Aspects of tasks

Aspects of tasks

1. Defining tasks

   • Goals and outcomes
     • Emphasis on understanding and coveying meanings
       • All tasks should have an outcome
   • Meaning before form
     • Learners need to feel free to experiment with language on their own.
       • Activities
         • Controlled language practice
           • Repetition of target pattern
         • Role plays
           • Simulations
   • Tasks and skills pactice
     • Carrying out a task demands meaningful interaction

2. Varieties of task

   • 6 types of task
     • Listing
       • Tend to generate a lot of talk
     • Ordering
       • Involve 4 main processes (Sequencing, ranking, categorising and classifying items)
     • Comparing
       • Involve comparing information
     • Problem solving
       • Demands people's intellectual and reasoning powers.
     • Sharing personal experiences
       • Learners talk more frrely
     • Creative tasks
       • Involve a combination of tasks.
   • Closed and open tasks
     • Close tasks
       • Highly structured and have specific goals
     • Open tasks
       • Lossey structures, less specific goal
   • Starting points for tasks
     • Personal knowledge and experience
     • Problems
     • Visual stimuli
     • Spoken and written texts
     • Children activities
     • Combinations of starting points

3. Language use in tasks

   • Spontaneous language
     • Learners should understand spontaneous speech
   • Planned language
     • Allows the learners to use the language in appropoiate circumstances
   • Predicting language forms
     • Use their own linguistic resources

4. Learning from tasks

   • Doing a task has a number of advantages
     • Confidence
     • Spontaneous interaction
     • Use the language
     • Practice