Professional Documents
Culture Documents
PART 1
FOCUS ON
1. Introduction……………………………………………………………3
5.2.a. Task…………………………………………………………..........6
5.2.b. Planning…………………………………………………………….6
5.2.c. Report………………………………………………………………7
8. References………………………………………………………………...10
1. Ιntroduction
This essay will attempt to examine the use of task-based teaching in the EFL
classroom and more specifically to explore its effectiveness in a group of false
beginners of English for every day communication in their occupational contexts.
In this respect, a task-based cycle will be used to make our adult learners take
orders in a café, since the majority of them work for the catering industry.
My professional interest in the area lies in the fact that my students work in the
catering industry of the island where I live and occupy myself professionally; it is
a place, where it mainly deals in the hotel and catering industry. Therefore, they
need to be taught how to survive in an English-speaking work environment,
especially in the high season. Those people need to learn the target language by
picking useful words and phrases and only later to make sense of grammar (Willis
J. 1996).
When teaching beginners, we ought to give them a lot of exposure to the new
language, and to make that exposure comprehensible; a task-based approach
would possibly encourage them because it values what learners can achieve no
matter how little language they have. It differs from the standard frame work in
four main ways (Willis J, 1996):
Firstly, there is much more weighting given to exposure; one result of this will be
a longer pre-task phase (information-sharing) and a shorter task cycle (picture
prompt for discussion in group work).
Secondly, the cycle may well consist of sets of short tasks (listening and speaking)
rather a long one.
Thirdly, because there is less emphasis on public use of language until learners
have gained confidence, the planning and report stages are either omitted or very
short (short feedback sessions accompanied probably with questionnaires and
whole class discussions), with the teacher giving the first reports informally.
Finally, the language focus concentrates initially on words and phrases (food items
and prices), only gradually progressing towards grammar (Can I have……. , I`ll
have………, Yes, here you are…….., Is that all?)
Therefore, it will be rather difficult for them to comply with a new method of
teaching, that is, pair and group work come into play from the beginning of the
lesson with a variety of tasks to be fulfilled in the target language with whatever
means of language students have at their disposal.
According to Wright 1987 and White 1988 (cited in Skehan 1998) the 3PS-based
approach has had an excellent relationship with teacher’s feelings of
professionalism, since it is very comforting and it places then in charge of
proceedings. The 3PS sequence is relatively easy to organize and comes bundled
with a range of techniques which, also demonstrates the power relations within the
classroom, since they are in charge of what is happening at all times.
A second reason for the continued importance of this approach is that it lends itself
very neatly to accountability, since it generates clear and tangible goals, precise
syllabuses and a comfortably itemizable basis for the evaluation of effectiveness.
The emphasis is on product, with the result that testing is seen as unproblematic,
since it can focus on sampling whatever “items” underlie the syllabus.
4. Rationale
A particular lesson is going to be chosen on the grounds that the majority of
students are engaged in the catering industry; the lesson deals with real authentic
and simulated pieces of language in the form of dialogues for taking orders in the
marketplace. Most of the students are engaged in that occupational field and need
the target language to communicate in their work environment, especially in
summer with customers arriving from every part of the world in the island.
Drawing upon the group’s speaking sessions, I could say that they are looking
forward to holding their posts in their work, since they fear they might lose their
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jobs, if they cannot speak English or might be relegated to another post in their
work; another important factor is definitely a salary increase. The task-based
lesson is expected to increase their language abilities, “to use language to achieve
a specific outcome” (McKinnon & Rigby, 2004) and help them further their
career.
Therefore, students will hopefully perceive that tasks relate closely to their needs
and they will adopt an achievement orientation (Breen 1987:26 cited in Murphy
2003).
The teacher as a facilitator introduces the topic (a task sheet with food items
along with their prices), states the context (a café), and students perform the
dialogues in groups (as waiters and customers) with whatever language means
they own. The students will focus on language forms that will be useful in the up-
coming tasks; (Can- making requests, Will-spontaneous decision made at the
moment of speaking)
The teacher has ensured the text structure and vocabulary load are just beyond the
students` current knowledge, so that redundancy can be activated to fill in for
partial comprehension of certain parts of the text.
