4.4 The task-based lesson framework
This activity cycle is the longest one in the module. It contains information and activities on all the stages of a task-based lesson, except for the task itself, which we looked at in activity cycle 4.3.  If you plan to do all the activities in this cycle, allow plenty of time. 

4.4.1  Outcomes 
4.4.2  The sequence of stages in a task-based lesson
4.4.3  Teacher and learner roles in task-based lessons
4.4.4  The pre-task stage
4.4.5  The planning and report stages
4.4.6  The language focus stage
4.4.7  Summary
4.4.8  Belief check
4.4.9  Readings
4.4.10  References 
4.4.11  Assessment task 
4.4.12  Commentaries
4.4.13  Transcripts

4.4.1 Outcomes
•	Key outcome: Instructions and materials for the introduction, planning, report and language focus stages to use before and after the tasks designed in activity cycle 4.3. These can be presented as evidence that you have fulfilled learning objective 6) (see 4.08). 

•	Additional, optional outcome 1: A diagram of the stages of a task-based lesson with notes identifying the roles that the teacher and learners will take at each stage, and how each stage helps to fulfil the conditions for language acquisition. This can be presented as evidence that you have fulfilled learning objectives 5) and 10) (see 4.08). 
 
•	Additional, optional outcome 2: An explanation of the term ‘consciousness raising’. This can be presented as evidence that you have fulfilled learning objective 7) (see 4.08). 

Details of how to do these are given in 4.4.11. 

4.4.2 The sequence of stages in a task-based lesson 
4.4.2.1 Reflection
Think of a lesson you taught recently, and which contained some kind of focus on language (ie not just a skills practice lesson, or a conversation class). Try to recall and jot down the main stages of the lesson. At what point did the ‘language focus’ occur? Was it towards the beginning or end of the lesson? What were the other stages? Why did you plan your lesson with the stages in this order? Compare notes with a colleague if you can.

4.4.2.2 Belief check
If you are going to include a task or tasks in a language lesson, at what stage do you believe these should be done: beginning, middle or end? What sort of activities (if any) do you think should come before and/or after the task?

4.4.2.3 Presentation methodologies
A common approach to introducing new language to students is to do so through a presentation methodology of some kind, as has been the case for almost as long as languages have been taught! 
By presentation methodology I mean a teaching sequence that begins with a presentation of the new language that students are to learn. In recent years, there has been a move to contextualize the new language and to introduce structure inductively, that is, to give students plenty of examples containing the ‘structure or function of the day’ and help them to work out the rule or usage and meaning for themselves, but the aim is nevertheless to reveal and focus on a pre-selected rule or language function. The students then engage in practice activities to help them to become confident with the structure and commit it to memory so that they can then use it, and they are often expected to do so by the end of the lesson during a ‘production’ or ‘free phase’. 
	Of course, there are many variations on this basic sequence of present, practise, produce, but the underlying notion is the same: you can select an item to be taught, a ‘learnable chunk’ of language, which is taken from a syllabus of such items that have been organized into an ‘order of difficulty’ and you make it known to the students. Their job is to learn it and then use it. The item to be learned is usually identified quite explicitly in the aims of a lesson plan or at the start of a course-book unit, along the lines of ‘by the end of the lesson, students will be able to talk about the past using regular simple past verb forms’. But by pre-selecting what the students are to learn in any given lesson, we are almost certainly ensuring the failure of the lesson, if by ‘learn’ we mean acquire an item so that it is available for spontaneous production.

4.4.2.4 Communicative competence versus knowledge about language (KAL)
A presentation approach to grammar is fine if you want students to know the rules of grammar. By the end of a lesson, they may well have consciously learned a rule, such as how to make regular simple past forms of verbs, at least in the short term. But I’m assuming that in most cases, conscious rule-learning is not the goal of the language programme. The goal is to enable students to use the language communicatively, and consciously knowing a rule does not mean the rule is available as part of the learner’s subconscious system during spontaneous language use. Knowledge about language (KAL) and communicative competence are not the same thing, and it seems that somewhere along the line, syllabus planners and other ‘experts’ have confused learning a language and learning about a language. 
	One response to the failure of grammar presentation has been the introduction of functional-notional syllabuses, where instead of grammar rules, students are taught the different ways that various communicative functions are performed (eg ‘giving advice’) or notions are expressed (eg ‘time’). This approach seems to have been equally problematic, as students often develop highly effective strategies for communicating using key words and functional phrases, but fail to develop their grammatical competence, with the result that teachers and examiners alike are frustrated by their students' lack of accuracy.

4.4.2.5 Problems of presentation methodologies
Now many people believe that KAL can become communicative competence, or at least help in the development of communicative competence, and this may well be true, but if it is, then the type of KAL we develop in our classes should support and speed up the acquisition process, not compete with it. (For an explanation of the difference between acquisition and learning, see Module 2.) 
	Even if grammar experts agreed that they had between them arrived at a full and accurate description of any given language (which they have not, so we may actually be teaching inadequate rules!), we have no way of knowing that this description matches the way that language is stored and processed in the mind. (Recent work suggests that rather than calling on rules to construct utterances each time we speak, we in fact store tens or even hundreds of thousands of pre-fabricated chunks of language, and we recall quite large chunks as fixed or semi-fixed units with very little recourse to grammar rules). 
	Furthermore, the order in which we teach (and expect students to accumulate) language is organized not by order of difficulty of learning (which is not actually known), but by approximate order of difficulty of explanation and teaching. For example, the third person singular s of English present simple verbs (he/she makes, eats, etc) is very easy to demonstrate and ‘teach’, and is usually covered very early on in a course, but is notoriously resistant to being learned, and even advanced level students of EFL will often omit it during spontaneous speech. In other words, there are serious questions to be asked about the assumptions upon which presentation methodologies are based, in terms of their underlying structural view of language, the inadequacy of the descriptions for language structure currently available, the view that language can be learned as a pre-determined series of isolated chunks, and the view that formal KAL leads to development of communicative competence. 

