16.2504, Review: Lang Education: Edwards & Willis (2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2504. Mon Aug 29 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.2504, Review: Lang Education: Edwards & Willis (2005)

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1)
Date: 27-Aug-2005
From: Kevin Landry < lklandry at gmail.com >
Subject: Teachers Exploring Tasks in English Language Teaching 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 22:24:43
From: Kevin Landry < lklandry at gmail.com >
Subject: Teachers Exploring Tasks in English Language Teaching 
 

EDITORS: Edwards, Corony; Willis, Jane
TITLE: Teachers Exploring Tasks in English Language Teaching
PUBLISHER: Palgrave Macmillan
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1340.html 

Kevin Laurence Landry, Department of Liberal Arts, Hongik University, 
Korea; 
MA Linguistics (TESOL) University of Surrey

This book brings together 19 papers by different authors investigating 
tasks and task based teaching in the classroom.  It connects many distance 
education projects mostly done towards master programs from the University 
of Birmingham or Aston University.  It is divided into four main sections: 
describing using tasks in lessons, interaction within tasks, language used 
in tasks, and variables in task.  It is well introduced and organized with 
information about the individual contributors, abbreviations, aims, an 
overview, and summary of each project.

SYNOPSIS

Jane Willis gives advice in an introduction for doing action and classroom 
research and explains what is meant by task.  In a task the principle 
focus is on exchanging and understanding meanings for some kind of purpose 
such as: writing a list of differences, completing a route, reporting a 
solution, etc.  She describes that the contributors are teaching English 
as a Foreign Language and that task-based learning is an approach that 
centers on meaning.  Ali Shehadeh explains the background of task based 
learning and teaching.  She contrasts it with presentation, practice and 
Production (PPP) approach to second language teaching.  She gives a 
rationale for task based teaching, defines task, identifies types, and 
offers perspectives for task-based learning.  She overviews the work to 
come and states that grammar -based instruction fails to produce effective 
language users.

Chapter 2 is an article by Lamprini Loumpourdi telling of her adaptation 
of a teacher centered grammar class into one that learners contributed 
more.  Patricia Pullin Stark reports in Chapter 3, how designing a 
syllabus for business students incorporated projects.  Concordances 
replace grammar books in Raymond Sheehan's Chapter 4.  Patrick Kiernan in 
Chapter 5 investigates recorded story telling to raise confidence and 
fluency.  Chapter 6 is written by Theron Muller about incorporating tasks 
into units from a textbook.  Jason Moser used action research to focus 
students' attention on form with a lesson journal in Chapter 7.

Chapters 8 - 11 explore interaction.  Maria Leedham in Chapter 8 
transcribes native speakers to increase turn taking in learners.  Chapter 
9 by Seung-Min Lee attempted to solve communication problems among 
students by teaching meaning negotiation skills. Chapter 10 is a study on 
repeating tasks with young learners by Annamaria Pinter.  David Coulson 
develops team talking in Chapter 11 so his learners can work together in a 
conversation with international students.

Chapters 12 - 14 explore lexical phrases and patterns of the language used 
in tasks.  James Hobbs in Chapter 12 recorded native speakers doing tasks 
for a basic of an interactive syllabus.  Chapter 13 by Maggie Baigent 
compared her learners and native speakers use of multi-word chunks.  In 
Chapter 14 David Cox tested the prediction of the language needed to 
perform 5 different tasks.

Task conditions and task types are investigated in Chapters 15 - 19.  The 
quality of language in a report stage of a lesson is compared to the 
language used during a task in Chapter 15 by Craig Johnston.  William 
Essig hypotheses in Chapter 16 how retelling a story under different 
circumstances affects its improvement.  Chapter 17 has Antigone Djapoura 
testing the benefits of pre-task planning and instruction.  Greg Birch in 
chapter 18 recorded students to see if certain tasks direct attention to 
accuracy, fluency or complexity of language. Types of interaction to show 
language acquisition in process are studied in Chapter 19 by Glen Poupore.

