从另一个角度看教材

龚亚夫

Overview

Task-based language teaching Curriculum goals and objectives Task types Teaching vocabulary Critical thinking and reading Grammar teaching

Traditionally…

Curriculum designers and materials writers took as their point of departure the question, What are the grammatical, phonological, and lexical items to be taught? In other words, selection of classroom activities was driven by curriculum goals specified in phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexical terms.

Nunan (1991)

Why task-based language teaching?Target task rationale: What is it that learners potent

ially or actually need to do with the target language?

Psycholinguistic rationale: What are the psycholinguistic mechanisms underlying second language acquisition, and how can these be activated in the classroom?

Nunan (1991)

Socio-cultural rationale: learning arises not through interaction but in interaction Lantolf (2000)

Why task-based language teaching?

Tasks goals enable the program planner and materials writer to provide explicit links between the task and the broader curriculum it is designed to serve. 体现课程目标

The value of tasks is that they provide a purpose for the activity which goes beyond the practice of language for its own sake.

Nunan (1991)

Psycholinguistic perspective A task is a device that guides learners to engage

in certain types of information-processing that are believed to be important for effective language use and /or for language acquisition from some theoretical standpoint.

Tasks are seen as the external means by which we can influence the mental computations that learners make. These computations determine how effectively they communicate and how they acquire language.

Ellis (2000, 2003)

Why task-based language teaching?

Mental computation: 询问、确认、分类、推断、区分、预测、总

结、创造、读图、反思、协商…… 以往的功能结构方法是从语言系统的角度设

计课程与教学内容，任务型语言教学从学生学习的角度来思考

Tradition and the trend

Tradition Grammatical,

phonological and lexical items to be taught. The specification of these items set the parameters for the selection of classroom activities

Trend Tasks are

conceptualized in terms of the curriculum goals, input data and activities or procedures which the learners undertake in the completion of the tasks

Multidimensional curriculum

The objectives of NEC: linguistic knowledge, language skills, cultural awareness, learning strategies and motivation and affective factors

Student participation, development of critical thinking skills, problem-solving, interpersonal communication skills as well as cooperation

Third generation tasks

With third generation tasks, the scope widens further. In addition to the communicative and cognitive strategies, they also aim to develop the personality of students through the experience of learning a foreign language. They go further than the previous tasks in aiming to fulfill wider educational objectives, such as enhancing motivation and awareness, developing creativity and interpersonal skills…

Littlewood (2001)

Task types:Cognitive Classifying: Putting things that are similar together in the

groups Predicting: Predicting what is to come in the learning processInducing: Looking for patterns and regularities Example: Study a conversation and discover the

rule for forming the simple past tenseTaking notes: Writing down the important information in a

text in your own wordsConcept mapping: Showing the main ideas in a text in the

form of a mapInferencing: Using what you know to learn something newDiscriminating: Distinguishing between the main idea and

the supporting informationDiagramming: Using information from a text to label a

diagram

Task types: Interpersonal

Co-operating: Sharing ideas and learning with other students

Example: Work in small groups to read a text and complete a table

Role Playing: Predicting to be somebody else and using the language for the situation you are in

Example: You are a reporter. Use the information from the reading

to interview the writer

Task types: Linguistic

Conversational patterns: Using expressions to start conversations and keep them going.

Example: Match formulaic expressions to situations

Practicing: Doing controlled exercise to improve knowledge and skills

Using context: Using the surrounding context to guess the meaning of an unknown word, phrase, or concept

Summarizing: Picking out and presenting the major points in a text in summary form

Selective listening: Listening for key information without trying to understand every word

Skimming: Reading quickly to get a general idea of a text

Task types:Affective

Personalizing: Learners share their own opinions, feelings and ideas about a

subject.

