners to use the foreign language, but education was rather seen as ‘cultivation’. Furthermore, grammar analysis was meant to train the learners’ capacity for logical thought. Language was thus not used as an everyday communicative tool but dissected in a quasi-academic way. As communication was of no special interest, grammar played a decisive role in this type of instruction. Interestingly enough, this way of foreign language instruction is still popular in wide parts of the world (cf. also NUNAN 2015: 8).
Although criticism of the Grammar-Translation Method came up relatively early, nothing much changed until World War II, during which the necessity for people to actually speak foreign languages became vital. New methods, among them what VANPATTEN/WILLIAMS (2013: 17) call the “Army method”, were developed, which were meant to lead the learners towards an ability to really speak the language in question. This was partly inspired by the thought that the enemy should be understood, partly inspired by the wish to send diplomats and soldiers or even smuggle spies into a foreign country who had to speak the foreign language flawlessly in order not to be detected, and certainly also inspired by the wish for a teaching method which focused more on oral production than on reading, analysing, translating and interpreting classic literature.
The so-called Audiolingual Approach, based on behaviouristic theories of conditioning via stimulus-response, was therefore developed in the USA, but reasonably quickly also found its way to Germany. In the 1970s, many German schools invested heavily in language laboratories, in which the learners were sitting in single cubicles, listening with headphones to tapes playing sample sentences of the foreign language. They were expected to repeat the sentences they heard and transform them in so-called ‘pattern drills’. The teacher could listen in to every single one of the learners and could also correct them. This way of teaching focused on oral production, repetition and automatization. Grammar was ‘performed’ in these pattern drills, where, for example, an active sentence was presented which the learners had to transform into a passive sentence, but the transformation was not explained any further. Therefore, the importance of grammar in this approach was rather minor, as the students were expected to learn from analogies and as an explicit analysis of grammatical phenomena did not happen. The method relied instead on the automatization of a grammatical structure by repetition, i.e., by ‘habitualisation’: whenever the learners heard a specific stimulus, they were expected to give a conditioned response.
Although oral production had finally entered the foreign language classroom and every learner had maximal speaking time, in the end the method did not really work and came in for severe criticism from the 1970s onwards. One of the reasons for its failure is certainly the fact that language learning is a far more complex endeavour than, for example, learning to ride a bike or learning to tie one’s shoe laces, which can both easily be learnt by stimulus-repetition-response action chains, another reason was the fact that the kind of language used did not frequently approximate normal communication, as no learner would ever encounter a native speaker who, for example, would utter an isolated sentence in the active voice in order for the learner to transform this sentence into the passive voice. Therefore, the learners were still not prepared for everyday communication, although they will have had a far better pronunciation than the learners having been taught according to the Grammar-Translation Method. For all these reasons, the audiolingual method was abandoned reasonably soon and many schools only used their expensive language laboratories for writing classroom tests, as the learners could sit at a distance from each other.
Other second language acquisition theories followed suit, but none of them lasted for long until the upstart of communicative language teaching began. According to NUNAN (2015: 10), “communicative language teaching was less a method than a broad philosophical approach to language, viewing it not so much as a system of rules but as a tool for communication”. One of its earliest appearances is to be found in KRASHEN’s ‘Monitor Model’1, consisting of five hypotheses which claim, for example, that acquisition and learning are two different processes. According to KRASHEN, acquisition is what happens in natural foreign language settings, for example, when a child and its parents move to a country where another language is spoken and the child starts to pick up the language from everyday interactions with native speakers of that language. This happens subconsciously and the aim is communication. Learning, on the other hand, happens consciously, usually in an instructed setting, and its aim is the mastery of the structural rules of a language. KRASHEN claimed that learning can never become acquisition2 and that acquisition is the better process.