EVALUATION

This book is very inspirational for a new student considering or starting 
a Masters degree in teaching English as a foreign language.  The articles 
are all about using task based teaching in a classroom and encouraging 
others to do similar research and share it with the teaching community.  
Each article is focused on task and has many different interpretations of 
what a task is.  It gives plenty of ideas for teachers to try in their own 
classroom like recording learners, public reports, and designing your own 
tasks. However with a large number of inexperienced researchers the work 
in some papers does seem amateurish.  The ideas are fresh and although the 
book is organized in distinct sections the studies overlap and are not 
connected in a completely systematic way.  The term task has been used to 
refer to almost any type of exercise or activity done by learners.  It is 
a great way to teach but at times some authors take great pains to 
criticize other methods.

Although task based methods are designed to let the learner find a gap 
between what he can do with language and what he needs to do with language 
many of the activities are contrived and learners trying to complete the 
activity find ways around improving their language.  The design of task-
based learning seems helpful for fostering communication between students 
and many of the articles spoke of learners enjoying their classes.  
Personal experience though would make us wonder how enjoyable gap 
activities of any kind end up being in some classes and how frustrated 
learners probably become without improvements on standard tests.  Tasks 
succeed in giving learners something to use the language they know on but 
fail to convince critics of their value.  As long as language tests 
continue to test Grammar with multiple choice questions and companies hire 
according to those results some learners will be unwilling to participate 
fully in class no matter how exciting an activity may have sounded in a 
report.  The positive results and reactions make teaching sound easy but 
in practice any kind of approach has more to do with a teacher 
establishing productive rapport with the learners.

The language used in many articles is British English and should be easy 
to understand by Americans as well.  However some examples and grammar may 
seem awkward to those accustomed to American style English.  The tenets of 
tasks seem to be anti-grammar but things like "Conditionals" and "If" 
and "using "Would" were explored in the second chapter.  The lines of 
grammar teaching and task teaching do seem somewhat blurred.  The authors 
do though explain exactly what they did in their class and make it some 
easy for other teachers to emulate.  

In Chapter 3 the author includes criticism from one of her students that 
preparation time seemed too long for improving a short speech.  If students 
cannot see the benefits of certain procedures it causes friction in the 
class and Student evaluations of teachers are often based on their 
perception of the teacher's popularity rather than any measured 
improvements.  In Chapter 4 the data driven learning is much like 
traditional lessons in other subjects where learners have to follow the 
rules teachers explain.  The researcher admits that a few students would 
have rather had the teacher just gave them the answer than having to work 
for it.  

Learners in Chapter 5 seemed passive and unresponsive when listening to 
others tell their story.  It seems that task based activities are no 
guarantee to a great class but must be refined and fine-tuned for 
different situations.  It still sounds worthwhile though and experimenting 
in language teaching adds motivation to classroom exercises.

Speaking tests are addressed in Chapter 5 sound like an interesting 
alternative to paper tests.  The task of telling a story though easily 
falls into many pitfalls such as the ability of your partner, similar 
personal interests, or in fact having a good story to even tell. It 
certainly isn't easy to judge a person's speech and task-based approaches 
offer little in terms of guidelines for good speech.  

Adapting PPP style textbooks led the researcher in Chapter 6 to omit 
suggested phrases from handouts.  It seems though the learners who are 
able to do the task then already have the language necessary to complete 
it so language teaching becomes learners practicing what they already know 
beforehand.  In some instances practicing what you know could be 
beneficial but it is difficult to sell in a syllabus.  In a way though it 
does allow learners to approach a situation with level appropriate 
language and elicits material for a teacher to evaluate.  