4.4.2.6 Focusing on form before production
You may remember from activity cycle 2 (see 4.2)  what Jane Willis has to say about what happens if you have a task, or production activity, at the end of a lesson, after there has been some kind of presentation of language. Here is the video clip again:  

JW10 
It depends an awful lot on what’s happened before. If the teacher has introduced a particular grammar point, or maybe ways of expressing a particular notion or function, and then they’re given a chance to do a task, some students may see that as purely a chance to display the language that they’ve just been taught and to try to use examples of that, and they won’t really be meaning what they say, they’ll be thinking, ‘Ah, OK, I need to use this form’. And other students might think, ‘Oh, OK, we’ve got to do this task, so I’ve got to tell my friend what I might be doing at the weekend’, and they might forget everything that they’ve just been taught, and might just do it with whatever language they have because they’ll be focussing on meaning. [Corony: So then that task would have no relation to the rest of the lesson?] It may not have any relation to the rest of the lesson. And I’ve actually watched lessons where teachers have said, ‘So I taught them the language and when they did the task, they didn’t use any of it!’ and looked really surprised. And to them, that was a failed lesson. But in fact that just shows how, if they’re focusing on meaning, they’re using whatever language is already, how shall I say, part of their interlanguage system, and it takes them much longer to learn a new structure than just one minute or two minutes. So if they’re really thinking about meaning, and the language that’s been taught to them is actually new to them, it’s very unlikely they will use it.

4.4.2.7 Optional reading
Now would be a good time to do the first part of the recommended reading for this activity cycle( see 4.4.9, Reading 1). 

4.4.2.8 TBL and language acquisition
A task-based lesson framework attempts to integrate language awareness raising* and language acquisition by avoiding a presentation mentality in three important ways: 

[*Language awareness is not synonymous with KAL, but is closely related to it. See van Lier’s chapter in Carter and Nunan (1989) for an overview of this topic.]

•	First, TBL does not assume that we can select what learners will acquire (since the language acquisition part of our brains seems to have a mind of its own in this respect!). Rather, it provides learners with plenty of opportunities for motivated, meaningful input (exposure) and language use (pushed output) from which they will acquire whatever they are ready for – whether grammatical structures or lexical chunks or something else. 

•	Second, TBL views Language Awareness (LA) work as a way of helping students to notice language features, so they can begin to reformulate their hypotheses about how the target language operates. There will be more on how this is achieved in section 4.4.6. 

•	Thirdly, and of central interest in this activity cycle, TBL follows a series of lesson stages that does not begin with presentation of language, since this would set a fixed learning agenda for the whole lesson. Language focus work arises naturally from the task that students do and any related language exposure they receive.

4.4.2.9 Integrated skills and form focus
In addition, a task-based framework allows integrated language skills practice that is also linked with a focus on language form. This is something that does not always explicitly occur in conventional ‘skills’ lessons, even though students are highly likely to want to know how to say something beyond their current level of competence during productive skills work, or will ask for explanations of language they hear or read during receptive skills work.

4.4.2.10 Sequence of stages in a TBL lesson
The following diagram represents the basic sequence of stages in a task-based lesson. Make a sketch or print of the diagram and fill in the spaces on the dotted lines, using the words or phrases from the box.

Introduction to topic and task

Report

Planning

Task

Language focus (analysis and practice)

 

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 2b

Stage 2c

Stage 2a

Students may now hear a recording of 

What might students hear a recording of? (Activity cycle 3 (4.3) holds the answer!) 

For feedback, see Commentary 4.4.1. 

4.4.2.11 Flexibility of the framework
The framework presented above is just that – a framework – which means it can be adapted for different types of task, or a series of mini-tasks, with different stages occupying differing amounts of time in the lesson depending on the level of the learners, their age, and so on. If lesson periods are short, the pre-task and task stages can be completed in one lesson, ending with the playing of the recording, and the next lesson can cover the language focus, beginning with the same recording. In activity cycle 5 (see 4.5), you will meet variations on this basic framework when tasks are text-based. 

4.4.2.12 Example TBL lesson plan
Here is my plan for the ‘mystery objects’ lesson.  Identify which stages of my lesson go with which stage of the framework. 

LESSON PLAN

A task-based lesson focusing on vague and imprecise language

MATERIALS AND TEACHING AIDS: 
•	Small slips of different coloured card (eg 5 colours, 8 pieces of each is enough for 40 students). Shuffle and distribute to divide class into groups  (5 colours = 5 groups of 8).
•	Same number of mystery objects as you will have groups – unusual, old, etc, so not immediately identifiable – here including Storm watch tin, storm-proof clothes peg, cavity wall fixing, cherry stoner, all in envelopes/bags (for a large class, it’s helpful to have two of each object so groups do not get too big, eg 10 groups of 4).
•	Numbers 1 to 5 (or however many objects) on cards to label objects.
•	Tape of fluent speakers doing the tasks.
•	Transcript of first 4 tasks.
•	Language worksheets.

1)	Shuffle the coloured cards and give one to each student as they enter the room
2)	Get students into groups according to colour of card
3)	EXPLAIN THE TASK – each group will have one minute to discuss the object and try to agree on what it is. When I call TIME, put the object back in its bag and pass it on to the next group (explain direction objects must rotate). 
4)	Students do task. Teacher circulates to check everyone knows what to do.
5)	Collect in the objects.
6)	10 minutes in groups to prepare a report on at least one of the objects, explaining why you think it is what you say. Teacher circulates and helps where needed.
7)	Select groups to report back (about 3 reports probably enough). Write any interesting phrases/words on OHP or board.
8)	Show them the objects and explain what they really are if necessary. Put them on front desk clearly numbered 1 to 4 etc.
9)	Listening task: listen to tape of Bob and Judith doing the first object – decide which one they are talking about. Same for tapes of tasks 2, 3 and 4.
10)	 Replay any requests, answer Q’s, etc. Tell them they will get transcripts later.
11)	 Give out language worksheet. Work through exercises on sheet in pairs/groups or as whole class. (Don’t give out the transcripts until ready to do exercise 3.)
12)	 If time (5 minutes), produce a final mystery object and show the whole class. Groups reconvene to discuss. Report back. Teacher decides which group has made the best identification and wins.

For feedback on this task, see Commentary 4.4.2. 

4.4.2.13 Optional reading
Now would be a good point to do the second piece of suggested reading (see 4.4.9, Reading 2). 

4.4.3 Teacher and learner roles in task-based lessons

4.4.3.1 Letting students learn
Since the individual activities used in a task-based approach may not be very different from the type you already use if you practise a communicative approach to teaching (it is the sequence in which they occur which is different), you may feel that your roles in a task-based lesson would be familiar ones. This is probably largely true, but it is worth remembering that TBL is more about letting the students learn than it is about direct teaching. Jane Willis emphasizes this point, and admits how difficult she found this at first:  JW11 
 
JW11
I think the teacher teaches much less in a task-based lesson. And I always like to think of the teacher as someone who lets students learn, rather than actually teaches directly. There may be the odd occasion where the teacher needs to say, ‘Well, this word means so and so’ or ‘Can you think of something ...?’ and doing a little bit of direct teaching, but on the whole it’s a process of letting go the reins, and giving the learners a chance to do what they can do. I’ll never forget the first French lesson where I actually set up some pair work, and then I almost did it for them, and then I thought, ‘No no no no! Stand back!’ And I can remember holding on to the table to stop myself going round the class, you know, like this, and I was amazed, because they all did it. And I’d just never given them the chance before.

