4.1  Why task-based language learning?
In this activity cycle you are asked to consider what conditions are important for successful second language learning to take place. It is recognition of these conditions that informs most task-based approaches to language learning, and tasks and task-based lessons aim to recreate these conditions in the language classroom.
4.1.1 Outcome
4.1.2  Conditions for language acquisition 
4.1.3  Summary
4.1.4  Belief check
4.1.5  Readings 
4.1.6  References
4.1.7  Assessment task
4.1.8  Commentaries
4.1.9 Transcripts of interviews

4.1.1 Outcome 
•	Optional outcome: a written specification of  essential and desirable conditions for second language acquisition (SLA). This can be presented as evidence that you have fulfilled learning objective I (see 4.0.8). Details of how to do this are given in the assessment task at the end of activity cycle 1 (see 4.1.7) 

4.1.2 Conditions for language acquisition

4.1.2.1 Introduction
It was once suggested that you might be able to learn an additional language by ‘absorbing’ the language unconsciously as you slept, if you placed a cassette player, continuously playing tapes of people speaking your target language, under your pillow at night. Not many people would now believe that this would create the conditions needed for successful learning to take place (being asleep doesn’t help, in the first place!). In this section, we consider what conditions do facilitate language acquisition. 

4.1.2.2  The first essential condition for second language acquisition (SLA)
Have you ever seen one of those ‘mind-reading’ tricks on the internet where the computer guesses the identity of a playing card you picked? Well I’m going to try a mind reading trick now! I’m going to ask a question, and you have to think of one word - just one - that you feel best answers the question. Then I’m going to guess your word. Ready?

Question: What is the single most important factor that determines someone’s success in learning an additional language?

I guess your answer is …[See Commentary 4.1.1] 

4.1.2.3  Defining motivation
When teachers give this answer, what do you think they mean by the word ‘motivation’? How would you define it? …[See Commentary 4.1.2] •	

4.1.2.4 Types of motivation
Now the trouble with discussing motivation in relation to language learners is that it can vary enormously. Learners’ goals can be very long term, such as ‘becoming competent in a language after 3 years of study’, or very short term, e.g. ‘getting the answer to the next exercise right’. Furthermore, motivation in language learning has been sub-classified as integrative or instrumental, intrinsic or extrinsic

•	integrative = wanting to identify with the culture of the speakers of the target language;
•	instrumental = wanting the language to improve prospects of external / material gain, eg to improve job prospects, be offered a place at university;
•	intrinsic = for enjoyment or personal interest or intellectual stimulation; 
•	extrinsic = for external reasons, such as passing an exam or pressure from parents.

4.1.2.5 Immediate motivation
It seems to me that while we language teachers may, through our enthusiasm, magnetic personalities or whatever, be able to have some influence over long-term motivation, especially by fostering integrative and intrinsic types (which are meant to ultimately result in better levels of success), what we are most able to influence is the very short term motivation of our learners in the classroom. Knowing that a student has signed up for a language course simply because it is a requirement of their degree programme may help us to understand their attitude to the subject, but that knowledge doesn’t help us a great deal in our regular planning of lessons that will help that learner pass the exam at the end of the year. 
	Instead, as teachers we need to focus on what motivates learners to engage in effective learning activities on a minute-by-minute basis – what I shall call immediate motivation. (If we regularly succeed in this, even our reluctant learners may eventually come to see the lessons as enjoyable and begin to have a generally more positive attitude to the language in the long term, but that is an added bonus.) The task-based learning cycle described in this module has built into it a consideration of the role that immediate motivation can play in encouraging learners to engage with the target language in such a way that their language development is gradually but continuously pushed forwards in a useful and stimulating way. 
	Here is Jane Willis talking about how doing tasks can provide immediate motivation: (see Transcript JW01). 

