Task based language teaching & Computer-aided language learning

Richard S Pinner RPinner Task-Based Language Teaching & CALL.docx

26/04/2010

Task-based Teaching and Computer Aided Language
Learning:

How are they compatible for simulating real-world tasks
and what are the implications for learning and research?

Contents

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 3

TBLT: CONCEPTUAL UNEASE ............................................................................... 4

DEFINITION OF TASK AND ‘REAL-WORLD’ .......................................................... 5

TBLT AND CALL TASKS ......................................................................................... 6

REAL-WORLD TASKS IN A DIGITAL AGE ............................................................10

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND RESEARCH ..............................................15

CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................18

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................18

APPENDIX ...............................................................................................................22

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Originally submitted to King’s College London as part of an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT


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Introduction

Computers have a huge influence on the way we do things in the real-world. Information

Communication Technology (ICT) is one of the driving forces behind the current wave of

globalisation (Hajela, 2005 : 6-7) and in some ways this has an effect on the way we

communicate in the real-world (Murray, 2001; Chapelle 2001: 1).

Because of the larger part technology and computers play in society, the field of computer aided

language learning (CALL) has enjoyed a growing profile within the second language acquisition

(SLA) community (Levy and Stockwell, 2006: xi). In this essay I will examine how task-based

language teaching (TBLT) is compatible with CALL. Of particular concern is the idea of real-world

tasks and how they can be defined for the digital age. I will look at how computers can be used

to simulate real-world tasks and discuss the implications for teaching and researching TBLT.

First I will look briefly at the history of TBLT and review some of the important developments

from the literature relating to the use of computers and computer-based tasks. As with

communicative language teaching, TBLT has been expanded by the literature and

conceptualised in many different ways (Nunan 2004, Van den Branden et al 2009) therefore any

discussion of TBLT requires a clear definition. For this reason I will attempt to clarify the

definition of tasks that I will use in this essay in a way that allows also for computer-based tasks.

With this definition in place I will then look at some of the research that has been done into

using CALL tasks, particularly focusing on authenticity or connection to the real-world. Finally I

will explain how TBLT and CALL are compatible and the way this relationship could be used to

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simulate real-world tasks. I will then briefly examine some of the possible implications for

teaching and research.

My conclusion is that because real-world tasks have been influenced by computers, CALL and

TBLT are highly compatible in some areas and thanks to advances in technology, computer-

based tasks can be utilised to engage in socially involving and collaborative real-world tasks as

part of task-based language teaching, learning and research.

TBLT: conceptual unease

Within SLA research, TBLT is widely acknowledged and adopted around the globe as a “very

powerful language pedagogy” (Van den Branden et al, 2009: 1) for second language

development. Although there are criticisms of a task-based approach (see for example Swan,

2005) the growing research into the processes learners engage in when accomplishing a task

and how this relates to second language acquisition provides some vital insights into how

people learn a second language and the way these processes can relate to actual practice. In this

way “TBLT addresses questions which are at the center of attention in second language

acquisition research.” (Eckerth, 2008: 13)

TBLT has a significant body of research and literature devoted to understanding how best to

utilise tasks for successful language learning and acquisition (Nunan 2004: 76). However, the

decades of literature and research have also led to what Littlewood (2007, cited in Samuda and

Bygate 2008: 195) refers to as ‘conceptual unease’ about what task-based teaching actually is.

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Doughty and Long state that “TBLT is an example of learning by doing” (2003: 58). I think this

helps summarise the underlying principle of TBLT. In the literature there have been many

definitions and interpretations, and the approach has been examined through a number of

paradigms, most notably cognitive and sociocultural (see Ellis, 2003: 213-215 and Nunn, 2001).

Doughty and Long (2003: 51) observe that “TBLT is rooted in cognitive and interactionist SLA

theory and research findings,” however there have been many studies that approach TBLT,

particularly relating to CALL tasks, through a sociocultural dimension (see for example

Siekmann, 2008; Lamy and Hampel, 2007; Hampel, 2006)

It seems to me that the robustness of a task-based approach is demonstrated by the way it

lends itself well to many different frameworks, as Nunan points out, “it is probably good that

the concept has the power to speak to different people in different ways” (2004: 14). For this

reason a definition of tasks is essential if I am to define how compatible CALL and TBLT are in

relation to real-world tasks.

Definition of task and ‘real-world’

Perhaps one of the clearest and most widely cited examples from my own reading is the one

summarised by Skehan:

A task is an activity in which:

 meaning is primary;

 there is some communication problem to solve;

 there is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world activities;

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 task completion has some priority;

 the assessment of the task is in terms of outcome.

