Swan (2005): a critical view of TBI

1. Legislation by Hypothesis:
The Case of Task Based Instruction
By Michael Swan
Fariba Chamani (2016)

2. Table of Contents
A. Introduction
1. Definitions & focus
2. Characteristics of TBI
3. Problems with TBI
B. THE THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF TBI
1. Three hypotheses
2. Empirical support
3. Problems with the on-line hypothesis
4. Problems with the noticing hypothesis
5. Problems with the reachability
hypothesis
6. The acquisition of what?
7. Skills
8. From theory to pedagogy
C. THE REJECTION OF TRADITIONAL
APPROACHES
1. The scope and focus of criticism
2. ‘Straw man’ attacks
3. ‘Traditional approaches have failed’
D. TBI IN PRACTICE: THE PROBLEM OF NEW
LANGUAGE
1. The aims of language instruction
2. The naturalistic straitjacket
3. Where does new language come
from?
4. Interaction: learning from each other
5. Other sources: pre- and post-task
work, materials, the teacher
6. How rich is the input?
E. TBI AND THE WORLD’S LANGUAGE
CLASSROOMS
1. The 3hpw learner: coverage and the
case for planning
2. The case for a grammar syllabus
3. Teachers and TBI
4. Polarization or integration?
F. CONCLUSION; REFLECTIONS AND
IMPLICATIONS

3. A. Introduction
This study intends to examine a number
of claims that are commonly made for, or
in connection with, task-based instruction
in second-language learning.

4. 1. Task-based instruction (TBI)
TBI makes meaning-centered tasks the
‘central planning tool of the syllabus’ or
‘the basis for an entire language
curriculum’ (Ellis, 2003), while rejecting
alternative or complementary approaches
to syllabus design.

5. 2. Characteristics of TBI
 Focus on ‘natural’ or ‘naturalistic’ language
use & meaning rather than language
 Advocating learner- centeredness
 Acknowledging the necessity of intervention
through ‘focus on form’ in communicative
tasks
 Rejecting ‘traditional’ approaches as
something undesirable & ineffective

6. Theoretical rationales for TBI
‘Rehearsal rationale’: language learning
activities should directly reflect what
learners potentially or actually need to do
with the target language.
‘Psycholinguistic rationale’: mechanisms
underlying L2 acquisition, and the ways in
which these can be activated in the
classroom should be considered.

7. 3. Problems with TBI
TBI model is attractive, offering the
possibility of combining ‘the best
insights from CLT with an organized
focus on language form’.
 However, TBI cannot fulfill its claims &
there is no theoretical or empirical
evidence to support its claims.

8. A. The theoretical underpinnings of TBI
1. Three hypotheses
2. Empirical support
3. Problems with the on-line hypothesis
4. Problems with the noticing hypothesis
5. Problems with the reachability hypothesis
6. The acquisition of what?
7. Skills
8. From theory to pedagogy

9. 1. Three hypotheses
1. An ‘on-line hypothesis’: language acquisition
takes place through communication (Schmidt
2001; Doughty 2001).
2. A ‘noticing hypothesis’ : the conscious noticing of
language elements is necessary to trigger
acquisition (Schmidt and Frota 1986; Schmidt
1990, 2001).
3. A ‘teachability hypothesis’ : the acquisition of L2
syntax follows developmental sequences, thus
rendering a predetermined structural syllabus is
unworkable (Pienemann 1998).

10. 2. Empirical support
 Few studies support spontaneous use of features
acquired by incidental on-line focus on form & of
successful classroom implementation of the
approach.
 Norris & Ortega’s meta-study (2000) finds little
advantage for on-line over off-line instruction.
 Schmidt (1990) found little evidence to show that
conscious noticing is necessary for acquisition.
 On developmental factors, evidence for inbuilt
acquisition sequences currently lacks generality.

11. 3. Problems with on-line hypothesis
The claim that acquisition only takes
place on-line during communication
comes from areas distant from
classroom SLA.
Countless people have learnt languages
successfully by ‘traditional’ methods
incompatible with this hypothesis.

12. 4. Problems with noticing hypothesis
Noticing linguistic features is surely a
good thing for learners to do.
But conscious attention is not required
for intake & language learners do not
acquire everything through conscious
noticing.

13. 5. Problems with the teachability
hypothesis
There is no enough empirical research
to show that structures are acquired
based on developmental sequences.
If there is a fixed internal syllabus that
nullifies pre-planned structure teaching,
it should equally undermine focus on
form during task-based learning.

14. 6. The acquisition of what?
How dealing with a lexical gap problem
connects with a change in the language
system which is productive and lead to
cumulative progress?
There is no reason or evidence to suggest
that the acquisition of a particular
syntactic feature such as third-person -s,
has any wider repercussions on
interlanguage as a whole.

15. 7. Skills
TBI condemns syllabus-based teaching
of discrete linguistic regularities.
However such instruction is compatible
with skill-building theories, which state
that declarative knowledge can change
to proceduralized knowledge through
practice.

16. 8. From theory to pedagogy
1. Focus on on-line learning at the expense of formal
teaching overvalues noticing and reduces off-line
attention to language.
2. Viewing acquisition in terms of grammar can
encourage focus on ways of promoting accuracy
and complexity at the expense of the planned
teaching of new language & lexis.
3. Comparisons of TBI with ‘traditional’ methods
solely in relation to grammar teaching can give a
very misleading picture of the differences between
approaches and of their relative merits.

