Introduction Task-Based

1. BY: ZAHRA FARAJNEZHAD

2. INTRODUCTION TASK-BASED  Engaging learners in task work provides a better context for the activation of learning processes. Learners should be immersed in tasks that require them to negotiate meaning rather than in comprehensible input. Richards & Rodgers: • The Key assumptions underlying TBLT include:  Processes rather that products of learning  Purposeful activities and tasks emphasizing Meaning and Communication • A task is an activity or goal that is carried out using Language.

3. SKEHAN • Tasks are activities that have Meaning as their primary focus. Success in tasks is evaluated in terms of achievement of an Outcome, and tasks generally bear some resemblance to real life language use. • Skehan defines task as an activity in which: Meaning is primary There is some communicative problem to solve There is some sort of relationship to comparable real-word activity Task completion has some priority, and The assessment of the task is in terms of outcome.

4. Specific tasks can be designed to facilitate the use and learning of particular aspects of language. Skehan: There is a trade off between cognitive processing and focus on form in selecting and designing tasks. A TBLT syllabus is composed of tasks within a program and their order. Learners are group participants, monitors of the language form used for communication, risk-takers and innovators. Teachers select and sequence tasks, prepare learners for tasks, and raise learners` consciousness. Students should attend to or notice critical features of the language they use or hear. This is referred to as Focus On Form (FonF)

5. It focus on task work project as different ways of creating opportunities for language learning through problem solving, cooperative learning, collaboration and negotiation of meaning. A task is an activity which learners carry out using their available language resources and leading to real outcome. Playing a game Solving a problem Sharing and comparing experiences

6. • In carry out task, learners are said to take part in such processes as negotiation of meaning, paraphrase, and experimentation. Tasks can be used as a basis for teaching and give detailed account of 12- week-long (Beglar andHunt) • In carry out the task, students experience ample opportunities for meaningful language use in a realistic context

7. IMPLEMENTING TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING • Synthetic syllabus segments the target language into a discrete linguistic items, such as points of grammar, lexical items and functions. • The different parts of language is taught separately and step. So that the learner’s acquisition faces a process of gradual accumulation of parts until the whole structure of the language has been built up. Grammatical criterions are used to break the language into discrete units. These items are graded according to their: (1) grammatical contexts (2) fluency of occurrence (3) contrastive difficulty in relation to L1 (4) situation need (5) pedagogic convenience. • Analytic experiential approach which aims to immerse learners in real-life communication. • is organized in terms of the purposes for which the learner is learning the language and the kind of performance that are necessary to meet these purposes. • is not the grammatical system of the language but the communicative purpose for which language is used. • The language and content are drawn from the input and are selected and graded according to what the learner’s need to do the real world communicative task. In the task, linguistic knowledge that is built through the unit is applied to the solving of a communicative problem. The content is defined in terms of situation, topics, items and other academic or school subjects. syllabus is a noninterventionist,

8. ONE TYPE OF ANALYTIC SYLLABUS IS THE TASK-BASED SYLLABUS it will engage learners’ general cognitive processing capacities Meaningful input and output contextualization Tasks will likely create capable of activating the learners’ intuitive heuristics a rich linguistic environment which they will process and reshape the input

9. THE PROJECT INVOLVES: Students working in small groups Choosing a topic of interest Designing a questionnaire Analyze and interpret the data Finally present their findings in class. • • • • •

10. THE GENERAL OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT ARE TO: Provide learners the opportunity to use the English for authentic purposes for an extended period of time. • Provide intrinsically motivation activities which take advantage of the learner’s desire to improve their listening and speaking proficiency. • Allow learners to take responsibility for their own English education by giving them the responsibility for topic section, questionnaire creation. •

11. Decide how they will structure and present the data they collect Reinforce learners’ ability to form grammatically and pragmatically correct questions Enhance the learners’ presentation skills Demonstrate to students that the use of English can further enhance their own education and development Provide opportunities for learners to work closely together with a partner or in a small groups for an extended period

12. THE 12- WEEK PLAN • Week 1 • Week 2 Learners are introduced to the project Teacher checks each group ideas. They are shown a sample questionnaire With the instructor ‘s advice, each group should tentatively settle on a They view a sample presentation on topic. videotape

13. • Week 3 Learners discuss suitable target groups to whom they can administer their questionnaire • Week 4 Groups brainstorm the main points they wish to investigate and then brainstorm possible questions to include on their questionnaire. • Week 5 Groups practice interviewing and using their questionnaire by ask questions to other members. The purpose is to find out how well the questions they have formulated are eliciting the type and quantity of information they hoped for. • Week 6 Learners are instructed to begin data by interviewing a minimum of ten people per group member • Week 7 Learners report to the group members on them.

