Practice Activities – FP01 TP

PRACTICE ACTIVITIES:
TASKS AND PROJECTS

GENERAL INFORMATION:

The practice activities consist on four questions you must answer following the
instructions. Your submission must fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: 4 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if there are any-).
- Font type: Arial or Times New Roman.
- Font size: 11.
- Spacing: 1.5.
- Alignment: Justified.

The activities have to be included in this Word document: keep the activities’
statements/questions and answer below them. In order to make the correction process
easier, please, do not write the answers in bold, so it will then be easier to distinguish
between questions and answers. Remember that the document must still fulfil the rules
of presentation and edition, and follow the rubric for quoting and making bibliographical
references as detailed in the Study Guide.

Also, it has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the “Subject

Evaluation” document. You must not send it to the teacher’s e-mail.

Do not forget to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the document
“Subject Evaluation”.

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 Practice Activities – FP01 TP

Name and surname(s): Julia Nathalia Zamora Jaramillo

Group: 2016-1
Date:30/06/2018

Practice Activities

Read the materials and watch the video “Prof. Ellis on task-based pedagogy: the
what, why and how”, available on campus.

Retrieved from Counihan, G. (1998). The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. IV, No. 11, November
1998. http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Counihan-Activities/Rejoinders.html

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 Practice Activities – FP01 TP

Task 1.
Do the following proposal fit the definition of “tasks” according to Ellis? Justify
your answer.

In order to fit the definition of task proposed by Ellis, a task could be designed taking
into account three approaches; consciousness raising activities, focused
communication activities and interpretation activities.

Regarding the proposal “The rejoinders and replies activity” It starts giving an option to
provide the context to students and giving to theme some specifics roles which I
consider that can fit without any problem in Ellis ‘proposal; what can be added to this
activity to became it a consciousness-raising activity is the way in which students are
introduced to the activity, they will need to identify any grammar point the teacher want
them to focus in. For example, in this specific case, students can receive some
sentences and be asked to identify which of them are suggestions (sentences were
someone suggest anything to somebody) and which of them are not, besides when
they already have the suggestions clear, they will notice that all of them include the use
of “let´s” and after noticing that, they can be asked to identify what kind of verbs can fit
better in that kind of sentences and the way they are used (without being conjugated)

The second important aspect to make this activity fit with Ellis´s definition is related to
the fact that activities should be focused communication activities. Continuing with the
example previously given, related to the sentences students will create, they can
receive some examples before starting the activity without deep explanation but with
the grammar structure implicit on them. For instance, in a case that students are
learning to use the expression “let us (Let us)”; the teacher can say that each time
students are called, they will answer with a suggestion. For example: when the teacher
says “someone looking at a watch” the possible response could be “it’s
midday. Let’s stop now and have some lunch.” and some other pair of examples can be
provided for them to understand the way they will have to answer and teacher will be
calling for correction subtly in case it would be needed.

Finally, this activity need to be an interpretation activity and in order to be it. Teacher
can use an audio for them including some dialogues or natural conversations to
understand how the expression is used, in which moments or contexts is better to use

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it, to make them notice the intonation about it and ask to them to identify some of the
grammar points on it.

Task 2.

Define “implicit” and “explicit” knowledge and provide an example (Robinson’s

article in the library might complement Ellis’ video).

Explicit knowledge is given by a consciouss process and implicit knowledge is given by

intuition. With regard to grammatical issues I can say that it is evident for example in
the case an student find a sentence like

 “The baby felt down tomorrow”

The student can realize that something is wrong in the sentence, and he can do it
intuetively but not necessarily being aware of what rule is being broken; s/he can have
implicit but no explicit knowledge about the grammar point . But another student can
understand that the verb is not conjugated in the correct tense and that make it
ungramatical or that the expression of time is not approprite for the sentence, making
use of an explicite knowledge.

