LICENCIATURA EN LA ENSEÑANZA DEL

INGLÉS

ASPECTOS PSICOLÓGICOS DEL

APRENDIZAJE
MAESTRA MARÍA BEATRIZ DE
IBARROLA

Adriana Chacón
Javier Vleeschower
 TASKS
THEIR PLACE IN
LANGUAGE TEACHING
Task, as all of the topics that some of you have already
presented, has its own complexity and addresses a huge
amount of information. Thus, in this presentation, we are going
to address some important aspects that surround this topic;
aspects that we have taken into consideration with basis on
some remarkable authors that have researched on this topic,
such as Williams and Burden, Long and Crookes, and Prabhu.
 Table of Contents
• Introduction
• New concepts
• Task
• Task components
• Theme-centred interaction
• Grading tasks
• Task syllabus
 Type A syllabus
 Type B syllabus
• Three approaches to task-
based syllabus design
 Procedural syllabus
 Process syllabus
 Task syllabus
• Conclusion
• References
New concepts

 Task  “Whodunit”
 Intervention  Form
 Predigest  Meaning
 Pedagogic task  HOW
 Target task  WHAT
WHAT IS A
TASK?
WHOA!
“What is involved in a language learning
task has been interpreted differently by
language teachers as approaches to
foreign language teaching have
changed.”
Williams & Burden (2007), p.167
WHOA!
“Basically, a task is anything that
learners are given to do (or choose to do)
in the language classroom to further the
process of language learning.”
Williams & Burden (2007), p.167
 Adapted from Williams & Burden (2007)

Topic-centred
Grammar
approach
translation

1. She _____ in the park (walk)

2. He _____ to eat pizza (like)
Examples
Genre-based
approach Total physical
response
 Prabhu (1987) and Willians & Burden (2007)
argue that tasks are meaningful tools that
help students to cope with communication,
convey meaning, and interact meaningfully

TA S K S in the target language.

 Tasks
components
Input data
Refers to the spoken, written and visual data
that learners work with in the course of Goals
completing a tasks
They are the vague, general intentions
behind any learning task that provide a link
Activities between the task and the broader
curriculum
Specifies what learners Will actually do
with the input that forms the point of the
departure for the learning task

Adapted from Williams & Burden (2007)

 Tasks
components

Setting
Roles of teacher and students
Refers to the classroom arrangements
Refers to the part that learners and teachers
specified or implied in the task
are expected to play in carrying out learning
tasks as well as the social and interpersonal
relationships between the participants

Adapted from Williams & Burden (2007)

 Dynamic element
• Mediates learners’ interests with teacher’s interests
• Related to learners’ world knowledge and culture
• Joint construction between participants
THEME

Theme-centred
I interaction (Leguke WE
Learners Teacher & Thomas 1991) Interaction generated by
Implicit Implicit tasks
• Feelings • Empathy • Anxieties
• Experiences • Self-knowledge • Power
• Skills • Attitudes • Taboos
• Attitudes Explicit • Rejections
Explicit • Choose of roles • Goals
• Information
• Rivalries
• Perceptions
• Agendas
Adapted from Williams & Burden (2007)
GRADING
TASKS
• The amount and type of information
provided;
• The amount of reasoning or cognitive
operation needed;
• The precision needed;
• The learners' knowledge of the world and
familiarity with the purposes and constraints
of the task;
• The degree of abstractness of the concepts
dealt with in the task.
• Cognitive complexity;
• Communicative difficulty;
• Whether the task follows a general sequence
of operations or whether this is unclear;
• Linguistic complexity;
• Attending to or noticing or recognising the
input;
Adapted from Williams & Burden (2007)
• Continuity between tasks.
• Making sense of the input, e.g. How the
language is organised and structured;
• Processing infuriation (e.g. Hypothesising,
inferring);
• Transferring and generalizing what is
learned.
• Relevance to the learner;
• Complexity (number of steps involved,
complexity of instructions, cognitive
demands, quantity of information);
• Amount of context provided and knowledge
of the world required;
• Language demands;
• Assistance given;
• Accuracy required;
• Rime available.
TASK-BASED
SYLLABUS
White (as quoted in Long and
Crookes, 1991) conceptualize
A B
two general types of
syllabuses.

Type A
 Focused on WHAT
 Interventionist
 Preselected
 Predigested
 Does not cosider who the learnears may
be
 Either how languages are learned
 Determined by authority
 Teacher’s role as decision-maker
 Treats subject-matter as important
 Asseses success and failure in terms of
achivement or mastery
1
Cambridge Dictionary - (of information) made simpler or easier to understand, especially by removing any parts that would make a person have to think hard
Adapted from Long & Crookes (1991)
Type B
 Focused on HOW
 Non-interventionist
 Not preselected
1
 Allow objectives determined by teacher
and learners as the course evolves
 Learners and teacher as decision-makers
 Emphasis on the Process of Learning
 Assess success in relationship to
learner’s criteria for success
 Adapted from Long & Crookes (1991)