4.4.3.2 Teacher roles
Bearing Jane’s words in mind, brainstorm a list of teacher roles for a TBL approach. Looking back at the different stages in the framework might help you to think of different roles for each stage. See Commentary 4.4.3 for some suggestions.  

4.4.3.3 Teacher roles at each lesson stage
Here are some more clips of Jane Willis talking about teacher roles in TBL. In these, she mentions roles the teacher might adopt during the pre-task, task, planning and report stages. Identify the roles and match them to the stages. 

 JW12 

 JW13 
 
 JW14 

 JW15 

JW12
I think one role would be ‘teacher as setter of scene’, teacher setting up an activity, so that the students can actually get on with it, on their own.

JW13
And also standing back and letting them do it, maybe not actually standing at the back of the room or anything, but walking around encouragingly but not actually interfering with the way that learners are doing the task.

JW14
Yes and I think maybe feeding back, you know, the stage of when they’ve done the task, saying, ‘That was really interesting, I heard some really interesting things’ even if the language they’ve used has been not terribly good, but where the focus has been on the message , then you react to the message. So knowing really how to feed back, a sort of feeding back role, an evaluatory role, which I think students expect.

JW15
And then teacher as linguistic adviser, yes, definitely, when they need a word for something or maybe when they’re planning how to present their findings to the whole group they’ll need quite a lot of linguistic support there ... so helping them with the grammar, with the vocabulary, with the collocations, sometimes helping with the structure, depending on what it is that they’ve got to report, if it’s something quite lengthy then helping them organize it and if it’s a written report then actually looking at what they’ve written and focusing on areas where they obviously need a bit of help and picking maybe one or two things to encourage them to look at again.

For feedback, see Commentary 4.4.4. 

4.4.3.4 Learner roles
Now consider the learners’ roles. One thing is clear: if the teacher is ‘standing back and letting them get on with it’, learners will be quite active for much of the time.

4.4.3.5 Who does what, and when?
Look at this jumbled list of roles and actions and decide:
1.	which apply to the teacher and which apply to the students (or both);
2.	which stage(s) of the TBL lesson each role description belongs in.

•	acts as language adviser;
•	rehearses what to say or drafts a written version for class to read;
•	sets up activities to help recall/learning of useful words and phrases;
•	may spend a few minutes preparing for the task on own;
•	acts a chairperson, selecting who will speak next, or ensuring all read most of written reports;
•	notes down useful words and phrases from the pre-task activities and/or the recording;
•	does the task in pairs/small groups;
•	ensures the purpose of the report is clear;
•	introduces and defines topic;
•	acts as monitor and encourages;
•	prepares to report to the class how task was done and what was discovered/decided;
•	ensures task instructions are understood;
•	presents spoken report to class, or circulates/displays written reports;
•	practises other features occurring in the task text or report stage;
•	may play a recording of others doing the same or a similar task;
•	enters useful language items in language notebooks;
•	may give brief feedback on content and form;
•	helps with rehearsal of oral reports or organization of written ones;
•	may play a recording of others doing the same or a similar task;
•	conducts practice activities after analysis activities where necessary, to build confidence;
•	may ask about any other features noticed;
•	does consciousness-raising activities to identify and process specific language features form the task text and/or transcript;
•	brings to attention other useful words, phrases and patterns;
•	may pick up on language items from the report stage;
•	practises words, phrases and patterns from the analysis activities;
•	reviews each analysis activity with the class.

4.4.3.6 Teacher and learner roles at different stages of the lesson
Return to the diagram of the TBL lesson framework in section 4.4.2.10 of this activity cycle and in the spaces under the labels for the stages, fill in lists of teacher and learner roles. Compare your answer with the version of the diagram in Commentary 4.4.5 (which is a taken from Appendix B of Willis 1996:155).

4.4.3.7 Action point
You might find it interesting to undertake a little informal research into roles in your own language classroom, or that of a colleague. Use a recent lesson plan of your own, or observe a colleague’s class, and make a note of all the different roles adopted by the learners and teacher at each stage. Compare your findings with the roles that Willis has identified. Consider whether learning might be better facilitated if any of the roles changed in your lessons. If you think it would, you can turn this into a small ‘action research’ project by planning your next lessons to include the new roles, note what happens, reflect on this, and repeat the cycle, making further role adjustments as you think fit.

4.4.3.8 Optional reading
This would be a good point to complete the third recommended reading for this activity cycle – see 4.4.9, Reading 3. 

4.4.4 The pre-task stage
4.4.4.1 Introduction
The pre-task stage of a task-based lesson is relatively short – I would suggest ten minutes of a 60-minute lesson at most (possibly longer if students listen to a recording) – but it fulfils some important functions. It is also a stage where the teacher does a lot of the work, unlike the task stage which follows. 

4.4.4.2 Teacher’s activities in the pre-task stage
Here is a summary of Willis, 1996: 42–46 (section 3.2) listing the sorts of thing the teacher might do during this stage. For each, decide whether you already do this sort of thing when preparing for and starting a lesson or setting up a communication activity, or whether they would be new for you. 

	New or familiar?	
•	Preparation for the pre-task stage:
•	finding suitable pictures;
•	working out vocabulary building ideas;
•	making one- or two-minute recordings of fluent speakers doing the task.
•	Introducing the topic:
•	help learners define topic area, eg what do we mean by ‘family’ in the target language culture (nuclear family or extended family?).
•	Identify topic language:
•	help students recall and activate words and phrases that will be useful for doing the task, eg via a teacher-led whole-class brainstorming task with language written up on board;
•	introduce a few vital topic-related words and phrases if students don’t know these (NB not the same as teaching large amounts of new language!), perhaps selected from the recording or transcript to be used later for language focus;
•	if task is text-based, pick out words and phrases vital for understanding of main themes.
•	Pre-task language activities to further explore topic language (a range is given here – you would probably only do one or two); afterwards, write up other useful words and phrases produced during the activities on the board (remember to take notes while students are working):
•	Classifying words and phrases – jumbled list on board (eg from brainstorming activity or teacher’s selection) – students classify these in different ways, and see how many categories they can think of in two minutes;
•	Odd one out – teacher writes sets of words / phrases on board with misfit in each set. Students work in pairs to agree on odd one out and why;
•	match phrases to pictures – needs a suitable set of pictures and a jumbled set of phrases or captions;
•	memory challenge – same as picture matching, but pictures are removed after a minute or two, before showing students the phrases. More demanding as it requires students to recall and describe the pictures;
•	brainstorming and mind maps – teacher writes main topic word(s) in centre of board (eg ‘family’), possibly illustrating concept with a picture. Students call out words and say where they should go on the mind map;
•	think of questions to ask – eg ‘write four questions you might ask if you were interviewing someone to teach in your college’. Students exchange  / pool questions and classify them;
•	teacher recounts experience – equivalent to playing a pre-task recording for a ‘sharing personal experience’ task.
•	Giving task instructions:
•	ensure learners understand what task involves and what outcome is required, including what each group member should do, how much time they have and what will happen once finished;
•	variations:
•	read aloud or tell students the instructions yourself, preferably in the target language;
•	give students written instructions to read themselves;
•	demonstrate task with a good student, or get a pair of good students to do task in front of the class while you talk them through it;
•	play audio or video recording of fluent speakers doing the task;
•	show class what previous students have achieved (especially written outcomes).
•	Allow preparation time – students spend a few minutes on their own thinking about how they will tackle the task and begin to think about how to express themselves in the target language during the task.		