5.2. A.Task:
During the task stage of the lesson, emphasis is placed on developing the
vocabulary and speaking skills of the lesson, since our adult learners are to
negotiate in groups about the outcome of the task (Willis 1988); they look at the
menu of Liberty Café’ and with 8$ they must choose what they will eat, but, not
exceed the specified sum of money; during the activity, the teacher circulates the
groups, making sure the task is on the right track, clears up any misunderstandings
and provides help with lexis and grammar.
5.2. B.Planning:
At this stage, the two groupings work through on the task given above; learners
look at the menu, once more, and try to guess , in teams, the price of each food
item; then, they listen to the waitress taking the order from the customer and fill in
the prices of the edible items; afterwards, each group member contributes to their
findings, the group reporter writes down their oral contribution, no matter how
correct or incorrect it is- at the same time, the group members develop their
listening and speaking skills. The teacher’s role is to co-operate closely with
students, aiding them in refining and polishing their language for their
presentation, afterwards.
5.2. C.Report:
At this stage, the reporter students from each grouping are invited to read out their
oral or written reports to the other group members; it is very important at this
moment, to provide the rest of the class with a reason for developing their listening
or reading skills. After their reading out their reports, the other group members
vote for the most successful presentation in terms of using proper English and a
better way of expression. In the meantime, the teacher, as a listener, is to highlight
some language regarded as central to the task& may ask for clarification or for
more detail. The important thing, at this point, is that it is a fluency activity
(reading out the report) which leads to accuracy (focus on the form of the
language).
5.3. B.Analysis:
Whilst at their feedback stage after the listening, students highlight language
function (Excuse me, can we have…., I’ll have a small tea with lemon) and
students work within their teams the use and functions of them (requests) - teacher
help is welcome at this point; later, they report as a team their findings in the class;
they develop their grammar inductively by practicing repeating polite/impolite
requests, in teams.
Next, they listen to some requests and they decide in teams, whether they are
polite /impolite, depending on stress.
5.3. C.Practice:
At this final stage of the lesson, learners going to take on the roles of the waiter
and customer and give/take orders, in different cafés authentic dialogues related to
their job-field, in pairs, which they role-play, quite a few times, by switching roles.
This time, they are to “activate the language they have learnt so far” (Estaire &
Zanon 1994) in a role-play, in the context of cafe`s .The teacher`s role is to instruct
clearly the tasks and to supervise the students, noting down any mistakes.
In this section, I will try to comment on the success of this experimental lesson,
evaluate the effectiveness of Task-Based Learning in the EFL classroom and to
comment on whether the lesson aims were achieved.
On the contrary, they seemed to do quite well in the pre-task stage of the
lesson (the picture prompts with the prices), since they questioned and answered in
a rather comprehensible way – How much is the water? 10.25 & how many are the
apples? 10.75 - even though their communicative competence was insufficient- at
least, they kept the conversation going; their mistakes were corrected after their
presentation.
At the task stage of the lesson (the one with eight dollars) students felt free to
use any language means they owned in order to perform the task- they said { I take
an apple, a Cola and beer – the Cola is 0.60, the apple is1.20 & the beer is 2.50}
instead of “I get/ have”; at least, it made sense from the context- they also seemed
to work well in their teams, since four of them worked for the same restaurant and
the next three of them were friends.
Furthermore, they enjoyed performing the listening task where they had to
circle the appropriate edible item, because the conversation of the two customers
was humorous from the way they expressed functions- they also didn’t encounter
many problems with the prices of the menu.
On the contrary, in the analysis stage of the lesson, functions was a bit
problematic, since I had to wander around groups getting them to drill polite vs.
impolite requests. The intonation also of polite/impolite requests was rather
problematic for them to comprehend, since I had to play two- three times the tape
script, until they realized the speaker tone.
Finally, I would admit that task-based teaching worked for my students, since
they had the opportunity to speak fluently from the beginning and towards the end
of the lesson, they had to focus on accuracy.
It has been a novelty for me and for my students to use a new, alternative teaching
medium that it promotes learner autonomy; its format consisted of a pedagogic
dialogue in which the teacher’s questions were invitations to learners to
Bibliography
Murphy J., ELT Journal 57/4 October 2003 Oxford University Press
Course book