THREE APPROACHES Process

TO TASK-BASED syllabus
Procedural
syllabus SYLLABUS DESIGN

Task
syllabus
Procedural syllabus
• Series of intellectually challenging tasks to
maintain students’ attention
• Reasonable challenging
• Analytic – Cognition
• Focused on meaning rather than form
• Pre-set pedagogic-task
• “whodunit”
• Task negotiation
• No needs identification
“An activity which required learners
to arrive at an outcome from given
information through some process of
thought, and which allowed teachers to
control and regulate that process, was
regarded as a ‘task’.”
Prabhu (1987), p.24
Long (2015); Long & Crookes (1991)
Process syllabus
“any structured language learning endeavor
which has a particular objective, appropriate
• Focused on the learner and learning processcontent, a specified working procedure, and
• a range of outcomes for those who
Sequenceable tasks undertake the task. “Task” is therefore
• Problem posing activities assumed to refer to a range of workplans
• Task selection which have the overall purpose of
facilitating language learning – from the
• Cognitive process simple and brief exercise type, to more
• Communicative process complex and lengthy activities such as
• Subject to negotiation and reinterpretationgroup problem-solving or simulations and
decision-making.”
• Learning should be product of negotiation Breen (1987), quoted in Long (2015),
• No needs identification p.220

Adapted from Long (2015); Long & Crookes (1991)

Process syllabus

Breen (1984) (as quoted in Long & Crookes (1991)) proposes a hierarchical
model or four options. Course design consists of providing the resources and
materials needed for:

1. Making general decisions about classroom language learning (who needs to

learn what, how they prefer to learn it, when, with whom, and so on)
2. Alternative procedures for making those decisions
3. Alternative activities, such as teacher-led instruction, group work and
laboratory use.
4. Alternative tasks, i.e. a bank of pedagogic tasks students may select from.
Task syllabus

• No imposition of the same programs on all learners

“a piece of work undertaken for oneself or
• Students are helped to develop their language skills,
for others, gradually
freely or for some reward. Thus,
• Content is determined by an analysis of learners’ current and/orpainting
examples of tasks include futurea fence,
communicative needs dressing a child, filling out a form, buying a
• Needs analysis pair of shoes, making an airline reservation,
[…] In other words, by “task” is meant the
• Target task hundred and one things people do in
• Pedagogic task everyday life, at work, at play, and in
• Meaning between. Tasks are the things they will tell
you they do if you ask them and they are
• Form not applied linguists.
• There is negotiation Long (1985), quoted in Long (2015),
p.220

Adapted from Long (2015); Long & Crookes (1991)

Procedural syllabus
 Series of intellectually
 Reasonable challenging
 Analytic – Cognition
 Focused on meaning rather
than form
 Pre-set pedagogic-task
 “whodunit”
 Task negotiation
 No needs identification
Task syllabus Process syllabus
 No imposition of the same  Focused on the learner and
programs on all learners learning process
 Students are helped to develop  Sequenceable tasks
their language  Problem posing activities
 Content is determined by an  Task selection
analysis of learners’  Cognitive process
 Needs analysis  Communicative process
 Target task  Product of negotiation
 Pedagogic task  No needs identification
 Meaning
 Form
 There is negotiation
“As will become clear, in addition to being analytic, all three task-based syllabus
types focused on in this paper are primarily Type B in nature, in that each allows
both language and task to be negotiated in the classroom. Procedural and task
syllabuses do have one Type A characteristic, however, for (via different
procedures) each makes an initial specification in substantive terms of the kinds of
tasks learners will work on before teachers and students ever meet. That is to say,
they specify the target tasks learners ultimately need to be able to handle, and then
allow the tasks teachers and learners work on in the classroom, i.e. the pedagogic
tasks, to be negotiated […]. Process syllabuses, conversely, are Type B
thoroughbreds; they allow negotiation of language and task, and, in theory, at least,
place no constraints on the tasks chosen.” (Long & Crookes, 1991, p.4)
 Conduct needs Sequence
analysis to identify the
target tasks pedagogic
tasks

Classify target • Derive pedagogic tasks by

tasks into adjusting tasks complexity
target Task • (Long & Crookes, 1991, p.4)
types

Adapted from Long (2015); Long & Crookes (1991)

Reflective questions
Which syllabus do Which syllabus
Which one do you you think is better? design would you like
to work with?
think is better:  Type A
• Procedural
How you learn or  Type B
• Process
What you learn? • Task
CONLUSIO
N
In conclusion, tasks involve information in the form of a piece of text or language that can
be written or spoken. In addition, homework involves activities that students must do;
therefore, they involve cognitive operations, which are the cognitive processes necessary
to complete the activity. However, it is almost impossible to consider tasks in isolation
from other key variables within the teaching-learning process. Tasks are usually designed
or selected by teachers to achieve some purpose that reflects their implicit views on
learning and education. These tasks or activities may vary in different ways that will
reflect those educational views. The selected tasks will then be performed by students
who will use a variety of cognitive and social processes to make sense of and attempt to
complete them.
REFERENC
ES
Long, M. (2015). Second Language Acquisition and Task-Based Language
Teaching. Oxford, UK.

Long, M. H. & Crookes, G. (1991). Three Approaches to Task-Based Syllabus

Designs. University of Hawai’i

Prabhu, N. S. (1987). Second Language Pedagogy. Oxford University Press

Sanchez, A. (2004). A Task-Based Approach in Language Teaching.

International Journal on English Studies. Vol. 4 (1), pp. 39-71. University
of Murcia.

Williams, M. & Burden, L. R. (2007). Psychology for Language Teachers.

Cambridge University Press.