Although KRASHEN’s model plays a fundamental role in the development of second language acquisition theories, it has been heavily criticised as being too rigid (and also untestable) in all its claims. Concerning the role of grammar, KRASHEN had claimed that it would develop on its own during communication and did not need to be taught explicitly. ACHARD (2008: 433) sums up the situation quite adequately by claiming that “the rise of the communicative models of instruction made instructors so suspicious of undue focus on structure that in the 1980s and early 1990s systematic grammatical instruction was banned from many language classrooms”.
Altogether, it can be stated that the importance of grammar started to lose more and more ground in the foreign language classroom. Thus, the pendulum swung from grammar’s all-importance in the Grammar-Translation Method via its lesser importance in the Audiolingual Approach to its lack of importance in most communicative approaches.
However, implicit instruction (i.e., grammar developing on its own during communication, such as KRASHEN had claimed) does not seem to work that well either, at least not for all grammatical phenomena3. This fact is well-known from studies on Canadian total immersion projects4 (see, for example, TARONE/SWAIN 1995 or SWAIN 2000), which have shown that grammar does not develop on its own just by exposing the learners to rich input but that the result is rather one of fossilised reduction.
What is more, various meta-analyses of SLA studies over the last fifteen years have come to the conclusion that “instruction that incorporates explicit (including deductive and inductive) techniques leads to more substantial effects than implicit learning” (NORRIS/ORTEGA 2000: 500) and that the effect sizes for an explicit instruction of both simple and complex language features were a lot more pronounced than those for an implicit instruction (cf. SPADA/TOMITA 2010). Along these lines, CAMERON (2001: 108) argues that “grammar may emerge naturally in first language (…) but the grammar of a foreign language is ‘foreign’, and grammar development requires skilled planning of tasks and lessons, and explicit teaching”.
Furthermore, proponents from other academic fields, in this case cognitive linguistics, such as N. ELLIS or MACWHINNEY, claim that “language acquisition can be speeded up by explicit instruction” (N. ELLIS 2002: 175) and that “from the viewpoint of psycholinguistic theory, providing learners with explicit instruction along with standard implicit exposure would seem to be a no-lose proposition” (MACWHINNEY 1997: 278). Although the arguments of the defenders of grammar are strong, they have not been completely assimilated by or at least been filtered down into second language teaching propositions and methods.
In the wake of the criticism raised against it, communicative language teaching has developed two versions, a weak one and a strong one. The strong view keeps up KRASHEN’s claim (1982) that communication is more or less enough to develop learners’ foreign language skills and that an explicit teaching of grammar is unnecessary, whereas the weak view maintains that an explicit teaching of grammar can be beneficial for learners. According to R. ELLIS (2003: 30), task-based language teaching is also a strong form of communicative language teaching, as “tasks provide the basis for an entire language curriculum”, a view which obviously disregards form completely, and in which it is not important “what the learners will learn, only how they will learn” (R. ELLIS 2003: 31). The distinction between a structured syllabus and the methodology used thus becomes blurred, as in such a view the syllabus mainly consists of the task-based methodology. It is quite difficult, though, to imagine this in practice, as this view would not allow language competences to be planned nor sequenced. In the current German context, with its structured curricula and its focus on competences to be acquired, it would be impossible to implement.
The weak view of communicative language learning is also known as ‘Focus-on-Form’ (see, for example, DOUGHTY/WILLIAMS 1998) and suggests to keep up the communicative foreign language classroom but to enhance it with grammar explanations and exercises when grammatical problems come up in classroom discussions. Supporters of ‘Focus-on-Form’ maintain that erroneous forms have to be corrected so that they do not fossilise or are imitated by other learners. ‘Focus-on-Form’ does not want to establish a renewal of a didactically oriented grammatical progression in the language that the learners are exposed to, but nevertheless argues that a focus on form, whenever necessary, should be integrated. Researchers, however, do not completely agree on the place for such an integration, as some see it in the form of “briefly drawing students’ attention to linguistic elements” (LONG 2000: 185) in a communicatively based context, whereas others relate to instruction that intentionally focuses on specific linguistic forms in the context of meaningful language use, be this proactively or reactively (cf. R. ELLIS 2003).