14. • Week 8 • Week 11 Groups members compare interview data and look for interesting trends. The remaining groups make the formal presentation of their results. • Week 9 The instructor explains how the presentation will be evaluated, in addition discussing presentation skills, such as eye contact, the use of gestures, and voice projection. • Week 12 The instructor complemented evaluations of the presentations to each student. • Week 10 The information in these evaluations is used Half of the groups make a formal presentation of their results. in order to compile suggestions for possible changes to the project.

15. PRE-TASK ACTIVITIES Are used in several providing vocabulary, points in the project Essential for providing adequate support to the learners Pre-tasks can potentially lead learners to interpret tasks in more fluent, more complex and more accurate ways. Challenging task in some case new vocabulary, grammar or knowledge of language

16. THE NEGOTIATION OF MEANING Negotiation of meaning is a process that speakers go through to reach a clear understanding of each other. Asking for clarification, rephrasing, and confirming what you think you have understood are all strategies for the negotiation of meaning. In the classroom Information gap activities such as jigsaw readings or listening, group story building, spot the difference and communicative crosswords are examples of activities that give learners the opportunity to develop their communicative competence through negotiation of meaning as they share information. This is beneficial for inter-language development. should produce higher degrees of comprehension. (Paraphrasing and lexical substitution). It promotes greater flexibility in the learner’s ruler system by encouraging the exploration of new hypotheses about structure of the target language.

17. COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES  Learners should be involved in using communication strategies, such as clarification, confirmation, comprehension checks, requests, repairing, reacting, and turn taking. • The notion: to modify and restructure interaction until mutual comprehension is reached are what enable learners to move forward in their interlanguage development. • Although the learners were not taught communication strategies as part of the project, they were actively taught strategies in the part of the course that focused on the direct teaching of speaking.

18. CONTEXTUALIZED LINGUISTIC INPUT • One of the greatest strengths of task-based teaching is the fact that much, or all, language use occurs in a natural, communicative context. • This is the main principle of Whole Language Education (e.g., see Brown, 1994). Language is not the sum of its discrete parts and is best learned when (listening and written language (reading and writing) are mutually reinforcing. • As Kumaravadivelu (1994, p. 38) states, “It is . . . essential to bring to the learners’ attention the integrated nature of language. . . . • Introducing isolated, discrete items will result in pragmatic dissonance, depriving the learner of necessary pragmatic cues and rendering the process of meaning making harder.” As a natural by-product of the high degree of contextualization of language in this project, the major language skills were closely integrated. oral speaking) language and integrated and

19. A CLOSER ANALYSIS OF THE MAJOR TASKS SKEHAN (1998) Proposes three dimensions for THE ANALISIS OF TASKS The language Required Thinking Required Communicative Stress

20. THE LANGUAGE REQUIRED • The first dimension: (Code Complexity) • This will help to ensure that noticing new lexical items, constructions. • This includes such factors as linguistic complexity and variety, vocabulary load and variety, and redundancy and information density. grammatical

21. THINKING REQUIRED • The second dimension: (Cognitive Complexity) Involves the consideration of cognitive familiarity, which consists of topic familiarity with the task. Cognitive processing, includes the organization of the information, the amount of computation necessary, the clarity and sufficiency of the information provided and the type of information provided. Capacities to analysis. Organize information. understand the process.

22. COMMUNICATIVE STRESS • The third dimension: students have to take into account: Time limits and Time pressure. The speed of presentation. The number of participants involves in the task. Length of texts used. The type of response expected Control the interaction.

23. ENCOURAGING SELF-EVALUATION • A priority in task-based approaches is to mobilize the learner’s metacognitive resources to keep track of what is being learned, and what remains to be learned. • Engaging in self-assessment is the first step in consciously understanding one’s weaknesses. However, this must be followed by the formulation of a plan to address those weaknesses, and then that plan must be put into action, followed by another round of evaluation. • This cycle is closely related to the notion of promoting greater learner autonomy, which should be a long-term goal in most programs. • Although learners were required to reflect on their performance in the group presentation, they were not asked to formulate a plan designed to address the weaknesses they noticed; therefore, no concrete action could take place. In future implementations of the project, this shortcoming should be addressed.

24. CONCLUSION • The task-based project was well received by the majority of the learners in the course. They found the experience to be rewarding, intrinsically interesting, and educationally beneficial. Many of their final presentations were impressively polished and included a considerable amount of detailed information, which was well organized and effectively supported by appropriate visual aids. • Thus, the final product was generally of a high level. The concern of this paper, however, has been with process – a concern common to most analytic syllabuses. Seen from the point of view of process, the project holds great promise for helping learners in their efforts to further improve many aspects of their English-language proficiency. However, the potential of the project can only be fully manifested as more is understood about the nature of different types of tasks and as the instructors in the program gradually implement changes which they believe will result in a pedagogically sounder experience for the learners.