4.1.2.6 Checking for motivational factors
As you work through the other activity cycles in this module you may like to do a ‘motivation check’ from time to time to see:
1.	what is being proposed to engender in learners ‘a state of cognitive and emotional arousal’ (fun? intellectual challenge? competition with peers? curiosity?); 
2.	what sort of action and ‘sustained intellectual and/or physical effort’ will result from this stimulation (reading, writing, speaking or listening in the target language?);
3.	what ‘previously set goal (or goals)’ will the learners be seeking to attain through this action? (being entertained / entertaining a classmate? solving a problem? winning a game? finding out about something interesting?).

4.1.2.7 Immediate motivation in TBL
So the first essential condition for successful language acquisition is motivation, and for the purposes of this module we shall be focussing on immediate motivation through the design and delivery of task-based lessons. 
	If you want to read more about motivation and language learning, you may like to do this now. See Reading 1a and 1b  

4.1.2.8 Belief check
However, motivation on its own is not enough to enable someone to learn a language.
	As well as motivation, what else do you believe to be essential if someone is to learn a language? I’ve suggested a number of things here: 
•	a syllabus;
•	someone to correct your errors;
•	an extrovert personality;
•	eposure to meaningful input; 
•	information about grammar rules;
•	a coursebook;
•	a high IQ;
•	using the language;
•	starting when very young;
•	instruction from a teacher;
•	other (add your own).

Can you decide on two that are essential in addition to motivation, that is, without which no-one could learn a language under any circumstances?
	What about the other items in the list? Are they also important? Decide on any which you think are desirable, but not essential. Choose one which you think is more desirable than the others. 
	If you are working with a colleague, try to come to an agreement on the two essential conditions and the one most desirable condition.
See Commentary 4.1.3 

4.1.2.9 Reflection on tasks 
Now you have completed the task, spend a few minutes discussing the pros and cons of this type of consensus discussion task. If you are not able to work with a colleague, you can probably imagine what these might be.
	Could you give this type of task (probably on a different topic) to your students?

4.1.2.10 Some final thoughts on how languages are (not) learned
While I was standing in the supermarket checkout queue the other day, I noticed on the magazine stand a women’s health magazine with the cover headline: ‘Five superfoods to boost your bust size’. The idea was that if women ate more of these foods, their bust would miraculously grow. Now I can almost guarantee that if I ate these foods I would indeed increase in size, but not in the places I wanted! (I will leave to your imagination all the undesirable places that might start to expand...). The idea that you can feed someone something particular and expect it to result in this type of specific, pre-determined growth seems rather far-fetched. 
	So why is a very similar practice so popular in language classrooms? Students are ‘fed’ particular examples of language and as a result, we predict that they will ‘learn’ specific, pre-determined structures / vocabulary / skills etc. Language acquisition is a natural process, and what really happens inside the minds of the students is as unpredictable as what happens in our bodies when we eat food. We can fairly safely say that something will be retained, and a lot will just pass through, but we can’t possibly say exactly what. Even when every student in the class is ‘fed’ an identical language ‘diet’ we should expect that each one will be affected in a slightly different way. 
	Instead of dooming ourselves to disappointment when learners’ language does not grow in the way we have tried to make it grow through forced feeding, it seems to me we would be far better off providing learners with a balanced and appetizing ‘diet’ of language, plus activities to help them ‘digest’ this and exercises that push them to improve their overall language ‘fitness’. It is this latter approach that task-based learning aims to achieve, and details of how to go about it are given in the following activity cycles of this module. 

4.1.3 Summary
So far we have identified three essential conditions for language acquisition: these are … can you recall? (see Commentary 4.1.4)
	In addition, there is one other factor that is especially desirable. This is… can you recall? (see Commentary 4.1.5) 

4.1.3.1 Instruction and TBL
In this video clip, jane Willis explains what is meant by instruction in the context of a task-based lesson (see Transcript JW02).