In Chapter 7 the researcher had partners switch to escape boredom when 
talking about the same topic a second or third time.  In my experience, 
learners tire of saying the same thing even to different people if used 
too often.  The researcher offers different topics so may not have had 
this problem or have noticed.  Some articles are more formal than others 
and his informal use of  "I" and 'you" sets him apart from other 
researchers.  The summary of certain articles are also somewhat less 
formal than what someone might expect in a journal but the hands on 
approach the foreign language field creates seems to make it acceptable.

Chapter 8 identifies long turns students take and the researcher attempted 
to use native speakers recorded as examples.  The researcher sounds 
British and reports that students felt the task was useful but doesn't go 
into specifics.  Seeing actual native speakers (NS) doing a language-
learning task do open our eyes to the language the book expects learners 
to use and contrasts with sample dialogues usually given.  This 
researchers' suggestions of using NS and students doing dialogues or even 
high level learners is intriguing and he is right on when criticizing 
almost any textbook dialogue.

Chapter 9 reads much differently than the previous two.  The writer's 
native language seems to be Korean and his style of writing seems affected 
by how things would be said in his first language.  It is interesting to 
note that as teachers we measure or at least compare how language is used 
to our own way of speaking or writing.  The researcher used a recording of 
native teachers doing a task as an example for his pupils to follow.  

The researcher in Chapter 10 teaches her learners expressions that also 
sound foreign to me.  She has them saying such things as, "Have you got a 
frog on the second floor" and "No. I have got one dog".  Rather than 
use "Have you got" a more familiar expression for me would be "Do you 
have".  I thought while reading this Chapter how obvious and interesting 
it was that all over the world there are teachers with different notions 
as to what English is right.  In my case I often attribute any unfamiliar 
expressions to them being British English.  However I could be mistaken.  

This researcher did not have her learners change partners so it just 
showing that tasks can be used different ways.  Her learners give back 
positive feed back but it begs the question, "How far can student self-
evaluation be trusted".  Were they happy with the activity and would not 
have enjoyed another type?  Could their prediction of being able to 
duplicate the task outside of the classroom in a real situation succeed?

In Chapter 11 the researcher explains in Japanese culture it is considered 
rude to interrupt the speaker.  It makes me think that our evaluation of 
fluent English is more cultural than we assume; see Eye movements (2005).  
The "Team talking" strategy put forward by the researcher is very 
innovative and sounds like a wonderful way for learners to work together 
to get control of a conversation. However in Japan International students 
may feel obligated to talk based on their previous experience speaking 
with other Japanese.  His students were preparing for an English Day so 
having a definite goal really seemed to help motivate his class.

Using recordings of native speakers to improve student performance in pair 
interviews gave them examples to imitate.  The researcher in Chapter 12 
noticed learners resorting to using their first language to clarify and 
comment on answers during a task.  The tasks though often seem designed to 
have students use English to perform correctly.  Blaming this oversight on 
dialogues in language books that no one is interrupted or misunderstood 
seems logical.  A breakdown in communication in fact is a common enough 
occurrence to warrant a study on its effect in a conversation.

Students like teachers experiment with what works in class.  Native 
speaker speech is not perfect and mentioning that it is acceptable to use 
vague language like 'you know' seems appropriate.  While reading the 
different projects so many related concepts came to mind.  Although 
speaking, writing, listening, and reading are closely related dialogue is 
not the same when written.  Many of the transcripts throughout the book 
emphasize the value of recording learners' speech and give us an idea of 
what affect the task had on them during class.

Multi-word chunks were divided and sorted according to the researcher in 
Chapter 13.  Facts about native speakers using twice as many chunks as 
intermediate learners and other information is given in each introduction 
making each experiment an extension of earlier work.  The innovative ways 
that evaluating language used while doing a task give us insight into what 
each researcher is interested in.  Their recommendations are useful for 
other researchers and for classroom activities. The difference between 
what forms are expected or taught and natural language in Chapter 14 
raises the question of how real language in any classroom can possibly be.