Implicit knowledge is given due to an authomatic processing and on the contrary

explicit knowledge is generally accessible only though controlled processing. When
talking about implicit knowledge we talk about facts that we can get throught attentional
processes . On the other hand, explicit knowledge monitors production, it is the result
of a consiouss process that allows master something at the end.

Implicit knowledge is necessary for students to accomplish the goal to communicate

throught the acquired language, it is necessary for them to be provided by the teacher
with the correct environment and conditons in order to find inside the classroom what
they can find outside it in terms of communication, in that way they will have implicit
knowledge language and will be able to use what they learn. On the other hand
traditional language teaching is involved with controlled processes that can cause a
problem to learners at the moment of using the language outside a classroom

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Task 3.

What are the main wrong assumptions done about task-based learning? Can you
provide examples that support Ellis complains, i.e. that show task-based
activities that do not fit the prototypical assumptions?

One of the assumptions about task based learning includes the fact that task based
learning includes putting students into pairs or groups in order to do speaking tasks.
Each time that task based is mentioned it comes to the mind that students should be
grouped or divided to work in a specific task. Even when it makes part of what task
based learning is, it is not all what it is. It is possible to work in some other ways in task
based activities, like the teacher doing a tasks and the whole class participating on it
without the necessity of being divided

Task based aims to be communicational, its purpose focus on provide students with the
appropriate teaching for them to learn how to successfully communicates. And in order
to do that it requires students to receive an input, listen to it and processes it in to be
able to produce, to generate an output. We cannot intend to have students talking
about what they are doing at a certain moment, producing sentences regarding the use
of present continuous if we haven’t provided them with previous input such an audio or
a video where the grammatical structure is included, like a person telling what s/he is
doing at the moment, because it is absolutely necessary to complement both in task
based tasks, input and output.

Another concerning is related to the misconception of task-based learning as an

approach related to speaking skill, it actually is related to it but it also works in the other
three skills. It is possible to work with tasks based teaching using a video to receive
input, working on the listening skill, or by reading a an article to receive input and work
around the topic proposed on it, or by writing about an specific topic that will make part
of the main activity in the lesson. All four skills can be worked in a task based lesson,
even when the purpose on it is communicational, all of the skills are involved in order to
accomplish that specific objective.

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Task 4.

Can an online course be fully task-based? What inconveniences it might

encounter? You might want to read Lee 2016 before answering.

From my perspective an online course can be fully task-based. Students can receive all
the necessary input working virtually and nowadays there are also different strategies
for them to work in the expected output through digital tools. Besides all the skills can
be implemented using various resources and the technological advances allows to
work in all of them from many perspectives. From among many instructional
approaches language teachers implement to maximize learning opportunities and
language learners utilize, task-based instruction (TBI) is the most interactive,
contextualized and authentic one (Lee, 2016).

This kind of courses can foster learner’s autonomy and teach them to work
independently and at the same time gives them the opportunity to interact with others
and to understand topics through that interaction. It is important to mention that
personal commitment to the coursework and cognitive engagement with the learning
material will help students to success in learning.

The panorama seems to be solved for each of the possible problem that an online task
based course can face, The ones related to communicative strategies, tools and
mediums to do it; platforms, blogs and a thousand of webpages have been created and
adapted to work with online courses. Also the ones related to autonomous and
responsibility have been treated through deadlines times, schedules, tutorials and all
the necessary tools for making it easier for learners. Even those regarding interaction
have had a big advance in which all the aspects have been included, giving the
possibility to interact not only with a tutor but also with any of the members in a course.
In general I could say that there can be some aspects that will be improved with the
time and necessities, but almost all of them allows that an task based course will be
possible.

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REFERENCES

 Autonomous learning through task-based instruction in fully online language

courses | Request PDF. Available from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304045142_Autonomous_learning_thr
ough_task-based_instruction_in_fully_online_language_courses [accessed Jun
30 2018].

 Retrieved from Counihan, G. (1998). The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. IV, No. 11,
November 1998. http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Counihan-
Activities/Rejoinders.html

 video “Prof. Ellis on task-based pedagogy: the what, why and how