Delphi module

4.3.2
Features of successful tasks

4.3.2.1 Reflection
4.3.2.2 Belief check
4.3.2.3 Tips for task design
4.3.2.4 Reflection on tasks
4.3.2.5 General success features
4.3.2.6 Benefits of tasks
4.3.2.7 Reflection
4.3.2.8 The essential conditions for SLA and tasks
4.3.2.9 Reflection on task
4.3.2.10 Classroom management and teacher roles
4.3.2.11 Interim summary
4.3.2.12 Optional reading / assessment task

4.3.2.1 Reflection
Think of an activity that went well in one of your recent lessons (preferably one that fits the definition of task established in activity cycle 2 - see 4.2.2.3). Spend a minute brainstorming and jot down all the positive aspects of the activity.

4.3.2.2 Belief check
What do you believe are the qualities of a successful task?

You may like to do this as a 'mind map', like the one I've started here for the 'mystery objects task' described in activity cycle 2 of this module (see 4.2.3). Alternatively, just make a note-form list.

Image of a mind map

Figure 4.1 Mind map of positive aspects of the 'mystery objects' task

When I made this example I started with the obvious things, like students being motivated (in rectangular boxes) then added reasons why these had happened (in hexagonal shapes), the immediate classroom effects (oval shapes) and the longer term pedagogic benefits (star bursts).

4.3.2.3 Tips for task design
Jane Willis offers six tips for designing effective tasks. How do they compare with those on your mind map or list?

Tip 1	JW04 - video	JW04 - transcript
Tip 2	JW05 - video	JW05 - transcript
Tip 3	JW06 - video	JW06 - transcript
Tip 4	JW07 - video	JW07 - transcript
Tip 5	JW08 - video	JW08 - transcript
Tip 6	JW09 - video	JW09 - transcript

JW04 Tip 1
I think the topic of the task needs to hold a bit of interest for the students.

JW05 Tip 2
I think it's very important for the instructions to be very specific. And what we have found when we've been doing task recordings working with native speakers sometimes, in fact very often with native speakers, that if you set a task which is rather open ended and general people tend to 'umm' and 'ah' a lot and wonder what they're supposed to be talking about, so I think one of the most important things is to think of instructions - make sure they know when they've finished the task, so 'Find seven differences', or 'Talk to your partner about where your grandparents live and see if you can find two things in common'.

JW06 Tip 3
Always try your task instructions out on someone else, even if it's just a colleague in the staff room, better still, two colleagues. Give them the written instructions and ask them if they can do the task in one minute or two minutes, however long you think it will take them, and if they turn round and say,' Hey, what do you mean by this?' you know you have to change the task instructions.

JW07 Tip 4
And my fourth tip is to always set a time limit!

JW08 Tip 5
One thing I will say that, talking of time limits, that if you set too long a time limit and it drags out, that's when your unmotivated pupils really start thinking, 'Oh, what are we supposed to be doing now!' So stopping it once maybe half the class have finished?

JW09 Tip 6
If you can get someone to record the task then that would actually be a good idea because then you've got some data to work on, then you know the kind of language that is natural to come up in the task, and that helps you to prepare a nice pre-task phase. And if you can get two sets of people to do it that's even better.

4.3.2.4 Reflection on tasks
After completing the task, spend a few minutes considering the pros and cons of doing this type of brainstorming task, where you start individually and then combine your ideas with a partner's, or compare your ideas with someone else's (Jane's).

4.3.2.5 General success features
Many of the items on your mind map probably describe aspects of any successful classroom activity, regardless of whether it would conform to the definition of task we have adopted here. These are features like:

Immediate motivation (see 4.1.2)
- Interesting topic - ie interesting to students!
- Intrigue, challenge or fun - solve a problem or mystery, win a game;
- Variety / novelty - or at least not overusing a technique or material so that it loses its appeal;
- Level of difficulty - doable but not too easy, so worth doing and gives sense of achievement;
- Timing - doesn't go on too long so students get bored or tired;
- Clear, simple instructions - students don't get confused and lose interest;
- ...
Organizational factors
- Not too complex or time consuming to prepare or use - efficient use of classroom time;
- Clearly related to syllabus / lesson aims / progression of activities;
- ...
Pedagogic factors
- Clear objectives - to both teacher and students;
- Facilitates learning of aspect(s) of target language;
- Fosters effective learning strategies / learner training;
- ...
- ...

(For further discussion on a closely related area, see Skehan (1998: 142-45) on 'task usefulness')

To be successful, a task, like any other activity, should be designed with these factors in mind. But a well-designed task can offer additional benefits over many traditional language classroom activities.

4.3.2.6 Benefits of tasks
In the example mind map I included three pedagogic benefits of doing the 'mystery objects' task. In your mind map or list, you may well have thought of more, or a different set.