4.1.3.2 Diagram of SLA conditions
Jane Willis (1996: 11) presents these SLA conditions in the form of a diagram. Print or copy this version (see Assessment task 4.1.7) and fill in the gaps.

Conditions for language learning

Essential

Desirable

___________

to a rich but comprehensible
____________

of real spoken and written language in use

___________

of the language to do things (i.e. exchange meanings)

___________

to listen and read the language and to speak and write it (i.e. to process and use the exposure)

___________

in language (i.e. chances to focus on ___________)

Need some help? See Commentary 4.1.6 for the missing words (note they are not in the right order – you can work that out!) 

4.1.3.3 Concluding comments
The ‘four conditions for language learning’ presented here have been proposed by Jane Willis (1996). They represent a distillation of recent thinking and theory of second language acquisition and instructed second language learning from a number of researchers and writers in the field. You may be familiar with Krashen’s (1981) ‘Monitor Hypothesis’, for example, which proposed the concept of meaningful input or exposure. This was developed by Swain (1985), who introduced the idea of comprehensible output (sometimes called ‘pushed output’), and Ellis (eg 1999), among others, has written much on the topic of instruction. The ‘four conditions’ are, therefore, a simplification of a highly complex area, but as a set of ‘rules of thumb’ which can inform teachers and materials designers they represent a useful summary of the key considerations in this area, and frequent reference will be made to them in the following activity cycles.

4.1.4 Belief check
Now that you have finished this activity cycle, in what ways (if any) have your beliefs about, or understanding of, the conditions needed for successful second language learning changed?

4.1.5 Readings
Reading 1a and 1b
If you want to read more about motivation and language learning, I recommend: 
a) chapter 6 of  M Williams and R Burden (1997) Psychology for Language Teachers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997, pp 111–42;  
b) the short, but useful, account in P Lightbown and N Spada (1999) How Languages are Learned, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 56–58.
Reading 2
You can find our more about theories of second language learning in 
a)	Lightbown, P and Spada, N (1999) How Languages are Learned, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, chapter 2, pp 31–48;
or, for an in-depth discussion, see
b)	Skehan, P (1998) A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning, Oxford University Press, Oxford, especially chapters 4, 5 and 6.

Reading 3 
If you have a copy of Jane Willis’s book A Framework for Task-based Learning (1996) I recommend that you now read chapter 1, pages 3–21, to revise and consolidate the material in this activity cycle.

4.1.6 References 
Ellis, R (1999) The place of grammar instruction in the second/foreign language curriculum, in Bilkent 4th International Conference Proceedings, ed M Harvey and S Kanboroglu, pp 79–97
Krashen, S (1981) Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, Pergamon, Oxford 
Lightbown, P and Spada, N (1999) How Languages are Learned, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Nunan, D (1999) Second Language Teaching and Learning, Newbury House Teacher Development, Clevedon
Skehan, P (1998) A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Swain, M (1985) Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development, in Input in Second Language Acquisition, ed S Gass and C Madden, Newbury House,  Rowley, MA, pp 235–53
Williams, M and Burden, R (1997) Psychology for Language Teachers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Willis, J (1996) A Framework for Task-based Learning, Longman, London

4.1.7 Assessment task 
Note: Activity cycle 1 is optional for DELPHI purposes, so this task is only included as a suggested assessment for anyone wishing to use this material as part of a more extensive teacher education programme.

Draw a diagram, or make a list, of the essential and desirable conditions for second language acquisition; each item should be accompanied by very brief (between 5 and 20 words) note-form explanations. You can use the gapped diagram you printed or copied in section 4.1.3 (Summary) as the basis for this.

This will form the first entry for your materials file. If you are using the materials file template provided, this item should be numbered 1.1, page 1, and placed in part I of the file.

4.1.8  Commentaries

Commentary 4.1.1
MOTIVATION
Was I right? Try this trick on a few of your colleagues – it works especially well if you already have the word written on a flashcard that you can pull out after they have answered. I’ve tried this many times, including in classes of teachers on training courses. I reckon that at least 90% have the same answer.