17. C. Rejection of traditional approaches
1. The scope and focus of criticism
2. ‘Straw man’ attacks
3. ‘Traditional approaches have failed

18. 1. The scope and focus of criticism
• Traditional methods which incorporate
proactive off-line teaching and practice
following a progressive ‘linguistic’
syllabus have been under attack.
• However, theory and research do not
provide a sound basis for rejecting the
practices in question.

19. 2. ‘Straw man’ attacks
 It’s claimed that traditional teachers focus only on irrelevant language
features, in a rigid order, in a decontextualized and repetitious manner,
with numerous tedious and meaningless exercises, where the language
becomes an end in itself.’ Also TBI is contrasted with the inferior and
‘discredited’ PPP technique.
 However, such characterizations describe aspects of an extreme form
of behaviourist teaching. And PPP is not an ‘approach’ or ‘method’ but
a tool used for presenting and practicing structural features until they
can be produced easily. This is likely to form part of a program which
includes many other things, including communicative work.

20. 3. ‘Traditional approaches have failed’
 There is no evidence to support this claim and countless
people have learnt languages over the centuries through
this approach.
 The sense of failure relates partly to the difficulty of
achieving fluent and accurate spontaneous production of
what is taught, and especially of grammar.
 However this problem will not be solved by eliminating the
first two ‘P’s of grammar teaching—systematic
presentation and practice—in order to stake everything on
the third ‘P’—a focus on form during communicative
activity.

21. D. TBI in practice: The problem of
new language
1. The aims of language instruction
2. The naturalistic straitjacket
3. Where does new language come from?
4. Interaction: learning from each other
5. Other sources: pre- and post-task work,
materials, the teacher
6. How rich is the input?

22. 1. The aims of language instruction
 Selection and presentation: The most important
linguistic elements for learners’ purposes must
be identified and made available for learning.
 Establishment of a knowledge base: The forms
and use of new language items must be fixed in
learners’ long-term memory.
 Development of recall and deployment: New
material, once learnt, must become efficiently
retrievable for comprehension or production.

23. 2. The naturalistic straitjacket
 Meaning-centered tasks are compatible with TBI;
however the systematic off-line presentation and
practice of elements in a progressive syllabus,
involving the ‘regurgitation of pre-arranged
meanings’ are not.
 This naturalistic orientation acts like a straitjacket,
tending to limit the approach to doing what it does
best— promoting more accurate, fluent and complex
use of what has already been learnt—at the expense
of a principled focus on new linguistic material.

24. 3. Where does new language
come from?
In TBLT it is not clear where ‘words and
phrases come from & what the learners will
learn, only how they will learn matters.
It is taken for granted that structures and
lexis will be made available for learning
through interaction, task materials, ‘focus on
form’, teacher intervention, pre-teaching, or
the rich input felt to be associated with TBI.

25. 4. Interaction: learning from each
other
In TBI, the students are expected to develop
their knowledge during interaction or task
performance based on ‘negotiation of
meaning’ with other students.
Ellis (2003): ‘there is very little research to
show that meaning negotiation leads to
grammatical development of any kind.’

26. 5. Other sources: pre- and post-
task work, materials, the teacher
 Pre-teaching is cited as a way of priming on-line
noticing and as a source of new language. However,
it is argued that pre-teaching may threaten
naturalness & integrity of the task.
 Thus, pre-teaching, texts and other materials are
used as a source of task-relevant language not as a
vehicle for presenting new language.
 Teacher also has the role of a manager and
facilitator of communicative activity rather than an
important source of new language.

27. 6. How rich is the input?
 Underlying the lack of detailed concern with
new language, there is a feeling that the ‘rich
input’ of TBI will automatically supply what is
needed.
 But TBI puts emphasis on output: it involves
learners deploying and refining their use of
language to solve communicative problems.
 Thus, TBI provides learners with substantially
less new language than ‘traditional’
approaches. This seems a serious weakness.

28. E. TBI & the world’s language
classrooms
1. The 3hpw learner: coverage and the
case for planning
2. The case for a grammar syllabus
3. Teachers and TBI
4. Polarization or integration?

29. 1. The 3hpw learner: coverage and
the case for planning
 TBI is of value to learners who do not need much
new input from their classes but not to the
majority who fall outside these categories.
 Where time and input are limited, we need
planned approaches involving careful selection
and prioritizing, proactive syllabus design, and
concentrated engagement with a limited range
of high-priority language elements to establish a
core linguistic repertoire.

30. 2. The case for a grammar syllabus
TBI rejects grammar esp. for beginners.
But teachers believe that beginners need
to acquire a basic grammatical repertoire
through presentation & practice.
As learners progress, they become ready
to integrate the language elements into
realistic communicative exchanges.

31. 3. Teachers and TBI
 Research shows (Ellis 2003) that many
teachers and learners seem unwilling to adopt
TBI.
 Skehan (1998) claims that teachers are
conservative & not in touch with acquisition
research so they prefer traditional approaches.
 However, typical 3hpw teachers seem to be
aware of the constraints inherent in their
situation to be skeptical of the value of state-of-
the-art methods.

32. 4. Polarization or integration?
Form-based and meaning-based
approaches need not be in opposition to
each other but can operate synergistically.
Rather than being regarded as a
replacement for ‘traditional’ approaches,
task-centered work is best seen as one of
many diverse resources that can support
effective teaching in the world’s
classrooms.

33. F. Conclusion; reflections and
implications
 The claim that TBI is a superior teaching
approach is supported neither by theoretical
argument nor by empirical evidence, and are
contradicted by common language-learning
experience.
 The issues discussed here are not purely
academic: their implications reach into the real
world and affect millions of learners and their
teachers and they may do immense harm.