Compare yours with Jane Willis's (1996: 35-36) list of eight advantages to students of doing tasks in pairs or groups, summarized in the table below.

Next, rank these benefits in order of importance for your students, with 1 being the most important benefit and 8 being the least important. (You can give two or more benefits equal ranking if you wish.)

Benefit	Rank
It gives learners confidence to try out whatever language they know, or think they know, in the relative privacy of a pair or small group, without fear of being wrong or of being corrected in front of the class.
It gives learners experience of spontaneous interaction, which involves composing what they want to say in real time, formulating phrases and units of meaning, while listening to what is being said.
It gives learners a chance to benefit from noticing how others express similar meanings. Research shows they can successfully provide corrective feedback to each other (when encouraged to do so), without learning each other's errors (Lightbown and Spada, 1999:148; Porter, 1983, cited in Nunan, 1999: 52)
It gives all learners chances to practise negotiating turns to speak, initiating as well as responding to questions, and reacting to other's contributions (whereas in teacher-led interaction, they only have a responding role).
It engages learners in using language purposefully and co-operatively, concentrating on building meaning, not just using language for display purposes.
It makes learners participate in a complete interaction, not just one-off sentences. Negotiating openings and closings, new stages or changes of direction are their responsibility. It is likely that discourse skills such as these can only be acquired through interaction.
It gives learners more chances to try out communication strategies like checking understanding, paraphrasing to get round an unknown word, reformulating other people's ideas, and supplying words and phrases for other speakers.
It helps learners gradually gain confidence as they find they can rely on co-operation with their fellow students to achieve the goals of the tasks mainly through use of the target language.

4.3.2.7 Reflection

After completing the task in 4.3.2.6, spend a few minutes considering the pros and cons of this type of consensus discussion task where there is no key or answer supplied (because there is no single right answer.)
To what extent do the activities you use in your existing approach to teaching give your students the benefits listed above? For example, how often do your students get opportunities to initiate interactions?

4.3.2.8 The essential conditions for SLA and tasks
A successful task will provide many, if not all of these benefits for language students. It will also fulfil the three essential conditions for language acquisition set out in activity cycle 1 (motivation, exposure and language use, see 4.1). In fact each of the beneficial features of tasks listed here helps in some way to fulfil one or more of these three essential conditions.

For each of the summarized benefits listed below, look at the 'How?' column which shows how tasks can offer these benefits. Two of the 'Hows?' have been transposed; which two should be swapped over to make sense?
Next, decide which of the three essential conditions for SLA, motivation, exposure and language use, is provided for.

Beneficial feature	How?	SLA conditions
confidence to try out language	students work in private in pairs / groups; no error correction
spontaneous interaction	repeatedly successful task completion boosts confidence
opportunity to learn from others	to participate, students must listen to peers and may notice how others express similar meanings; corrective feedback to each other encouraged
negotiating turn-taking, initiating	not teacher led; group members are equal participants
purposeful, co-operative language use	teacher expects language to be used to achieve task goal, not for display; students build meaning / solve task together in pairs / groups
complete and extended interaction to develop discourse skills	doing a task means engaging in a complete interaction from start to finish, not just isolated fragments of language
development of communication strategies	students need to understand each other and make themselves understood in order to do the task
builds confidence in ability to function in target language	no prior language preparation; students must work together in real time to complete task
Others:(add your own)

For feedback, see Commentary 4.3.1.

4.3.2.9 Reflection on task
After completing the task in 4.3.2.8, spend a few minutes considering the pros and cons of this type of consensus discussion task where a correct answer is supplied.

4.3.2.10 Classroom management and teacher roles
Some of the items in the 'How?' column of the previous task have major implications for the way teachers conduct their lessons, and the roles that they fulfil.

Before moving to the next activity you might like to consider how your role might differ from the one you usually adopt if you start using tasks of the type Jane Willis describes. We will return to this topic in more detail in activity cycle 4 (see 4.4).

4.3.2.11 Interim summary
To sum up so far: we have now established that to get the most out of tasks in the language classroom, we need to consider a number of design factors that we would apply to any classroom activity.

But we have also seen that to get the full benefit, these tasks have to be designed:

for private pair or group work;
with minimum (or no) teacher intervention;
in a way that presupposes no specific language, but instead sets students a challenging and interesting goal to encourage them to use the target language as best they can to achieve that goal with the help of their partner(s).

The result should be that students use the target language as spontaneously (even if inaccurately) as they would in a genuine communicative situation outside the classroom. The task itself may not be of a type that we would use in real contexts, but the immediate motivation and need to speak that it creates are every bit as real.

4.3.2.12 Optional reading / assessment task
This would be a good point to do the first optional reading (see 4.3.7, Reading 1).

You may also like to go straight to the assessment task (see 4.3.9) for this activity cycle in order to complete the first part of it.