However, at least when referring to LONG’s view quoted above, such a focus on form normally has a rather remedial function as it only applies when learners do something wrong, i.e., it is not meant to be used for systematically introducing a new grammar topic and make the learners understand it but is instead meant to repair the learners’ language flaws when these become apparent. This can be seen as somewhat counterintuitive, as in such cases the learners have to acquire/learn a certain structure twice, once in the communicative phase, where they build their own hypotheses how to use a certain grammatical construction, and once in the repair phase, where they have to modify their own interlanguage hypotheses on the grammatical structure in question.
To focus on form is definitely necessary and relevant, but the approach outlined in this book wants to go one step beyond this by suggesting that it makes more sense to focus on form at the very first introduction of a new grammatical phenomenon and not as a retrospective action. Form and meaning should not be seen as two opposite issues but should instead be seen as inextricably intertwined, as is also suggested by cognitive grammar. In a communicative classroom, both lexical and grammatical aspects should contribute to meaning. Task-based language teaching as the latest development among the communicative approaches to foreign language teaching offers the potential to integrate form and meaning at the same time, in a holistic and learner-centred way. Before such an integration can be addressed in more detail, the next chapter first introduces the task-based approach, focusing on its development, its characteristics, the changed learner and teacher roles it suggests as well as on divergent views on the role grammar should play in this approach.
Further reading
ACHARD, Michel (2008): “Teaching construal: Cognitive pedagogical grammar”. In: ROBINSON, Peter/ELLIS, Nick C. (eds.): Handbook of cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition. London: Routledge, 432–455.
CAMERON, Lynne (2001): Teaching languages to young learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
DOUGHTY, Catherine/WILLIAMS, Jessica (eds.) (1998): Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ELLIS, Nick C. (2002): “Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition24 (2), 143–188.
ELLIS, Rod (2003): Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
HINKEL, Eli (ed.) (2016): Teaching English grammar to speakers of other languages. London: Routledge.
HULSTIJN, Jan H./DE GRAFF, Rick (1994): “Under what conditions does explicit knowledge of a second language facilitate the acquisition of implicit knowledge? A research proposal”. AILA Review11, 97–112.
KRASHEN, Stephen D. (1982): Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon.
LONG, Michael (2000): “Focus on form in task-based language teaching”. In: LAMBERT, Richard D. / SHOHAMY, Elana (eds.): Language policy and pedagogy. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 179–192.
MACWHINNEY, Brian (1997): “Implicit and explicit processes: Commentary”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition19, 277–282.
NASSAJI, Hossein (2010): Teaching grammar in second language classrooms. London: Routledge.
NORRIS, John M./ORTEGA, Lourdes (2000): “Effectiveness of L2 instruction: A research synthesis and quantitative meta-analysis”. Language Learning30 (3), 417–528.
NUNAN, David (2015): Teaching English to speakers of other languages. London: Routledge.
RICHARDS, Jack C./RODGERS, Theodore S. (20143): Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
SPADA, Nina/TOMITA, Yasuyo (2010): “Interactions between type of instruction and type of language feature: A meta-analysis”. Language Learning60 (2), 263–308.
SWAIN, Merrill (2000): “French immersion research in Canada: Recent contributions to SLA and applied linguistics”. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 199–212.
TARONE, Elaine E./SWAIN, Merrill (1995): “A sociolinguistic perspective on second language use in immersion classrooms”. Modern Language Journal79 (2), 24–46.
VANPATTEN, Bill/WILLIAMS, Jessica (eds.) (20132): Theories in second language acquisition. London: Routledge.
WIDDOWSON, Henry (1990): Aspects of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2.Task-based language teaching
Over the last few decades, research into second language acquisition (SLA) has been gaining more and more ground and has finally come to be fully accepted as a scientific field. New theories on learning and teaching, theories on motivation, theories on coding, storing and retrieving information, theories on learner and teacher personalities, types and roles have been developed and traditional approaches have been discarded to a certain extent. Instructed foreign language learning is no longer seen (as KRASHEN had still claimed in the 1980s) as relying on completely different mental processes than natural second language acquisition but these two possibilities to acquire/learn another language are today rather seen as having quite a lot in common.