All this might look a lot for an introductory stage, but each activity is short, and depending on the class, not all are required. The important things to remember are that in order for tasks to work well, students have know the precise how, what and why of the task, and be confident that they have the words they need (ie essential vocabulary) to allow them to complete the task successfully in the target language.

4.4.4.3 Optional reading
This would be a good point to complete the fourth recommended reading (see 4.4.9, Reading 4).  

4.4.5 The planning and report stages
4.4.5.1 Why have planning and report stages?
You may be wondering at this point what the purpose of the planning and report stages is. After all, the students have just finished the task, and you have presumably brought the stage to a close with a few positive, summing up comments. Surely it is better to get on with the language focus work and not spend time going back over work already completed? Willis (1996: 54) points out that tasks alone are not enough. Doing tasks helps students to develop fluency and confidence, but they may do this at the expense of accuracy, and become good at getting by through the use of good communication strategies without really improving their level of language. In other words, their output is not necessarily pushed, and while new words and phrases may be learned, grammar may not be developed. The planning and report stages together help the students to focus on accuracy and interlanguage development in a way that the task stage alone cannot do.

4.4.5.2 Planned language for fluency and accuracy
By asking students to make a public performance, even just a very short report of their task findings, in front of their classmates, you are placing learners in a position where they will want to make a good impression in terms of both fluency and accuracy. To achieve this quality of performance, their language needs to be planned. By this stage they have a pretty good idea of what they will want to say (although one purpose of the planning stage is to agree on the content of the report as well as the form), but they will need to consider how to do this effectively, in terms of organizing ideas, selecting appropriate language and phrasing this accurately. They will be working towards a polished draft which may be presented orally, recorded on audio or video tape for later playback, or written up for display (eg on a poster or a class website) or circulation round the class. To quote Willis (1996: 55–56):
The report stage [...] gives students a natural stimulus to upgrade and improve their language. It presents a very real linguistic challenge – to communicate clearly and in accurate language appropriate to the circumstances. Students cannot get by just tacking words and phrases together in an improvised fashion, as they could when they were speaking in real time. In planning their report, they have time to create anew, experiment with language and compose with the support of their group, teacher, dictionaries and grammar books. And it is this process that is likely to drive their development forward and give them new insights into language use.

4.4.5.3 Language instruction in the planning stage
The planning stage thus fulfils a vital role. It is the main opportunity during the lesson to provide instruction, in the form of ad hoc input, usually on request from the students – in all probability the type of input that is most likely to result in intake since students receive it when they need and want it (not when the syllabus or programme outline dictates they should learn it!). There is a focus on increased accuracy, not in the sense that the teacher should point out and correct every error, but serious errors that would impede communication can be discussed and requests from students for you to
check accuracy can be followed up.

4.4.5.4 Setting up the planning stage
Just as for the task, the planning stage needs to be carefully and clearly set up if it is to be successful. This means explaining that someone from each group will have to report their findings to the class (you may do this in the pre-task stage, to motivate learners to take the task seriously), being clear about the purpose of the report, and the form it will take, say what resources the students can use while planning (dictionaries, grammars, ask the teacher, etc), how long the presentation should be, what should be included in it and how long they have to prepare. If you want to be sure that over a number of lessons everyone gets a turn at being reporter, give specific roles to each group member: reporter, dictionary consultant, timekeeper, etc. 

4.4.5.5 Purpose of the report 
The purpose of the report will depend to some extent on the type of task. Suggestions (adapted from Willis 1996: 57) are:

Memory challenge: do you remember the six types of task from activity cycle 4.2? Insert them into the table below (reading the report purpose column will give you clues) before revealing the answers in Commentary 4.4.6.  
	
Task type(s)	Report purpose: students can ...	
	•	hear / read other groups’ lists and consolidate own to see how many items they got altogether
•	vote on the most comprehensive list;	
	•	see how many have done the task the same way, or have things in common with presenters from other groups;
•	find out how many agree with the content of the report and why;	
	•	publicly justify their priorities to persuade each other;
•	take class vote on most convincing order or classification;	
	•	compare and list strategies for solving the problem;
•	justify / evaluate solutions;
•	vote on best solution;
•	recommend one solution;	
	•	note points of interest and compare them later;
•	write questions to ask speakers;
•	set class quiz questions as a memory challenge;
•	keep a record of main points or themes mentioned for a review or classification later;
•	select one experience to summarise or react to in writing;	
	•	say what they most enjoyed in the other groups’ work;
•	write a review of another group’s product for them to read.	

4.4.5.6 How to act as language adviser during the planning stage
Once the students are clear about what they are planning and why, they will be working in their groups again, but compared with the task stage, the teacher is likely to intervene more in their role as language adviser. Willis (1996: 57) suggests waiting until students ask for advice so you know you are responding to their needs rather than your perception of these, but the first few times you use a task-based approach you may like to offer help rather more proactively, until the learners get used to the new procedures. 
	Since you will have no way of predicting what students will want to say you cannot prepare for specific structures to be covered – a prospect that may seem a little scary at first! But don’t worry – you are not meant to function as a walking grammar book or dictionary. Rather, try to see yourself as a proficient user of the language who can say to students, ‘Well, I think I’d say it like this ..., or ‘You’ve got a good list of ideas there. Had you thought about adding some linking words like ‘next’ and ‘after that’ to tie it all together?’ In fact, much of the time you need not even do that, but instead encourage students to work things out for themselves (perhaps with some help and prompting), encourage use of reference books to look things up (maybe doing this with the students if you are not sure of a rule yourself), comment on good use of language, encourage experimentation, selectively correct errors so that meaning is clear (but don’t expect 100% accuracy), and encourage students to help each other (edit drafts of each other’s work, or listen to each other rehearsing). 
	Remember also that you are organizing the activity, so as you circulate, check that everyone really is clear about what they are doing and who will act as spokesperson, and keep an eye on the time. Warn students when they have, say, five and then two minutes left, and stop the planning stage when most groups are ready. 