Commentary 4.1.2
Motivation is often defined quite simply as something like ‘a driving force’, but Williams and Burden (1997:120) give us a more complete definition:
Motivation may be construed as:
•	a state of cognitive and emotional arousal
•	which leads to a conscious decision to act and
•	which gives rise to a period of sustained intellectual and/or physical effort
•	in order to attain a previously set goal (or goals).

Commentary 4.1.3 

•	A syllabus	Most teachers are expected to work from one, but the fact that many learners appear not to learn everything on the syllabus, but do learn things that aren’t on it, calls the importance of syllabuses into question. And of course, there are all those people who pick up a language with no formal syllabus at all. So this is definitely not essential. Some kind of syllabus may be desirable (or indeed, considered necessary by administrators) in order to monitor student progress, make clear the intended learning outcomes, etc, of a course, but these reasons should not be confused with the how a syllabus relates to what learners actually learn, and whether they can learn without a pre-specified syllabus (which they clearly can). (See also the comments about interlanguage in the notes for ‘Someone to correct your errors’.)	
•	Someone to correct your errors	Many learners ask teachers to correct all their mistakes, especially in writing, and may even believe the teacher is not doing his or her job properly if he / she does not. Although reformulation as a method of error correction may function as meaningful input, most correction has no long-term effect. This is because each learner’s interlanguage (their ‘imperfect’ language system that is their current approximation to the target language and the source of their errors) develops in a unique and organic way. A particular form is not acquired for accurate production purposes until the internal system is ready, and it is impossible for anyone (including the learner) to know when this is. Trying to force learning of a form, either through error correction or through presentation and explicit teaching of the form, is now widely considered to be futile except in the short term for the purposes of traditional grammar tests. Instead, each learner unconsciously ‘constructs’ his or her own syllabus as he or she progresses. In this sense, a syllabus is more like an unwritten, retrospective or ongoing personal progress record than a pre-prepared, externally constructed list of items for future learning.
(See also the comments about syllabus in the notes for ‘Syllabus’.)	
•	An 
extrovert personality	Personality may be a factor in that extroverts may be prepared to take more risks and therefore engage in more pushed output. However, we would do well to remember that everyone – extrovert and introvert alike – learned their first language equally successfully, even if they are normally heard to be using it in different quantities!	
•	Exposure 
to meaningful input 	This is indeed essential. Second language acquisition theory and research findings (and common sense!) tell us that unless you can hear or read samples of the target language, there is no way you could acquire any of it. Furthermore, the input must be comprehensible (Krashen, 1981), that is, you must be able to understand at least in part what you hear or read. If the language is meaningful in more than just a superficial sense, perhaps because you relate to it in some way, because it is a familiar topic or something you are interested in, then you are likely to struggle harder to extract meaning, and your chances of learning increase (in motivational terms, your state of arousal will be higher and you will be prepared to make a greater effort to achieve your goal of understanding). Task-based learning includes plenty of meaningful input. But instead of making language meaningful by explaining it before learners do a task, the learners try the task (so they have a very clear idea of what they mean, even if they don’t have the language to express their meaning well), and then listen to fluent speakers doing the task. In this way, even quite complex input is rendered highly meaningful to the learners.	
•	Information about grammar rules	Some information, if it is relevant to the current communicative needs of the learner, may be helpful, and learners are often reassured by it since this is what most learners have come to equate with classroom language learning. However, the systematic transmission of rules and other grammatical information that was typical of traditional language teaching is almost certainly not very helpful if the aim is to enable communicative competence. Conscious knowledge about language does not necessarily lead to competence in language.
(See also the notes for ‘Instruction from a teacher’.)	
•	A coursebook	A coursebook can provide useful input and suggest activities that help language acquisition (eg by encouraging pushed output). But clearly a coursebook is not essential. At worst, such a book may focus exclusively on explicit teaching of grammar (see the notes for ‘Instruction from a teacher’ and ‘Information about grammar rules’) and have as its goal grammatical accuracy, being based on the mistaken belief that input equals intake. Such books are based on the behaviourist theory that practice and the quest for accuracy (eg drills and grammar exercises) will result in communicative competence. Beware!	
•	A high IQ	People with high IQs might get to grips with grammar rules faster than others, but such knowledge about language does not necessarily lead to communicative competence (see the notes for ‘Information about grammar rules’), People of all intellectual abilities learn languages successfully under the right circumstances.	
•	Using the language	This too is essential. SLA research findings suggest that ‘pushed output’, or struggling to communicate something beyond your current capability, helps you to use the language you know creatively and gives you both motivation to learn and a clear idea of what it is you need to learn.  The central premise of task-based learning is that learners should be encouraged to use whatever language they have in order to complete a task, before moving on to consider what language they lack to do this as well as they might. While doing the task, they are free to simply focus on getting their message across as best they can, with no prior recommendations from teacher or book on what forms to use. In TBL, the task stage is not just a practice, ‘free’ or ‘production’ stage.	
•	Starting when very young	It would seem that children and adults learn in different ways (adults use more cognitive strategies), and some children do seem to learn a second language almost as effortlessly as their first. This usually happens when they are immersed in the language at school, for example. As teachers, however, there’s not much we can do about the age of our learners, and in further and higher education we can safely assume we are dealing with adults – who can and do learn successfully too!	
•	Instruction from a teacher	Instruction – or being taught – is not essential. Millions of people ‘pick up’ additional languages without the help of a teacher (or instructional book), some to very high levels of proficiency. However, recent research (see Nunan, 1999: 42–50 for a summary) suggests that instruction which focuses on language form can speed up the learning process and helps to prevent early fossilization. This is an important consideration where learners are acquiring a language mainly in a classroom setting and where time is normally very limited. Activity cycle 5 of this module (see 4.5 suggests how instruction can be incorporated into a task-based lesson for maximum effect.
(See also the notes for ‘Information about grammar rules’.)	