25. CHAPTER 10 Project Work: A Means to Promote Language and Content

26. PROJECT WORK: A MEAN TO PROMOTE LANGUAGE AND CONTENT To promote meaningful student’s engagement with language and content learning. Through content based instruction Students develop language skill and knowledgeable society of the world. Into the content-based classroom teachers create learning environments. Requires: Active Students • Participants Stimulate higher skill • Thinking • Give students responsibility for their own learning. …..

27. PROJECT WORK INTO CONTENT-BASED Cooperative students • PURPOSE: Collaborative Project work can be integrated into content based classroom. Introduce to develop a project in the English classroom. Problems solving

28. A RATIONALE FOR CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION In a content-based approach Learners are going to think and learn through language target. students not only to understand information but to interpret and evaluate it as well. It provides a forum in which students can respond orally to reading and lecture materials. It recognizes that academic writing follows from listening and reading.

29. • 1. Thematically organized materials, typical of content-based classrooms, are easier to remember and learn. • 2. The presentation of coherent and meaningful information, characteristic of well- organized content-based curricula, leads to deeper processing and better learning. • 3. There is a relationship between student motivation and student interest- common outcomes of content- based classes-and a student’s ability to process challenging materials, recall information, and elaborate. • 4. Experience in a topic develops when learners reinvest their knowledge in a sequence of progressively more complex tasks feasible in content-based classrooms and usually do not present from more traditional language classrooms because of the narrow focus on language rules or limited time on superficially developed and disparate topics.

30. THE PRIMARY CHARACTERISTICS OF PROJECT WORK • 1. Project work focuses on content learning rather than on specific language targets. Real world subject matter and topics of interest to students can become central to projects. • 2. Project work is student centered, though the teacher plays a major role in offering support and guidance throughout the process. • 3. Project work is cooperative rather than competitive. Students can work on their own, in small groups, or as a class to complete a project, sharing resources, ideas, and expertise along the way. • 4. Project work leads to the authentic integration of skills and processing of information from varied sources, mirroring real-life tasks.

31. • 5. Project work culminates in an end product (e.g., an oral presentation, a poster session, a bulletin board display, a report, or a stage performance) that can be shared with others, giving the project a real purpose. The value of the project, however, lies not just in the final product but in the process of working towards the end point. Thus, project work has both a process and product orientation, and provides students with opportunities to focus on fluency and accuracy at different project-work stages. • 6. motivating, stimulating, empowering, and challenging. It usually results in building student esteem, and autonomy as well as improving student’s language skills, content learning, and cognitive abilities. Project work is potentially confidence, self-

32. SOME FACTORS • The most suitable format for a given context depends on a variety of factors:  Curricular objectives  Course expectations  Students’ proficiency levels  Student interests  Time constraints  Availability of materials

33. CLASSIFICATION oHenry (1994) proposes three types of projects: Structured projects Unstructured projects Semi structured projects ocan differ in data collection techniques and sources of information, so we find: Research projects Text projects Correspondence projects Survey projects Encounter projects

34. oProjects may also differ in the ways that information is reported: • Production projects • Performance projects • Organizational projects Projects can be carried out intensively over a short period of time or extended over few weeks, or a full semester It can be complete by students individually, in small groups or as a class. They can take place within classroom or out the classroom.

35. INCORPORATING PROJECTWORK INTO THE CLASSROOM • Project work is introduced as a special sequence of activities and requires multiple stages of development to succeed. Sheppard and Stoller (1995) proposed an 10-step sequence that gives easy-to-manage structure to project work and guides teacher and students.

36. Step 1: agree on a theme for the project. Step 2: determine the final Step 3: structure the project. outcome. Step 4: Prepare students for the language demands of step 5 Step 5: gather information. Step 6: prepare students for the language demands of analyzing data. Step 7: compile and analyzing information. Step 8: prepare students for the Step 9: present final product language demands of step 9 Step 10: evaluate The project This would necessitate a great deal of creative higher thinking and communication as well as the use of all four skills. It could help bring the literature to life and ensure that learners have to know, understand, and discuss the important aspects of the subjects.

37. CONCLUSION • Content-based instruction and project work provide two means for making English-language classrooms more vibrant environments for learning and collaboration. Project work, however, need not be limited to content-based language classes. Language teachers in more traditional classrooms can diversify instruction with an occasional project. Similarly, teacher educators can integrate projects into their courses to reinforce important pedagogical issues and provide trainees with hands-on experience, a process that may be integrated into future classrooms of their own. Whether a project centers on American elections, demography, peace education, syllabus design, or methodology, students of varying levels and needs can benefit from the empowering experience that results from participation and collaboration in a project. Although project work may be easier to implement in second language settings because of more readily accessible content resources, teachers in foreign language settings have already proven that with adaptation and creativity, the project approach can be successful and rewarding for teachers and students alike.

38. THE END Thanks for Listening Any Questions? NO! Super