4.4.5.7 The report stage as a motivator
This is the final part of the task cycle and is the activity which has provided the impetus for the task completion and planning activities. Although in itself it probably provides less opportunity for language acquisition than any of the other stages, without it, the planning stage would have no purpose, and immediate motivation would diminish.

4.4.5.8 The nature of reports
The nature and duration of reports depend on the level of the class and the nature of the task, but they are usually quite short (one or two minutes per group for spoken reports) so there is usually time to ask several of the groups to report. There is no need for everyone to give a spoken report, however, and it is better to ask only three or four groups to report each lesson and maintain motivation than to plough through them all and allow students to become bored. Clearly, you would need to make a mental note of who had not had a turn at reporting so they could be selected to do so next lesson. 
	With written reports, you will need to organize how these are circulated round the class, or if in the form of posters or wall displays, how students will circulate to read each other’s work and, having done so, whether you will have a short question and answer session so they can discuss each other’s contributions. 

4.4.5.9 Chairing the report stage
During the report stage the teacher’s main role is that of chairperson, and to fulfil this role you may find yourself introducing the stage and each presentation, nominating groups to make reports, timekeeping, and summing up when everyone has finished. 

4.4.5.10 Giving feedback on students’ reports
Making a special note of successes and improvements and being generally encouraging are important at this stage, since the focus has shifted back to making a fluent performance, albeit with improved accuracy. Students normally expect feedback on the quality of their language performance, so make a point of reacting to both the content and the language performance in general terms. Some students may expect traditional style error correction here. My feeling is that this should be avoided, given the purpose of the report stage, although you may wish to remind students that a language focus stage will follow, and you could note some of the errors made and write them up (anonymously) for analysis and comparison with the task transcripts of fluent speakers later on.

4.4.5.11 Optional reading
The next selection of reading (see 4.4.9, Reading 5) is on the planning and report stages, so now would be a suitable time to do this.

4.4.6 The language focus stage
4.4.6.1 Beliefs check
•	Do you agree that language students need to study grammar? 
•	How do you believe grammar should be dealt with in language lessons? 
•	How much time should be spent on grammar work compared to other activities? 
•	How much grammar terminology do you think language students need to know?

4.4.6.2 Views on grammar teaching
As you are no doubt well aware, opinion on the role of grammar instruction in language teaching ranges from the view that ‘You can’t learn to communicate until you have learned the rules’, where ‘rules’ usually means the full range of tense (and in some languages, case) systems, to the belief that grammar cannot be explicitly taught and therefore should not feature in language lessons at all. A consciousness-raising, or ‘CR’ view falls somewhere between these two extremes. It has already been suggested that the notion that you can teach a pre-selected ‘chunk’ of language to learners at a time that you decide, and furthermore, expect them to learn this within the span of a single lesson, is not tenable. However, the other extreme position of ‘no grammar’ is equally questionable, as there is a mounting body of evidence that this leads to fossilization of interlanguage and over-reliance on communication strategies. (See DELPHI Module 3, 3.2 for further discussion of this topic.)

4.4.6.3 Reflection
Do you think there is a place for explicit consideration of grammar in second language classrooms?
If so, what sort of activities do you advocate for doing grammar work? 
If you introduce a new structure to students, at what point would expect them to have internalized this and be able to use it spontaneously?

Here is Jane Willis explaining her view of the role of grammar:  JW16   

JW16
[CE: So there’s a role for grammar then?] Oh there’s definitely a role for grammar. It’s just that we’re so aware that if you teach an item of grammar, not many of them will learn it straight away, and it’s certainly not worth spending a long time on each grammar item, but it’s certainly worth recycling and getting them to look at text for particular items, for particular things, and maybe cover four or five different aspects of language, looking at either the transcript of the task recording or a text. Or even picking up things they’ve said during their own reports or picking things out of their own writing, picking nice phrases that they’ve used picking good ideas, good signalling devices or good things out of the writing and listing those, and then taking maybe some of the things they haven’t done so well and correcting them and putting those on the list as well.

4.4.6.4 Consciousness-raising (CR), input and intake
The difference between CR and a traditional structural approach is that with CR there is no expectation that input will immediately become intake, and thus output. In fact, the precise nature of what learners absorb from the wealth of meaningful input they are exposed to in a task-based approach cannot be predicted, and will differ for each learner. In this sense, each individual student will unconsciously construct their own syllabus-of-language-learned as their course progresses, regardless of the teacher’s pre-planned syllabus-of-items-taught. But the quantity and quality of what each learner notices and absorbs can be enhanced by spending some time focusing on language form (as opposed to specific forms) in a general sense. CR activities aim, not to drill all students in a particular pattern, but to encourage them to develop their own language analysis skills and experiment with the language, to help them to become more aware of the way languages operate in a general sense, and to get into the habit of being constantly on the lookout for new patterns. In other words, it helps the students to become more alert to language patterns, and more highly aware or conscious of any specific patterns that occur in the language data they meet in their lessons. (See also Module 3, section 3.3.4 on consciousness-raising.)

4.4.6.5 CR and noticing
The noticing that CR promotes (ie becoming aware of a feature and realizing that is different from the learner’s current grammar) is the first step towards acquiring a new structure but is not the same as acquisition. The final stage, of integrating the new feature into the existing grammar, is likely to take time – certainly longer than the span of one lesson. Even then, the integration may be imperfect in that it may lead to changes in the learner’s interlanguage system that only approximate the target language system more closely but are still not 100% the same as this. It can take several cycles of noticing (observing), hypothesizing about the way the system works and experimenting with the new hypothesis before finally (if ever!) getting it completely the same as that of a native speaker. CR, therefore, recognizes that we cannot predict either what students will acquire or when this will happen, but it also recognizes that the learning process may be accelerated by focusing students’ attention on form.