In natural second language acquisition, i.e., when somebody acquires a new language by just “picking it up” from their surroundings, the focus is normally exclusively on communication, as one wants to understand and wants to be (and usually needs to be) understood as well. Since communicative language teaching approaches – and with them the focus on communication and communicative success – have taken centre stage, the notion of ‘communication’ has become the buzzword in seminars on foreign language teaching methodology and in teacher training as well as in curricula for all school types, and also in the Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR). The CEFR even implicitly recommends task-based teaching when it states that the approach which is needed in foreign language classrooms “is an action-oriented one in so far as it views users and learners of a language primarily as ‘social agents’, i.e. members of society who have tasks (…) to accomplish (…) within a particular field of action” (COUNCIL OF EUROPE 2001: 9).
In contrast to the teacher-centred approaches such as Grammar-Translation and Audiolingualism, which were briefly outlined in the previous chapter, task-based language teaching can be seen as learner-centred and meaning-oriented and has its origins in communicative language teaching (CLT)1. NUNAN (2015: 10) even calls it “the methodological ‘realization’ of CLT”. However, it can be argued that this statement does not go far enough, because task-based language teaching normally goes (or should at least go) beyond what communicative language teaching has offered, as it focuses primarily on the learner instead of only on the communicative purpose of language. Furthermore, it highlights the idea of topically structured communication and not just of communication as such, because learners are presented with tasks on a specific topic and communicate among each other about the given topic.
In a sociocultural view of second language acquisition, communication (or rather interaction) is seen as the essence of learning, as described by R. ELLIS (2003: 177): “acquisition occurs in rather than as a result of interaction. From this perspective, then, L2 acquisition is not a purely individual-based process but shared between the individual and other persons”. As communication and interaction are the reasons why language exists, it does not exactly come as a surprise that language is acquired by learners while they are using it, either with the teacher or with other learners or later on in real-world situations. It is up to the teacher to select suitable tasks and topics, not only keeping the learners’ age level, motivation and interests in mind but also the usefulness of the elicited language for real-world communication, i.e., outside of the classroom. As R. ELLIS (2003: ix) argues, “if learners are to develop the competence they need to use a second language easily and effectively in the kinds of situations they meet outside the classroom they need to experience how language is used as a tool for communicating inside it”.
Tasks usually focus a lot more on oral language than on written language2, although writing, listening and reading tasks can be used as well. The learners’ exposure to the target language should be maximised, providing them with opportunities for receiving comprehensible input as well as allowing and enabling them to produce meaningful output. Such meaning is not completely pre-determined, as it used to be in previous approaches, but to a certain extent the learners’ own meanings are what counts, i.e., the task just provides a framework and the learners are allowed to negotiate the task while doing it, for example, by adding their own creative ideas in order to make the task also personally meaningful for the individual learners and not only potentially meaningful for the whole class. According to VAN DEN BRANDEN/BYGATE/NORRIS (2009: 6), “the performance of functional tasks involving meaningful language use is the starting point, primary mechanism, and final goal of educational activity” and this is what task-based language teaching can contribute to.
R. ELLIS even goes so far as to claim that task-based teaching reflects
… the issues that figure predominantly in current discussions of language pedagogy – the role of meaning-based activity, the need for more learner-centred curricula, the importance of affective factors, the contribution of learner-training, and the need for some focus-on-form. Task-based pedagogy provides a way of addressing these various concerns and for this reason alone is attracting increasing attention. (R. ELLIS2003: 33)
This view fully embraces the task-based approach and sees it as the ultimate solution for all pedagogical issues in foreign language instruction. Be that as it may, at least the current status of task-based instruction can definitely not be seen as the solution for all form-related and linguistic issues, which is why this book recommends some caution concerning R. ELLIS’ view and tries to add a linguistic perspective to the equation, not wanting to accept the vague expression “some focus-on-form” but instead arguing that grammar needs to be approached more systematically.
