This document discusses task design for telecollaborative language learning exchanges and searches for new evaluation criteria. It begins by outlining the importance of well-designed tasks for ensuring quality learning. Examples of tasks used in an exchange between teacher trainees in Germany and Poland are then presented and evaluated using various criteria. The document emphasizes exploring task design within real pedagogical contexts and understanding how factors like learners, settings, and tools interact. It argues for relating task-based research more closely to classroom practice and teacher training.

1. Task design for telecollaborative
exchanges – in search for new
evaluation criteria
Andreas Müller-Hartmann -Pädagogische
Hochschule, Heidelberg
Malgorzata Kurek - Jan Dlugosz University,
Czestochowa

2. Our plan for today:
• The importance of task design;
• In-class vs. telecollaborative CALL tasks;
• Context of the study and our research approach;
• Task evaluation: examples and lessons learned;
• A checklist of criteria for task design.

3. On the importance of tasks:
• “Our main role, then, is to design tasks. This role is crucial in an
interactive multimedia or Web environment since the task is what
gives meaning to the learners’ explorations. Only a well-designed
task can ensure the quality of the learning process – which is a
teacher’s ultimate responsibility” (Furstenberg 1997: 24).
• “In established CALL, language-learning task design is very much at
the heart of the matter.” And since the task “has come to be the
means or agent of learning (… the structure, content and
sequencing of language-learning tasks are critical” (Levy &
Stockwell 2006: 16, 248).
• “A poor understanding of task design principles for the new
environment may blunt pedagogical aims, confuse task writers,
cause difficulties for learners and result in low task completion”
(Gruba, 2004:72).

4. CALL tasks for in-class instruction CALL tasks for telecollaboration
macro level - institutional contexts
Independent of cultural interpretation (e.g.
resulting from differences between educational
models/systems)
Prone to culturally-tinted interpretation
micro level (classroom)
1.Task-as-workplan
• Teacher mediation reduces the need for self-
explicitness of task instructions
• Tool independent – the focus is on working
with texts and designing direct F2F
interaction
• Task performance requires familiarity with
traditional literacy standards
• The meta language of tasks (clarity, self-
explicitness, task support) is crucial
• Tool dependent - the process of task design
depends on teacher’s awareness/perception
of available affordances
• Task performance requires a juxtaposition of
modes and modalities
2) Task-as-process
• May involve learners from different linguistic
and cultural communities – meaning
negotiation is facilitated by paralinguistic
features of F2F presence and teacher
• By definition involve different linguistic and
cultural communities – highly authentic in
terms of promoting meaning negotiation

5. Common problems related to task design in
telecollaboration:
• choice of topics;
• not meeting learners’ expectations (e.g. error correction);
• striking the right balance between loosely-structured and teacher-
controlled tasks;
• keeping balance between task demands and task support.
What are the criteria for efficient task
design
in telecollaborative learning?

6. Case study: A teacher-training exchange
Czestochowa - Heidelberg (Fall 2013)
Teachers: Andres Müller-Hartmann, Malgorzata Kurek
Participants: 24 German and 32 Polish students
Time scope: October - February 2013
Competences in focus:
• integrating telecollaboration into FLT
• developing multimodal competence
• telecollaborative task design
Language of exchange: English as lingua franca
Tools: a Canvas course + a selection of tools for communication and task
design
Other features:
no real-time communication possible

7. Suggested
timeline
Czestochowa - Heidelberg: a task sequence for teacher trainees - an
overview
Purpose
weeks 1-2 Creating individual online presentations.
Forming intercultural groups and creating their identities.
Getting to know each other
week 3 The groups negotiate to adopt names. They present their new identities
on a forum.
Creating group identities -
first attempt at online
collaborative work
weeks 4-5 The groups create the first intercultural tasks for online students. Product creation -
individual tasks
weeks 6-7 The groups are assigned their partners‘ tasks to evaluate them using
Chapelle’s criteria for CALL task design. The evaluations are posted to
the auhors for consideration.
Task implementation
Peer evaluation and
feedback
weeks 8-11 The groups use Weebly to a set of pedagogivcally consistent online
activities for a group of online learners.
Product creation - task
sequences
weeks 12-13 Peer evaluation – students can use Chapelle’s criteria and their own,
common sense ones to evaluate their partners’ websites.
Application of previously
studied criteria to a new
context
Week 14-15 Project evaluation – the magnifying glass technique.
Discussion of teacher competences.
The farewell task - a Padlet wall for exchanging goodbyes and greetings.
Final questionnaires.
Reflection
Bringing closure
a
2013

8. Our research approach:
• According to Nunan and Bailey (2009) action research:
„is a systematic, iterative process of (1) identifying an issue,
problem, or puzzle we wish to investigate in our own context; (2)
thinking and planning an appropriate action to address that
concern; (3) carrying out the action; (4) observing the
apparent outcomes of the action; (5) reflecting on the outcomes
and on other possibilities; and (6) repeating these steps again”.
(p. 227).
Our methodology was…..