Between each section of the book is an explanation of the part 
forthcoming.  These explanations introduce the next theme but attempt to 
not give away the results of each piece of research.  Phrases like "Read 
and see", however tend to take away from academic credibility of the field 
and combined with Summaries that are weak abstracts it is no wonder that 
language teaching articles are considered soft research compared to true 
science.  Even so, the opportunity for professional development as a 
teacher by applying tasks in your own classroom are staggering.

Chapter 15 focuses on the report stage of a task cycle and is a rather 
short addition to the book analyzing the task work and report of three 
students.  One didn't have time to improve her solution, so although the 
experiment did not work very well, the researcher still shares the task 
they used and is worthwhile for spreading another style of text analysis.  
The hypothesis in Chapter 16 continues along the same track using public 
and private post task comparisons.  However, one wonders how much fun a 
learner has telling the same story to the same person over again.

Pre-planning time in Chapter 17 leads to another point of view.  The 
conversations of motivated students were compared and planning time shown 
to be beneficial.  Not allowing students to look at their notes does stop 
them from reading a prepared script but it may be had to enforce and 
monitor with a large group and especially if they do not understand why 
and would rather cheat to finish the task.  The point of course is to 
prepare them for real life communication but language in the classroom is 
real in a sense.

Chapter 18 attempts to investigate task characteristics and does so very 
professionally. Tables from other works are compiled and such information 
as one-minute preparation time being enough are very helpful for classroom 
application.  The appendices present the handouts used for the tasks and 
also sample transcripts. Chapter 19 addresses how difficult it is to focus 
on form while interacting. Problem-solving tasks produced more quality 
interaction.  Even so, the researcher points out that Jigsaw style tasks 
encourage self-correction and natural self initiated repairs.  Some 
students do object to jigsaw tasks though and complained that the puzzle 
was not the kind of game they liked.

At the end of the book is an Epilogue written by Corony Edwards. He 
evaluates the research by surveying the contributors. He compiles and 
examines their concept of classroom research, advises to start small and 
gives tips for others to move from being a language teacher to a 
researcher.  Time was the main problem identified but rewards of 
excitement satisfaction and confidence seemed to lead researchers to avoid 
stagnation as a teacher.  Justifying teaching inspired some and other 
impetuses are discussed. Enthusiasm and flexibility are offered as 
personality traits desirable for successful classroom research.  Appendix 
1 contains criteria for exploratory practice, Appendix 2; Methods and 
techniques for classroom research, Appendix 3; other research carried out 
by contributors. 

Teaching English in the context of a foreign language varies from country 
to country and institution to institution.  Tasks are definitely a helpful 
addition to any classroom even if it is not the only method used in a 
classroom.  The advice acts as a "rescue action" in English Language 
teaching much like Dogma in Thornbury (2000, no date) suggests learners 
must be engaged in relevant interaction.  This book is a great example of 
using small-scale projects to investigate certain aspects of the class you 
are teaching and demonstrates how the teachers in the trenches can give 
back to the academic community.  I would recommend reading it to any 
teacher of English as a foreign language starting out or looking for a 
cure to feeling burnt out. 

REFERENCES

Eye movements may betray your culture, Aug. 22, 2005, Courtesy Proceedings 
of the National Academy of Sciences and World Science staff. 
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/050822_eyeculturefrm.htm

Thornbury, S. 2000. A Dogma for EFL. IATEFL Issues,153, 2

Thornbury, S. no date. Dogme: Dancing in the dark? 
http://www.hltmag.co.uk/mar05/mart03.htm

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

I'm very interested in teaching English in Korea.  I'm teaching freshmen 
English and living English at Hongik University.  The focus on grammar 
when testing is disturbing and how tests like the TOEIC give an unbalanced 
impression of someone's ability to communicate.  I'm interested in using 
the tasks laid out in the book in my own class room and commenting on how 
they worked as well as my impressions before and afterward.  I'm always 
trying to do new things and was reminded of some activities that have 
worked in the past for me while reading this book.  I especially like 
having my students learn by interacting with each other.





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