Some researchers (such as SKEHAN 1998, R. ELLIS 2003 or SAMUDA/BYGATE 2008) distinguish between task-based and task-supported language learning. In task-based language learning, the complete syllabus is structured around tasks whereas in task-supported language learning3, tasks are not the only method of instruction, although they can and should be one of the key elements in the foreign language classroom. With the German system in mind, this book therefore rather suggests task-supported teaching ideas, as it is of course not possible to change a complete syllabus and/or curriculum overnight, especially since no suitable textbooks are available and since the idea of a task-based syllabus still clashes with current assessment and evaluation practices and regulations. This may change over the course of time, but currently tasks can only be implemented every now and then, whenever the need arises, for example, when introducing new grammatical features. Therefore, whenever the term ‘task-based teaching’ appears in this book, it refers to what some scholars see as ‘task-supported teaching’4.
The task-based literature provides a variety of definitions of what a ‘task’ is, which are discussed in the following sub-chapter. What all definitions have in common is that they differentiate tasks from exercises, as tasks are to be seen in a wider context and as the outcome is not just a linguistic result but a solution for a problem, in the widest sense of this expression. Exercises, in contrast, are normally decontextualised and focus exclusively on a specific linguistic form, for example, on the transformation of given active sentences into the passive voice, or – to give a non-grammatical example – on writing a summary of a text without focusing on pragmatic notions or learner interests. R. ELLIS (cf. 2003: 3) sums up the difference between a task and an exercise quite convincingly by claiming that in tasks the learners act primarily as language users, whereas in exercises they act primarily as language learners.
2.1The development of task-based language teaching
Presumably the first scholar who reported on having taught along the lines of what was going to be known as task-based language teaching was PRABHU, who describes his view of foreign language teaching as follows:
The development of competence in a second language requires not systematization of language inputs or maximization of planned practice, but rather the creation of conditions in which learners engage in an effort to cope with communication. (PRABHU 1987: 1)
In other words, second language acquisition happens in and through communicative activities and all the teacher needs to provide are opportunities for authentic, natural communication, which can be done by using tasks. PRABHU conducted an experimental project, the so-called ‘Communicational Teaching Project’ in Bangalore, in which especially the messages (i.e., the communicative content) were meant to be noticed by primary and secondary classes and not so much the structures, which were only paid incidental attention. The learners did not follow a syllabus consisting of a progression of linguistic structures but instead engaged in certain meaningful activities, in which tasks were used as a vehicle through which language was to be generated.
Today, task-based language teaching is not seen as one specific approach but rather as a “family of approaches that are united by two principles: First, meaning is primary, and second, there is a relationship between what learners do in the classroom, and the kinds of things they will need to do outside of the classroom” (NUNAN 2015: 13). In order to cater for these principles, the learners are confronted with well-organised tasks which they have to solve and which should be based on communicative needs in the real world. For example, if the communicative topic is ‘healthy food’1, the learners are not only provided with vocabulary and language structures relating to food (word fields, plural –s etc.) but are furthermore enabled to achieve goals that go beyond the classroom, namely to obtain food and drink in an English-speaking culture and to know about healthy nourishment – which, by the way, can additionally be seen as an example for the learner-centredness of task-based language teaching.