9. Our approach: case studies of two telecollaborative
exchanges in teacher education
Action research links research, teaching and learning.
To integrate research and teaching we focus on exploratory practice (Allwright
and Hanks 2009, 149, 154-157) :
“Exploratory practice will take us beyond the third-party model
methodologically, will not marginalize learners, will prioritize learner
understandings” (p. 149).
By analyzing the pedagogic activity of the students’ task design and the
evaluation thereof we use these “potentially exploitable pedagogic
activities” activities as investigative tools.

10. Task 1
Dear Students,
Here is your first task:
Design an intercultural activity which will help learners to get to know
more about the online partner. The task should help the participants
exchange information about their cultures or make them explore the
cultures of their partner(s). (…)
Consider:
• the age and level of the group
• the procedure
• the tools used
• clarity of instructions
Refer to handout 1 and study the task described there.

11. Task 1 - Evaluation
Task description:
Find a task assigned to you and, with your team mates, discuss it
using the criteria for task appropriatness by Chapelle, that is:
• language learning potential
• learner fit
• meaning focus
• authenticity
• positive impact
• practicality
In your evaluation pay attention to whatever you find important to
successful task implementation, e.g. the clarity of instructions,
realistic timing, technical support in the form of a tutorial
(if applicable).

12. Chapelle’s criteria (2001) What the evaluating group had to say:
language learning
potential:
Learners may improve vocabulary connected with food and they
have to create a presentation, it means they focus on form.
learner fit: The topic seems to be universal and appropriate for both genders.
Another positive aspect is that the task is good for advanced Ls at
the age of 13/14.
meaning focus: During the task learners can learn about the traditions and culture
from their partners by exchanging presentations, or with the help
of books and the Internet.
authenticity: The task is authentic because making presentations is sth that
people do in real life. Consider the case of employees of
advertising companies or tutors at universities, and multimedia
presentation is a tool that can be used in education, business etc
positive impact: The task has a positive impact on the students because they can
exchange cultural aspects concerning Christmas dishes with their
partners and learn a lot more about other cultures.
practicality: For CALL it is useful cause students will get with the help of
different technical tools into contact with each other and exchange
their experiences.

13. Task criteria What the evaluating group had to say:
Purpose of the task We don’t think that the goal of the task is clear to the
students. Do they know why they are doing this task?
What do they get from the task? Why should students talk
on Christmas Eve with their families about Christmas
dishes, are there not other aspects more important
(celebrating Christmas with your family)?
Task instructions Your task instructions are divided into steps, which makes
it easier to follow but some instructions (e.g. Step 4) are
not clear enough and examples are missing.
Choice In case that you want to give the students more choice,
give them a more opened task. For example, let them
speak about general Christmas traditions or something
which would also include other religions like festive
situations.
Task demand <-> Task
support
It is quite demanding for students to talk about Christmas
dishes, because students might not be aware of them, in
general.

14. A pedagogic approach
• “(T)here is an urgent need to relate task-based research to
pedagogic situations. (…) task research needs to be conducted
within pedagogic contexts, to establish whether or not the research
findings have relevance for classroom reality. […] we need to make
progress in understanding what the role of the teacher can most
effectively be, as well as how relevant insights on tasks can be
incorporated into teacher training” (Skehan 2007: 298).
• We “need more description of the learners, settings, and events in
[CALL] contexts” (Huh and Hu in Chambers and Bax: 467); and we
especially “need a better understanding of how exactly all of these
factors interact and operate in real pedagogical contexts”
(Chambers and Bax 2006: 466–67).