Example: Read a letter from a friend in need and give advice

Self-evaluating: Thinking about how well you did on a learning task, and

rating yourself on a scale

Reflecting: Thinking about ways you learn best

Task types: Creative

Brainstorming: Thinking of as many new words and ideas as

one can

Example: Work in groups and think of a many occupations as

you can

Nunan (2004)

Assessment

Criterion-referenced assessment:

Criterion-referencing occurs when learner’s performance is described in relation to an explicit stated standards; e.g. a person’s ability may be reported in terms of a ‘can-do’ statement describing the kinds of tasks he or she can perform using the target language.

Brindley (2001)

Task and performance

It seems that task accomplishment is the ultimate focus for evaluating human performance. It follows that L2 performance assessment and task-based approaches to language teaching and assessment will likely share a greatly deal of theoretical and practical common ground.

Norris (1998 )

Tasks The language testers have increasingly rec

ognized the value of tasks for assessing learners’ capacity to communicate in an L2.

--Has a favourable washback effect;--Enables assessment to be more easily integrated

into the learning process;--Provides learners with useful diagnostic feedbac

k on progress and achievement Ellis (2003)

Task-based testing

Task-based testing is seen as a way of achieving a close correlation between test performance; i.e. what the testee does during the test, and the criterion performance, i.e. what the testee has to do in the real world, and thus ensuring the validity of the assessment.

Ellis (2003)

如何设计教案与任务 以行为动词来描述目标 : 1 能力表现（ performance), 即教学目标应该列出

学习者需要能够做什么； 2 条件（ condition ），即能力表现的条件与环境； 3 标准（ criterion ），即目标应该描述学习者什么

样的表现是可以接受的。 Nunan （ 2007 ）也认为，在能力描述的标准中，目标通常包含三个组成

部分：一是能力表现或任务描述 (performance or task statement) 。这一部分主要描述学习者能够做的事情。二是对于语言能力表现或完成任务条件的描述。即在何种情境下 (circumstances) 和条件下（ conditions ）学生能完成这些任务。第三部分是对于完成任务标准的描述。

范例 在要求完成一个口语任务时，学习者要能对

一个英语为母语的人说出他 / 她的名字，地址和电话号码，能拼出自己的名字、街道和城市的名称，使得考试者能记录下来，达到100% 的准确。

在一个真实的交际情境下，（条件），学生将询问所购物品的价格（任务）。学生所说的话可以使一个具有体谅心态的英语为本族语的人可以理解（标准）。

Pre-task phase Three purposes:

---to serve to introduce new language that learners can use while performing the task;

---to mobilize existing linguistic resources;

---to ease processing load, and to push learners to interpret tasks in more demanding ways Skehan (1998)

Pre-task phaseNon-task preparation activities --- brain storming 大脑风暴--- mind map 思维导图 Addressing linguistic demands of a task--- Predicting, i.e. asking learners to brainstorm a list of w

ords related to the task title or topic--- Planning/ strategic planning

Teaching vocabulary Readers need to work out which words belong to

gether and form units of meaning– a ‘phrasing’ or ‘chunking’ process. They also need to recognize key words and phrases.

Exemplar-based system “ 以范例为基础的” Rule-based system “ 以规则为基础的” Skehan (1996); Mitchel &Martin (2004)

Multi-word units--“chunks of language” , “lexical chunks”

Collocations 习惯搭配 Phrasal verbs 常用短语 Sentence frames 句子结构 Social formulae 社交套话 Discourse markers 语段连接词

Multiword units The most fundamental guiding principle (for)

those who are anxious to be proficient in foreign conversation… is this: Memorizing perfectly the largest number of common and useful word-groups! Palmer (1925)

As a way of quickly developing fluency and of picking up native-like expressions, groups of words should be learned as units.