(Skehan, 1998: 95)1

Of particular interest here is the mention of ‘real-world’ activities. The idea of ‘real-wordness’ or

authenticity seems on the surface quite clear, but in fact this is a notion heavily dependent on

the context of the learners and teachers. If, for example, we talk about real-world tasks in CALL

being telecollaboration between university students working together towards a set of

outcomes, this will not reflect the real-world for learners in contexts where even chalk for

writing on boards is scarce.

For this essay I will define real-worldness or authenticity as relating to communication that takes

place beyond the physical walls of the individual classroom setting. Under this definition,

communication that happens between learners or speakers who are members of different

institutions would count as being real-world.

In summary then, for the purposes of this essay, I will focus on the idea of tasks as having the

following features; meaning being a primary concern, a relationship to the real-world and the

task having an outcome based sense of completion through which task performance is assessed.

TBLT and CALL tasks

1
An earlier version of this definition was published in Skehan (1996:38). In the 1998 version
Skehan states that he is following the work of 'Candlin (1987) Nunan (1989), Long (1989) and
others'

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There is no shortage of relevant literature into CALL tasks, much of which has appeared over the

last decade in particular. I will look at the research literature in more detail in the following

section, but notable theoretical contributions must also be discussed. Chapelle (1998, 2001) is

well known for connecting CALL with SLA theories and created a set of criteria for the Evaluation

of CALL tasks (2001). Figure one shows a summary of the framework she put forward for

evaluating CALL task appropriateness:

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Figure 1: Chapelle (2001: 55)

As the table shows, authenticity and meaning focus, present in Skehan’s (1998) definition are

also represented here as features to evaluate the task. Chapelle also puts forward a similar set

of six criteria for the empirical evaluation of CALL tasks.

Figure 2: Chapelle (2001: 68)

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Notice that the idea of a focus on form is present on both learning potential and learner fit.

Also worthy of note is Skehans’ (2003b) article which discusses the idea of a focus on form

(FonF) within tasks and how this can relate to technology. He explains that one of the lessons

from TBLT literature that should be applied to CALL tasks is that “there needs to be care in

ensuring that learners do not simply transact tasks at the expense of their sustained

interlanguage development” (2003b: 409). I agree that many learners wish to improve their

grammatical and lexical accuracy. Skehan states that now, FonF “generalisation is widely

accepted by almost all researchers working on task-based research” (2003a: 2).
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It is my feeling that computers can help with this as they are a good medium for form-focused

activities and provide instant feedback or transcripts in many cases. Pellettieri (2000) argues

that because synchronous networked communication (chatting online for example) allows for

“negotiation of meaning and form-focused interaction…*it+ can play a significant role in the

development of grammatical competence” (Pellettieri, 2000:83). Another example that supports

this is Barson et al’s (1993) experiments in communication and collaboration between students

from different universities. Students collaborated and communicated through email exchanges

on the task of creating a student newspaper. It was noted that:

When language learning is configured and implemented in this way, attention to

grammar and linguistic form per se occurs in the context of actual, authentic

communication as opposed to contrived, pseudocommunication typical of more

traditional approaches.

Barson et al 1993: 566

I believe this makes clear that a focus on form can be incorporated into CALL tasks without being

at the expense of authentic collaborative communication.

Real-world tasks in a digital age

Within Skehan’s (1998, 1996) widely cited definition of tasks, one of the conditions is that “there

is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world activities” (ibid 1998: 95, italics added).

This reference to authenticity or the real-world is also present is Ellis’s (2003: 16) definition, as

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well as Richards, Platt and Weber (1986 : 289, cited in both Nunan 2004: 4 and Ellis 2003 : 4)

who describe tasks as providing a “purpose for classroom activity that goes beyond practice of

language for its own sake.” Thus, a defining feature of real-world tasks is that they are

conceptualised as having a greater social and interactive dimensions. I believe this shows that

‘real-worldness’ or authenticity is a key concept in task-based approaches. ‘Real-worldness’ is

referred to by Ellis as ‘situational authenticity’ (2003: 6) and Chapelle (2001: 56) lists

authenticity as a heading under her seminal work on principles for CALL task evaluation, stating

that this condition “should help to engage learners’ interest.” I would go further than this

because to me it seems rather unnecessary to learn to do something if you are never likely to do

it in the real-world. Although some tasks may involve a certain degree of creativity (for example,

the stranded on a desert island task (Duff, 1986)), and one would hope this situation may never

arise in reality, the actual language being used and meanings being communicated are relevant

to many real-world tasks; negotiating with a group so as to agree on an order or rank of

priorities whilst giving reasons. As Ellis (2003: 6) explains, the emphasis is on the fact that “the

kind of language behaviour they elicit corresponds to the kind of communicative behaviour that

arises from performing real-world tasks.”