4.4.6.6 CR and lesson stages
This brings us to the questions of when to do CR work during the lesson, and what language data to use for it. If you have done the preceding activity cycles in this module you will know the answer to these questions! Jane Willis reminds us:   JW17 

JW17 
Then when they’ve actually finished the task cycle itself and if you’re looking at the language that fluent speakers have used to do the task, if you have made a recording of the task, so you have a sample recording of fluent speakers doing the task, that’s where you might well spend longer looking at an item of language, or several items of language. There needs to be quite a lot of language focus, but it builds on what they’ve done. I think the important thing is that you look ... because they’ve already done the task themselves and they’ve already thought about how to do it, they’ve already been in a position where they’ve been expressing meanings, expressing those meanings to someone else and understanding, exchanging meanings, then they look at a piece of transcript of someone else expressing the same meanings, the meanings are already familiar, and they’re ready to look at form. (CE: Right.) Whereas in traditional  type teaching it’s been, ‘Right, learn the form, and it has this particular meaning or these particular meanings’. But what we’re looking at now is, ‘You’ve focused on getting meanings across, how do other people get similar meanings across? Let’s have a look. Are there any words you could have used for your own task? Are there any phrases that might have come in useful?’

To summarize: language focus work is best done after students have been using the language to communicate, ie after doing the task cycle, rather than presenting structures to them for learning before attempting to use these. At this point, they will be ready and motivated to focus on form, and by using transcripts of fluent speakers doing the task, the data they will be working with will be highly meaningful. (I have been trying in this module to recreate a similar experience for you: throughout the module I have been referring to a ‘mystery objects’ lesson, using it to illustrate different points. By this stage of the module you will be pretty familiar with the lesson, so when you come to think about the language focus stage for this particular example you can focus immediately and fully on this, as the transcripts you see will already be thoroughly familiar and highly meaningful to you in terms of the whole lesson context.)

4.4.6.7 An example CR activity
So what exactly are CR activities like? Here’s an some example based on the ‘mystery object’ task that you have met in previous activity cycles. Try doing it for yourself before looking at the commentary.

•	You will need a sheet of paper cut into 17 strips, a pencil or pen, and a copy of the transcripts for the four mystery object tasks.
•	Look at the transcripts (see 4.4.13) and highlight all the examples of the words LOOK and LOOKS. Write down each phrase that includes the word LOOK(S) (eg it looks like a clothes peg) on a separate slip of paper and then sort the slips into groups. For feedback, see Commentary 4.4.7.

4.4.6.8 CR, authentic language, and learning expectations
As with the other stages of a task-based lesson, you may find that many of the activities you already use for language focus work can be used for CR work, especially if you favour an inductive approach to working out rules and patterns. The main difference is likely to be that instead of the students working on a collection of concocted examples (often the case with examples in coursebooks), they will be looking at authentic language data in the form of the task transcript, (possibly supplemented with some additional examples extracted from transcripts of tasks or texts the students have encountered in previous lessons). And of course, there will no longer be the expectation that by the end of the lesson they will have learned the new language. 

4.4.6.9 Simple CR techniques
As in the example CR activity above there are a number of other, deceptively simple techniques that you may not already use, and that are especially useful for lower level classes and students who are not familiar with grammar terminology. Even where some basic terminology is needed in order to be able to talk about the language, this does not mean that the aim is to reveal or explain the sorts of grammar rule that we usually find in a structural syllabus. In fact, Jane Willis goes so far as to suggest that we should explicitly focus on only the simplest of rules:  JW18 

JW18
[CE: Where do the grammar rules fit in?] Grammar rules. Where they’re about to say something or about to report back, I don’t think I’d explain grammar rules unless they do remember a useful rule and you say, ‘Hey, don’t forget – third person s’, and then they pop it on. If it’s something they’re familiar with already and they’ve just forgotten something you know they know.

Remember, knowing how to use a language and knowing about a language are not the same thing, and explicit explanation and conscious learning of grammar rules are most definitely the latter.

4.4.6.10 From words to patterns
For the ‘LOOK(S)’ CR activity, the starting point is simply a word. If students classify their collection of phrases into one group for those beginning with ‘it looks ...’ and another group for all others, and then sub-classify the first group into the ‘it looks as if/though ...’ examples and ‘it looks like ...’ examples, they will have made some very useful observations about the patterns and uses of ‘look(s)’ without needing to use any grammar terms or formal knowledge of grammar rules at all. At first, many teachers trying out this sort of CR work tend to feel that it is just too simple to do any good, or alternatively, they have become so used to only seeing in texts examples of the structures usually prominent in a structural syllabus that they are ‘blinded’ to seeing other potential areas for focusing on, but with a little practice, quickly become better at this.

4.4.6.11 Action point 
What would you pick from the ‘mystery objects’ transcripts (see 4.4.13) as worthy of highlighting to students? Make a list before looking at some suggestions in Commentary 4.4.8. 

4.4.6.12 CR starting point I: Words or parts of words
Jane Willis (1996: 105-06) suggests three main starting points for CR work, the first being words, or parts of words.
	This is the easiest starting point both for you, the teacher, to identify, and for the students to find. You could simply ask them to find all the phrases with the word ‘looks’ or ‘sort’ or ‘some...’  or ‘if’, etc, and record them in their notebooks, but normally students would then do something else with their data – sort it into categories of their choice, classify according to grammatical function or meaning, identify the odd ones out, find collocations (eg words which go with go: ‘go together’, ‘go through’, doesn’t go very far’), check a dictionary or grammar book for definitions and further examples, decide how the different concepts expressed by the focus word in the target language would be expressed in their mother tongue, try to come up with alternative ways of expressing the same concept in the target language, and so on.
Interestingly, although this type of activity starts with words, it is an excellent way into focusing on grammar. This is because the most common words in a language (or in inflected languages, parts of words) usually have a grammatical function rather than referring to topic. Examples from the mystery objects transcripts are the ‘If’ clauses, most of which are part of conditional structures, the modal verbs ‘could’, ‘would’ and ‘may’, and (not shown in the commentary, but also of potential use) the prepositions ‘up’, down’, ‘back’, ‘off’, ‘into’, ‘over’, ‘on’, ‘in’, ‘out’, ‘through’, which are nearly all part of phrasal or prepositional verbs. Other common words like ‘right’ function as discourse markers – an area often neglected in traditional structural syllabuses.

4.4.6.13 CR starting point II: Themes, notions and functions
Starting from a theme, such as ‘objects and their parts’, ‘families’, ‘personal descriptions’, or a notion such as ‘movement’, ‘time’, colour’, ‘place’, ‘age’ or a function such as ‘comparing’, describing’, ‘giving instructions’ is a little harder since it requires students to look for ideas in the transcripts or texts rather then specific words. However, if you do this type of CR work with simple notions such as ‘all the phrases which refer to colour’, before moving on to more abstract ideas like ‘all the expressions which indicate uncertainty’, students are unlikely to find this too difficult.
	This type of CR starting point focuses the students’ attention mainly on vocabulary and lexical sets, and helps students to build up their repertoire of lexical phrases.