Commentary 4.1.4
So far we have identified three essential conditions for language acquisition: these are: motivation, meaningful input (or exposure) and pushed output.

Commentary 4.1.5
In addition, there is one other factor that is especially desirable. This is: instruction.

Commentary 4.1.6
use; motivation; input; instruction; exposure; form.

4.1.9	Transcripts of interviews

Transcript  JW01
Actually doing the task and achieving the task is motivating for them, even if they’ve got no long term motivation at all; and even if they have no real kind of motivation, no instrumental motivation, or even integrative motivation, actually achieving the goals of the task is satisfying. And I think that’s what I mean, by immediate motivation to finish the task and to get it done in the time limit.

Transcript  JW02
I think we’ve used the term instruction to mean any kind of linguistic help really. After the task cycle, there may be a period of fairly intensive language focussed work, and that would count as instruction. During the task if they get really stuck and they need a word and they say, ‘Hey, Miss,’ you know, ‘what’s the word for ...’, then that’s a tiny bit of instruction, so wherever there’s a focus on language, and language help or language ... looking at language per se, I think that’s what we would call instruction. And they may be doing a practice exercise, they may actually be practising at that stage, and that would be instruction too; and there may be a little bit of instruction right at the beginning, before the task , where you might brainstorm words, and if they didn’t know them, you might explain them, and that would be a kind of lexical focus, but I think that would still count as instruction, so I would say anything to do with actual language help, language support. And I think the other thing with instruction is it seems to be one way, doesn’t it? The teacher giving instruction. And I think it’s just the term that’s used in the literature really, because a lot of the language support actually comes from the learner, the request comes from the learner, and the teacher just supplies. So it’s more learner driven than perhaps the term ‘instruction’ sounds.