However, in the real-world many tasks are changing or being influenced by the technological

tools we use to accomplish them. Murray (2001) provides a very useful example of this. An

elderly lady calls an airline company to book a flight. Her intention is to get the cheapest fare to

visit her daughter in New York. For her the most important information is the cost of the flight

and the date is flexible. However, because of the computer booking system used by the

operator the date is the first piece of information required in order to perform a search.

Because of the computer the operator requests to know the date the elderly lady is flying. She

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has not chosen a date because she first needs to know the prices. The agent simply chooses a

mid-week flight and continues to ask about the time of the flight, and then proceeds to ask her

name. In all of this, the elderly lady’s enquiry about cheapest fares is not answered because

“communication gets redefined” (Ibid: 39) around the computer system. Of course, this

experience is not isolated, and indeed many people may actually bypass the phone call and

purchase the tickets online.

Not only are computers more present than ever before in the real-world and thus this should be

reflected in real-world tasks, but also computers can open a door onto the real-world from

within the classroom or language lab. For instance, telecollaboration and computer-mediated

communication (CMC) are powerful tools that can allow students to engage in a number of

interactions and situations with fellow language learners or users across the world. One such

task which I participated in was conducted by Michael Bush at Brigham Young University. The

title of the project was “Design of an Augmented Reality Experience for Language Learning”

which aimed at producing a game for language learning as part of an Advanced Materials

Development class. Using email to find participants, volunteers from New Zealand to Iran logged

in to a virtual classroom using Adobe Connect to play the role of committee members who

overview and comment on the final design of the product (see appendix one).

CALL and TBLT also seem to co-exist in the form of activities such as WebQuests, which involve

students actively researching and completing tasks online in order to achieve a set of goals and

thus to arrive at the outcome. A definition of WebQuests comes from Bernie Dodge, who is

credited with creating the initial model on his website2. A WebQuest is described as “an inquiry-

2
http://webquest.org/index.php accessed 18/04/2010 at 17:05

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oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from

the web.” (Dodge, 1995). Siekmann (2008) defines WebQuests as language learning tasks, citing

again Skehans’ (1998) definition, focusing on meaning being primary, having a set of outcomes

and being comparable to real-world activities. Having used WebQuests myself I believe that they

do provide students with access to rich and authentic language. As Siekmann points out,

“WebQuests are sources of linguistically and culturally authentic materials” (2008:144). Willis

and Willis (2007:104) site web-based projects within their practical book from the Oxford

Handbooks for Language Teachers series, stating that “finding a resource like webquests [sic] is

invaluable” (Ibid: 104) in terms of reducing teacher planning time.

Alongside teaching ideas and readily available lesson plans, there is a good amount of research

into using web-based tasks. Wang (2009) conducted a study into web-based projects and found

that students believed they were useful for enhancing cooperation, raising computer literacy

and promoting cognitive skills. There was, however, also noted from the students to be a

“preference for the more traditional paperwork” (ibid: 1) and comments about the time-

consuming nature of the work. Despite the limitations and some negative findings regarding

students’ attitudes to web-based projects, Wang concluded that using web-based projects “has

the potential to bridge the gap between using English in class and using English in real life

situations outside of class” and went on to suggest restructuring curriculums to feature more

technology for authentic language exchanges. Another interesting point made was that

students’ digital literacy also improved, a skill which they would need in the real-world as well as

English.

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Hampel (2006) also reports very positive results from a study into using the web to conduct

online tutorials. The online tutorials took place in Lyceum, which allows for synchronous online

communication. Hampel found that the “tasks encouraged active participation and interaction”

and that they “simulated authenticity” (ibid:118), although there were negative aspects, such as

the students finding the technology hard to use at first, which had a negative effect on their

communication (ibid:118), and the fact that there was no body language affected turn taking

(116). This is certainly something I have noticed in my own practice, and I have also experienced

issues with bandwidth and internet speed. Problems with the technology were reported by both

Wang (2009) and Hampel (2006). Lawrence and Lam (2002) report on the changing of student

roles when using computer-based projects, finding that students maintained “constant

interaction … for technical and linguistic matters” (ibid:304). This corroborates the findings of

Warschauer (1996) who found that students in his study of computer-mediated communication

participated in a more balanced way than in face-to-face classes.