4.4.6.14 CR starting point III: Categories of meaning and use 
In reality, this is not so much a third starting point for CR work as a different way of presenting activities based on one or other of the first two starting points described above. 
	Instead of asking students to find their own examples and then work on this raw data themselves, you can present them with a collection of examples that you have already extracted, like the concordance for ‘look(s)’ (see Commentary 4.4.8), or one of the collections of examples in the possible starting points shown in Commentary 4.4.9A–4.4.9C and ask students to match each example to categories provided by you. 
	For example, if your students are keen to do ‘grammar’ you could present all the sentences and clauses containing ‘if’ and, possibly with reference to a grammar book, ask them to say whether each was a zero or first conditional (interesting, because in some cases the ‘if’ clause and the independent clauses are inverted, or the independent clause is absent, reflecting natural use of such conditionals that are not always ‘perfectly formed’ in the way that grammar book examples tend to be). There is also one odd one out that is not part of a conditional structure (‘it fits as if’) which students would need to look up since the utterance here is truncated. This would make a very good grammar revision exercise. Another example would be to present all examples including the phrase ‘sort of’, in the order they occur in the transcripts, and ask students to classify them as being followed by a noun or noun group, a verb, or an adjective or adjectival group. 
	Like the other CR activities suggested so far, you don’t need to take a traditional grammar approach (with its need for the appropriate terminology) at all. Take a look at the examples in Commentary 4.4.9C to see how you can ask students to categorize in a much simpler, but equally useful way. Note that the categories of meaning activities ask students to sort examples according to what they do in the text – describe something, compare something, and so on. The categories of use are simply patterns: which words (or classes of words) follow or precede the key word or phrase. 
	An advantage of this third starting point is that where only one or two examples of the target feature occur in the transcript, you can collect together a number of similar examples from other transcripts or texts that the students have met before. For example, there are a limited number of modal verbs in the ‘mystery objects’ transcripts, but they are an important way of expressing certainty / uncertainty. If you could find say a dozen examples of ‘could’ used in this sense from previously encountered texts, you could ask students to check their dictionaries or grammars to identify its meaning in this context, and to compare this with other common meanings of the word. Or you could give the students two or three meanings / uses that you have found in a reference grammar and ask them to match their examples to these.
	As can be seen from the ‘could’ example, this type of starting point is useful if you want to focus on a particular grammatical structure, perhaps because you are expected to follow a structural syllabus.

4.4.6.15 Basic stages of CR activities
You will have noticed that, in terms of what students are instructed to do, CR activities follow a simple basic pattern:
•	Stage 1: students find / count / highlight examples of the language you have directed them to (or look at the examples you have provided). Instructions for this stage might begin ‘Find six words...’; ‘Find all the phrases and words ...’; How many words in the text refer to ...?’; Write down all the phrases that ...’, etc.
•	Stage 2: students sort the examples and / or try to identify patterns, or match examples to categories given by the teacher or in a reference book. Instructions might begin ‘How could you classify ...?’; ‘Can you sort ... into two or more groups?’; ‘Find the odd one out in your set of examples. Explain why it doesn’t fit in’; ‘Look up the phrase ... in your dictionary and match the definitions to the examples you have found in the transcript’; ‘ The word xxx is commonly used in these three ways (give information). Can you match each of the examples you found to one of these three uses?’; ‘What word / phrase most often comes after the word ...?’ Which words ending in ... come before ...?’, etc.
To prepare such activities, you can identify some potential starting points and then look these up in a good learners’ dictionary and or reference grammar to identify the main categories of meaning and use.

4.4.6.16 Phonology and CR
There is one more area not yet mentioned that could be the focus of your language analysis work: phonology. Intonation patterns, stress patterns and sounds could all be intensively studied and practised using the tape recordings of the tasks, perhaps alongside the transcripts, so students can mark on intonation patterns using rising, falling or level arrows, or circle stressed syllables, or note which letters or syllables are not pronounced at all in the rapid stream of speech, and so on. For more details on this, see Willis  (1996: 109–10).

4.4.6.17 Managing CR activities in class
Regardless of the starting points you select, during the CR activities students should be allowed to work in their pairs or groups without undue interference from the teacher, just as they did during the task, so they can work out and test their own hypotheses and discover things for themselves. Of course, you will need to start things off by giving clear instructions, and maybe show an example, but after that you should do no more than circulate to check progress, encourage them to look things up or work things out themselves, and answer individual questions if really necessary. 
	Don’t be tempted to do the activity for them though! Remember that they will probably not notice the same things as you – they will notice the things that interest them and that they are ready for according to their individual stage of development. Noticing for them (ie telling them your ideas) is not likely to foster learning. If students discuss ideas in their mother tongue during this stage it does not matter (as long as they stay on task), but encourage them to gradually get used to talking about the target language in the target language by always doing so yourself. This is useful meaningful speaking practice in its own right.
	After most students have finished the activity (remember to have some extension activities ready for the one or two groups who finish early) you will need to go through it with the class, summarizing findings on the board and encouraging students to note down new language in their notebooks. 

4.4.6.18 Optional reading 
The sixth optional reading provides further examples of CR activities (see 4.4.9, Reading 6). 

4.4.6.19 Language practice in TBL
The types of language practice activity that are suitable for use in a task-based lesson will depend on your teaching situation and students, but here are some ideas taken from Willis (1996: 111–13) and with some minor variations from me:

•	Repetition of useful words and phrases, individually or in chorus. Play short extracts from your tape for students to mimic, or model them yourself. All the usual variations of oral drills can be used, but treat it as a bit of a game – the students should feel a bit like the audience all shouting out ‘Oh no he doesn’t’ at a pantomime.

•	Listen and complete is a bit like a verbal ‘musical chairs’: play a recording and press pause in mid-phrase (or read the transcript and stop in mid-phrase) and see which team / pair can be first to complete the phrase successfully; can also be done in pairs or teams where students read out part-phrases for each other.

•	Gapped examples:  a kind of class constructed ‘quiz’, where pairs or teams write out five or ten useful phrases from the transcript but leave a gap in each, then exchange with their partner / the other team and who try to complete the gapped phrases from memory, scoring a point for each correct completion. Can also be done with on an OHP transparency with the whole class in teams and you acting as quiz-master/mistress.

•	Progressive deletion (‘invisible writing’)  of examples that you have collected on the board after an analysis activity. Number each example, call out a number at random and nominate a student to read the example, until each has been read at least once. As each is read, rub out a word or phrase (if you practised specific words and phrases in chorus earlier these are good ones to delete first). Continue to call out numbers, even when there are hardly any words left, and nominate individuals to ‘read’ them as if they were still complete. If the class is good at this, they may still be able to ‘read’ even when only the numbers are left. Students are likely to get quite competitive over trying to outdo each other’s ability to read the ‘invisible writing’.