Nation (2003)

Language acquisition research

Lexico-semantic theory–

a net work of associations, a web-like structure of interconnected links (Aitchison, 1987)

Connect the word with already known words, the links is created, the learning takes place (Sŏkmen ) 当词汇增加到一定程度时，头脑就会建立一个系统，使词汇有机地组织起来，以便提取 --Creating word web

Promote a deep level of processing

--- Better learning takes place when a deeper level of semantic processing is required because the words are encoded with elaboration Craik & Lockhart (1972)

--- When students are asked to manipulate words, relate them to other words and to their own experiences, and then justify their choices, these words associations are reinforced. Sŏkmen

Semantic feature analysisAffective

With wonder

Because unexpected

Because difficult to believe

So as to cause confusion

surprise + +

astonish + +

amaze + +

Classroom techniques and tasks

Create a range of 5-16 encounters with a word in order for student to truly acquire it

Dictionary work: Sŏkmen Semantic elaboration Meaning-focused input activities Deliberate learning activities Meaning-focused output activities Fluency activities

Critical thinking skills

Critical thinking brings conscious awareness, skills, and standards to the process of observing, analyzing, reasoning, evaluating, reading, and communicating.

Mayfield (2007)

Critical thinking— 22 comprehension strategies

Drawing conclusions Understanding cause and effect Making connections Comparing view points Evaluating ideas Reading between the lines Making judgments

22 comprehension strategies (cont.) Making comparisons Interpreting meaning Making inferences Comparing characters Reading a map Interpreting graphs and charts Making calculations Examining reasons

22 comprehension strategies (cont.)

Separating facts from opinion Identifying the main idea Organizing information Sequencing Summarizing Recalling details Synthesizing

Making judgments

Highlight the three pieces of information

in the text that you think everyone

should know:Most important_________________

Second most important___________

Least important__________________

Developing alternative solutions

With a group, brainstorm three different solutions to ..’s problem.

A __________________B __________________C ___________________ When you brainstorm, everyone contribute ideas.

Write down every idea. ….

Examining reasons

Why do you think it’s necessary in this experiment to collect…?

____________________________ How do you think the author says to use…?_____________________________ Why do you think…?____________________________

Consciousness-raising tasks (CR)1 There is an attempt to isolate a specific linguistic

feature for focused attention2 The learners are provided with data that illustrate the

targeted feature and they may also be provided with an explicit rule describing or explaining the feature.

3 The learners are expected to utilize intellectual effort to understand the targeted feature.

4 learners may be optionally required to verbalize a rule describing the grammatical structure.

Ellis (1991)

The post-task phase

Three major pedagogical goals:

--提供再做任务的机会（ to provide an opportunity for a repeat performance of the task ）

--反思任务是怎样完成的（ to encourage reflection on how the task was performed ）

--关注语言的形式（ to encourage attention to form ）

Reflecting on the task Present a report on how they did the task and

what they decided or discovered – oral or written

Summary the outcome of the task Reflect or evaluate of their own performance

(fluency, complicity or accuracy) Metacognitive strategies 元认知策略 (plann

ing, monitoring and evaluating)

The post-task phase

Reviewing of learner errors 反思错误 Consciousness-raising tasks 语法意识 Production-practice activities 操练活动 Noticing activities 注意语言的准确

Reviewing of learner errors

Teacher moves from group to group to listen and note down the errors

Address these errors with the whole class - can be written on the board - students can be invited to correct it - listen again and edit their own performance - teacher comments

Consciousness-raising tasks (CR)

The learners are expected to utilize intellectual effort to understand the targeted features 通过思考理解语法用法

Learners may be optionally required to verbalize a rule describing the grammatical structure 可以是学生口头表达

To direct students to attend explicitly to a specific form they used incorrectly or failed to use at all in the main task 补充不足

Production-practice activities

Repetition 重复活动 Substitution 替换练习 Gapped sentences 填空练习 Jumbled sentences 打乱的句子 Transformation drills 变换句型 Dialogues 对话

Consciousness-raising tasks

There is an attempt to isolate a specific linguistic feature for focused attention 就某一语法现象单独讲解

The learners are provided with data that illustrate the targeted feature or an explicit rule describing or explaining the feature 给例子说明语法用法或对语法详细描述

Consciousness-raising tasks

The learners are expected to utilize intellectual effort to understand the targeted features 通过思考理解语法用法

Learners may be optionally required to verbalize a rule describing the grammatical structure 可以是学生口头表达

To direct students to attend explicitly to a specific form they used incorrectly or failed to use at all in the main task 补充不足

Thanks!