Although ‘tasks’ are the core of task-based teaching, there is no unanimous agreement on what a ‘task’ is. NUNAN (2015: 192) calls a task “the basic building block of the instructional design”. He differentiates between so-called ‘real-world tasks’ and ‘pedagogical tasks’ (NUNAN 1989). Real-world tasks (such as painting a fence, repairing a bicycle etc.) do not necessarily involve language, but as soon as they enter the classroom (for example, in the form of telling others how to paint a fence or how to repair a bicycle or making plans or shopping lists in preparation of performing such real-world tasks) they become pedagogical tasks. According to NUNAN, the aim that the learners are meant to reach is to convey meaning rather than to focus on grammatical form2. Most other researchers only mention the pedagogical tasks, not the real-world ones. Therefore, in what follows the term ‘task’ is only used to refer to pedagogical tasks. WILLIS, for example, one of the best-known proponents of task-based language teaching, offers a very wide definition of (pedagogical) tasks as “activities where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose (…) in order to achieve an outcome” (1996: 23), which rules out most of the didacticised “communication” in a traditional classroom. The notion of a task achieving an outcome means that the learning is goal-oriented and leads – depending on the task – to a solution or to a product.
There are various classifications of tasks, however, a discussion of all of them would lead too far at this point3 and therefore only three of them are briefly characterised in what follows. These three classifications are each based on different ways in which tasks can be classified and should not be mixed up when designing tasks, because tasks can be addressed from quite different perspectives depending on the learning results that are meant to be reached.
Whereas PRABHU (1987) uses a cognitive typology of tasks and differentiates between three different types of task, namely 1) information gap activities, 2) reasoning gap activities and 3) opinion gap activities, not all task-based scholars follow this differentiation. A cognitive typology such as PRABHU’s orders the tasks according to the kinds of cognitive operations involved. According to PRABHU, information gap activities are the easiest tasks and reasoning gap activities the most difficult ones (with opinion gap activities coming somewhere in between) as they involve more cognitive steps than the other two types.
Information gap activities involve “a transfer of given information from one person to another – or from one form to another, or from one place to another – generally calling for the encoding or decoding of information from or into language” (PRABHU 1987: 46). An example for such an activity could involve the creation of a weather chart, using spoken radio weather forecasts.
A reasoning gap activity involves “deriving some new information from given information through processes of interference, deduction, practical reasoning, or a perception of relationships or patterns” (PRABHU 1987: 46). This kind of activity is similar to a gap activity, however, some of the necessary information is not provided by the teacher or by the task but needs to be found out by the learners themselves. An example could be witness reports on the occasion of a lost or stolen schoolbag. The witnesses report, for instance, to have seen the bag at a certain time and at a certain location and may have observed a mysterious somebody taking it away – some witnesses saw the mysterious person’s sunglasses, others saw other parts of this person’s outfit, still others saw in which direction the person was running etc. The groups then have to pool their information and need to deduce or figure out what happened to the schoolbag.
Finally, opinion gap activities involve “identifying and articulating a personal preference, feeling, or attitude in response to a given situation” (PRABHU 1987: 47). Many examples fit this task type, from finding an end for a story via taking part in a discussion on a specific topic to collecting data on the likes and dislikes of the other classmates.
PICA et al. (1993) use a psycholinguistic typology of tasks and identify five task types, which they classify as 1) jigsaw tasks, 2) information gap tasks, 3) problem-solving tasks, 4) decision-making tasks and 5) opinion exchange tasks. A psycholinguistic typology orders the tasks according to their potential for language learning. PICA et al.’s typology is “based on interactional categories that have been shown to affect the opportunities learners have to comprehend input, obtain feedback, and to modify their own output” (R. ELLIS 2003: 215).
In jigsaw tasks, the group members receive different pieces of information and have to pool their knowledge by exchanging information in order to reach a task solution. For example, the teacher enters the class and holds up a mobile phone that was found in front of the school building and which apparently belongs to one of the English exchange students who are currently visiting the school. The learners then get different fragments from WhatsApp conversations and have to find out the correct chronology of these conversations in order to find out whose mobile phone was found.
Information gap tasks, which are best done in pair work, are somewhat similar to jigsaw tasks as again some pieces of information are missing for one of the participants and this information is then provided by the other participant. For example, the learners describe their rooms to each other and the person who is listening has to draw the described items into an empty map of a room. Then the learners change their roles and the second room map is produced. Afterwards, the learners comment on whether their rooms were drawn correctly.