16. What the evaluating group had to say Importance of this criterion for developing
ICC
1. During the task learners can learn about the
traditions and culture from their partners by
exchanging presentations, or with the help of
books and the Internet. (Chapelle:  meaning
focus)
The task supports the learning of cultural
knowledge. (--> cultural knowledge)
2. The task has a positive impact on the
students because they can exchange cultural
aspects concerning Christmas dishes with their
partners and learn a lot more about other
cultures. (Chapelle criterion:  positive
impact)
The learners exchange aspects of cultural
knowledge and thus gain cultural knowledge
about other cultures. (--> cultural knowledge)
3. We don’t think that the goal of the task is clear
to the students. Do they know why they are doing
this task? What do they get from the task? There
is no real exchange of information. (TBLL
criterion:  purpose, goal of the task)
Looking at the purpose or goal of the task the
evaluators realize that there is no real
intercultural interaction or negotiation, hence the
skill of relating cultural information and with that
cultural concepts is not possible in this task. (-->
skills of relating)

17. 4. To make the task more communicative, you can
ask the Ls to prepare a presentation about
Christmas dishes that are popular in their mother
country. Then the Ls from Germany and Poland may
exchange their presentations – they will learn sth
about their cultures not from the Internet or books,
but from their online partners (TBLL criterion: 
task sequencing)
By focussing on the sequencing of tasks and
keeping the purpose of the task in mind, the
evaluators suggest the exchange of information
and with that the possibility of discovering cultural
aspects in the interaction. (--> skills of discovery
and interaction)
5. It is quite demanding for students to talk about
Christmas dishes, because students might not be
aware of them, in general. And also it might happen
that students mention something which is not a
general German or Polish dish but they think it is
because they have it in their family. Every family has
a tradition they follow, but it might not be a tradition
which everyone in the country follows. (TBLL
criterion:  task demand)
In case that you want to give the students more
choice, give them a more opened task. For example,
let them speak about general Christmas traditions or
something which would also include other religions
like festive situations. (TBLL criterion : choice)
When analyzing the task demands the evaluators
point out the complexity of IC which goes beyond
the comparison of national cultures, necessitating
a closer focus on individual cultural identity of the
participants. Hence they look critically at the
national paradigm of cultural learning. (--> critical
cultural awareness)

18. Tasks and technology
a
2013

19. Tasks and technology
• “We have to ensure that tasks are appropriate to the medium used
and that we develop tasks that take into account the affordances
(i.e. the constraints and possibilities for making meaning) of the
modes available” (Hampel 2006: 111).
• For learners: it is important to be aware of affordances and
constraints of tools mediating task completion.
• For teachers and teacher trainees: it is also important to
notice pedagogical affordances of those tools which haven’t
been designed for education.

20. Examples of confused affordances:

21. Task 2
• Refer to handout and go through the task
created by our students 

22. Multiliteracies Tools, tasks, and ICC
Situated Practice
Learners are immersed in their local
cultural contexts, participating and
negotiating meaning in different
discourses. Tasks have to make
learners aware of their cultural
dispositions and practices.
 Tools: learners do this by using the potential of
the tool fotobabble to represent their own cultural
context
 Task criteria: giving learners a purpose for the
task, involving them in the task, activating their
resources
 Byram’s ICC criteria: becoming aware
of/discovering one’s own cultural practices
Overt Instruction
Learners need knowledge in form of
cultural information, but also in
terms of the specific discourses
they are involved in through the
tasks. This includes technical
competence.
 Tool: Learners are introduced to the tool
fotobabble. By using it they access cultural
information about the partner
 Task criteria: task demand/support in terms of
tool use, providing/activating rich [cultural]
resources
 Byram’s ICC criteria: cultural knowledge

23. Critical Framing
Tasks are supposed to help
learners interpret the social
and cultural context of
particular cultural practices and
meaning
 Tool: by using the recording function in
fotobabble, learners can interpret the cultural
representation of their partners
 Task criteria: a clear communicative
purpose of the task, interaction based on a real-
life problem
 Byram’s ICC criteria: skills of discovering
and interpreting, skills of interaction
Transformed Practice
Tasks enable learners to
transfer their knowledge and
competences to other contexts
and cultural sites, participating
and creating (new) discourses
 Tool: by using the commenting function in
fotobabble (as well as using skype) learners can
exchange and negotiate the differences and
similarities in their contexts
 Task criteria: a clear communicative
purpose of the task, interaction based on a real-
life problem, task sequencing
 Byram’s ICC criteria: skills of interpreting
and relating, skills of interaction, critical cultural
awareness
Multiliteracies Tools, task, and ICC

24. Your task
Choose one of the following categories for task
evaluation.
• Pedagogy
• Technology
• ICC learning and multiliteracies
Think of a sequence of telecollaborative tasks that you
know well or used yourself. Use the set of criteria from
Handout 2 for evaluation. Do the criteria work for you?
Which of them need elaboration?

25. Thank you very much for you
attention!