As with Hampel (2006) and Siekmann (2008), the findings of Lawrence and Lam’s (2002) study

suggest that computer-based tasks lend themselves well to a sociocultural framework, with

students providing scaffolding for one another, allowing for greater collaboration and a more

learner-centred dynamic. Both Leahy (2008) and Lam and Lawrence (2002) noted the

development of students taking on ‘expert’ roles, suggesting greater autonomy and a more

student-centred class. Barson et al (1993: 581) reported very high levels of student involvement

from their collaborative CALL task study. Again, this is something I have observed personally,

many students from my classes engaged in WebQuests put in additional hours to complete the

task to a high level, showing perhaps increased motivation and task involvement.

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Following on from this theme, the technology for collaboration and synchronous CMC has never

been so full of potential. There are now schools in Second Life, a virtual world free to access,

where role-plays can be done in real-time 3D so students can actually practice going to a shop in

a more immersive environment facilitated by the computer (see appendix two)

I believe all of this shows that CALL tasks have reached a stage where they have the flexibility

and potential not only to simulate real-world tasks, but to actually be authentic real-world tasks

which take place in the classroom either with other learners or other speakers of the target

language who may be across the world or in other institutions. As Doughty and Long state

“*c+omputer simulations of real-world tasks are potentially the ideal environment in which to

build a needs-based TBLT program” (2003: 56). In today’s world, many types of communicative

enquiry are done online, satellite navigation is often used and relied (on sometimes to

disastrous effect) for directions, computers are used to answer phones and direct our calls. It is

my view that the real-world should still be reflected in tasks and in undertaking CALL tasks

learners not only work towards improving their linguistic skills and their socio-collaborative skills

but also their digital literacy and computer skills, all of which are essential in the real-world.

Implications for teaching and research

As I stated at the beginning of this essay, the way we achieve certain goals in the real-world is

often connected to the way technology dictates the process we go through to achieve the

outcome. Technology has changed the way many real-world tasks are done in the developed

world.

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An important factor when looking at the question of how CALL and TBLT relates to teaching is

the practical side. Is this relationship available readily or does it depend on having state of the

art language labs and computer networks with expensive software? One piece of software

called FLAX, developed as a plugin for the Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) aims at

expanding available resources through digital libraries and allows the creation of simple

questions. This is free software and has been used to help students in Africa using low-end

machines (see appendix three). Another factor would relate to the students’ and teacher’s level

of ICT proficiency. This is something that would need to be taken into account when designing

CALL tasks. The advantage of using CALL tasks, as stated earlier, is that learners would

simultaneously learn the target language and greater confidence with using computers. This is

pointed out by Warschauer and Healey (1998)

A somewhat serendipitous effect of using multimedia, the Internet, and collaborative

tasks in language learning is the real-world benefit to students of becoming more

sophisticated in using computers and more experienced with a group approach to

projects

Warschauer and Healey (1998: 61)

In terms of research, can the computer be used to collect rich and accurate data? In one study

by Leahy (2008), camtasia, a computer program that records screen movement and audio

around the computer, was used to record students as they performed a task using Microsoft

Word. The data collected were obviously extremely rich in that they showed exactly what the

students were doing and what they were talking about as they did it. An additional benefit of

this is the fact that the software runs discretely and unobtrusively in the background. Because it

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is very easy to trace and monitor activity on computers, I believe that they have already been

established as valuable additions to the tools employed by SLA researchers.

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Conclusion

In this essay I have attempted to show that Task-based Teaching and Computer Aided Language

Learning are compatible for simulating real-world tasks and the implications for research are

that computers can accurately measure and record the stages in task completion (see Leahy

2008) hopefully in a way which is less intrusive than the presence of a human observer in a

white coat with a clip-board. In terms of the implications for teaching and learning, it seems that

through CALL tasks learners can be exposed to highly authentic real-world tasks that go beyond

improving language learning, but also give learners practice in collaboration, sociocultural skills

and digital literacy. In this way, CALL tasks are a valuable addition to the field of SLA and I

believe CALL and TBLT are highly compatible.

3,489 Words

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Appendix

Figure One –A screenshot of the collaborative project initiated by Michael Bush “Design of an
Augmented Reality Experience for Language Learning” – the full session is viewable at
http://connect.byu.edu/p33882880/:

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Figure Two – Second Life being used for Language Learning http://blog-
efl.blogspot.com/2007/05/second-life-and-language-learning.html

Figure Three – a screenshot of the FLAX Moodle plug-in showing students in Africa using the
software on low-end machines

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http://flax.nzdl.org/resources/flax_module_video_web/flax_module_video_web.htm

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Task based language teaching & Computer-aided language learning

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