Problem-solving tasks can refer to a wide variety of activities, from solving short puzzles, for example of the odd-one-out type, to solving real-life problems, such as recommending a certain course of action for something or to somebody, for example, giving directions to a stranger who asked for the way to a certain building or institution.
Decision-making tasks usually do not have a predetermined outcome, i.e., there are no right or wrong solutions. Instead, they require the participants to agree on a solution after several options have been discussed. An example could be that the learners create a huge pizza for the next class party, with toppings that everybody in the group likes.
Finally, opinion-exchange tasks do not have a predetermined outcome either, but there is no need for the group to reach a unanimous solution. An example would be a discussion on where the next class trip should lead. In such a discussion, the learners can collect the advantages and disadvantages of specific locations without having to come to a decision.
WILLIS (1996), as the third classification example, uses a pedagogic typology of tasks and speaks of six different task types, namely 1) listing, 2) ordering and sorting, 3) comparing, 4) problem-solving, 5) sharing personal experiences and 6) creative tasks. Pedagogic typologies are usually directed at learner training, most frequently the training of the four language skills. WILLIS’ typology is somewhat different and is, according to R. ELLIS (2003: 211), “based on an analysis of the kinds of tasks commonly found in text book materials. The types reflect the kind of operations learners are required to carry out in performing tasks”.
Listing can mean, for example, that the learners produce a list or a mindmap of items, activities, locations etc. Such lists could refer to things that are necessary for repairing a bicycle, animals that one would like to see in a zoo, places one wants to visit during a class trip etc.
Ordering and sorting can, for instance, refer to the fact that the learners use such a list as outlined above and rank the items on it concerning their importance, distance, or any other factor.
Comparing can mean, for example, that the learners try to find similarities or differences between what the individual group members above prepared or between what the different groups came up with. To stick to the example above, if several groups listed and ordered places and sites for an upcoming class trip, not all groups will have the same results and a solution has to be found how to evaluate the differences.
Problem-solving tasks are seen in the same way as described for PICA et al. (1993) above, with examples ranging from giving directions to finding something hidden in the classroom in some kind of treasure hunt.
Sharing personal experiences could refer to the learners’ likes or dislikes, for example, when it comes to leisure activities or music or travelling or to presenting one’s family or one’s Christmas wishes.
Finally, creative tasks are usually the most complex task type. They can be done verbally, as, for example, by writing an additional verse for a Christmas song or in rewriting a popular song, or they can result in a product, such as preparing a healthy snack, a classroom party or a school trip. WILLIS also mentions that an activity can belong to more than one task type, which is usually the case for creative tasks.
Apart from the general types of task outlined above, the task topic is certainly of interest as well. R. ELLIS suggests that
… the guiding principles in the selection of content for tasks will be (1) topic familyarity and (2) intrinsic interest. Some appeal may also be made to (3) topic relevancy by predicting the general situations that learners may later find themselves in. (R. ELLIS2003: 218)
As already mentioned earlier on, topics have to be motivating for the students in order for them to participate and to be willing to involve themselves in working on the task. However, a learner group is always heterogeneous, and therefore the learners’ areas of interest will vary. When planning a task, a teacher needs to keep in mind that the topic should be interesting for the majority of learners. Furthermore, as solving a task needs to draw on the learners’ world knowledge, the topic should be familiar enough to them to enable them to use their background knowledge, which will of course vary from individual to individual, so that the learner groups can pool their knowledge and profit from each other in this respect. R. ELLIS’ third point, although given as somewhat of an addendum in the quotation above, is actually equally important as the other two points he makes, because learners need to be prepared for situations beyond the classroom, for example, when spending time abroad in the culture(s) of their target language. They have to be able to ask for directions or to give directions, to obtain food and drink, to visit tourist attractions, to plan their travels and excursions, to interact with native speakers, just to give some few examples.