•	Unpacking / repacking a sentence: choose a long sentence (you are more likely to find a suitable sentence in a written text – see activity cycle five, 4.5). Students rewrite the information without repeating any facts in as many short sentences as they can, in say, five minutes, working in pairs/groups, or calling out suggestions for you to write on the board. Once finished, students cover the original sentence and try to put all the information from the short sentences back into one long sentence. This does not have to be the same as the original sentence but it must be grammatical (you may need to circulate and advise, or get students to check each other’s sentences for both content and grammar). Write all the new sentences on the board for comparison. 

•	Memory challenge:  take a set of one type of word, eg narrative verbs from a story, or noun groups from a spoken task transcript, and write them out in mixed order on the board / OHP transparency. See if students can remember the complete phrase that each word / phrase appeared in. You might like to stimulate memory by first seeing what else they remember, eg for narrative verbs, what order did they occur in the story, who did them, when, where, why, etc. 
 
•	Concordances for common words: this is great for students who enjoy copying out lines of text (it’s surprising how many do – it’s a confidence building activity especially for lower level learners, and gives them something concrete in their notebooks to take away with them). Divide a number of familiar texts / transcripts between the class so each pair has one or two to work on. Select a common word (eg a preposition, or other grammar word) and ask them to draw three columns on a sheet of paper or OHP transparency, with the central column just wide enough for the key word to fit into (see the sample concordance for LOOK(S) in Commentary 4.4.8). The sheets should then be cut into strips. Students go through the text and write neat concordance lines for each word, one per strip of paper / acetate. For paper strips, they can then pool their lines in progressively larger groups, sorting them into an order of their choice as they do so, or with the transparencies, you can display them and get the class to decide how to sort them. (The advantage of the strips now becomes apparent!). Finally, the whole lot can be copied into notebooks, or you can take them away (don’t forget to number them to get the students’ chosen order right) to photocopy. These hand-made concordances can then be used for other activities – odd one out, cloze test, pattern spotting (see the section on CR activities above). Organizing  the same set in different ways can reveal different patterns – easy to do on a word-processor if you are able to type them in.

•	Dictionary work: you need a good learner’s dictionary for this, preferably monolingual. Learners match words in context to suitable definitions (good where words can have several meanings – try looking up ‘sort of’ and check the various uses in the transcript!), then explain these to their partner. They can explore collocations, eg looking up ‘sort of’ in the ‘mystery objects’ transcript would also throw up ‘all sorts’, ‘out of sorts’, ‘it takes all sorts’, ‘nothing of the sort’, ‘sort out’. Students can generate their own examples – having looked up one or two words they are not sure how to use, they write two new sentences using their word(s). 

•	Personal recordings:  if students have access to a tape recorder, they can record any useful phrases they want to remember, or record themselves doing the task (assuming noise levels in the class are not prohibitive!), or record themselves giving the report, or even make successively improved recordings of the report to get a version they are satisfied with to play back to the class rather than delivering this live. 

•	Computer games: there are many CALL games and exercises on the market and students usually enjoy using them. They work well if students work in pairs or threes so they discuss possible answers rather than just trying all options until the computer accepts one. This is especially true of those with multiple choice type activities.

4.4.6.20 Practice as fun
Note that all of the practice activities suggested here have a sense of fun about them, and should be treated as challenges or games, not as exercises-that-must-all-be-completed-correctly-before-the-students-are-allowed-to-go-home. This means keeping them short and snappy, stopping before they fizzle out, and using a variety, maybe two or three in each lesson, and varying these from lesson to lesson.

4.4.6.21 Pedagogic corpus
You may also have noticed that some activities suggest taking examples of language from a range of texts and transcripts that are already familiar to the students – not just that for the current lesson. This implies building up a collection of such texts, sometimes called a ‘pedagogic corpus’. Jane Willis (1996) has more detailed advice on this on in her book.

4.4.6.22 Optional reading
If you have a copy of Jane Willis’s book A Framework for Task-based Learning (1996) I recommend that you now read pages 110–14.

4.4.6.23 Action point
Look at the language worksheet that I used with advanced level students in the ‘mystery objects’ lesson. What was my starting point for the five related activities? Which of the five activities help students to notice or find a language feature, and which ones ask them to analyse language for classes or patterns? For feedback, see Commentary 4.4.10.  

1)	Here are the first few lines of the conversation about the clothes peg, but I have taken some words out. Can you remember, or guess, any of the missing words in the places marked *******?

J	Umm  I ******************* to do with a washing line	
B    
J    	Yes. It ******************* clothes peg	
	It looks ******************* could clip in there ‘cos it ************* a clothes peg as well	
B	And if you press the end … no no no … yes well if you press the end there… 	
J	It moves up and down, doesn’t it? So **************** fit in there. **************** fit in that little hole.	
B	Hmm	
J	Don’t break it	
B	Well I mean it’s a sort of a – I dunno – it looks *******************…	
J	Does it actually open completely? It’ll go the other way, won’t it?	
B	…leverage principle involved. If you push that back it ******** opens  …  the end	

2)	Listen to the tape and try to fill in the missing words and phrases in the spaces ________  (don’t try to do the lines marked with .............. - they are too difficult to hear! You can find them later when you see the complete transcript.)

1	J	Umm I ___________ it _____________________________ to do with a washing line	
2 	B
J  	Yes. It …………………………………………….. clothes peg	
3a 
3b		……………………………. something ……………… clip in there ‘cos it 
___________________________ a clothes peg as well	
4 	B	And if you press the end … no no no … yes well if you press the end there …	
5a 
5b	J	It moves up and down, doesn’t it? So ________________________ fit in there.
___________________________ fit in that little hole.	
6	B	Hmm	
7	J	Don’t break it.	
8a
8b	B	Well I mean it’s a sort of a  ...               I dunno – it looks ...............................
there is _____________________	
9	J	Does it actually open completely?                                               It’ll go the other way, won’t it?	
10	B	…leverage principle involved. If you push that back it ____________________ opens ... the end 	

3)	Look at the complete transcripts and highlight all the words and phrases you can find that are like the ones you wrote down in exercise 2. (You first need to decide what sort of words / phrases these are!)

4)	Sort the words and phrases into three or more groups. Write them down in the table below.

		

		

		

5)	One of the commonest phrases is SORT OF. 
SORT OF can be followed by a noun, e.g. ‘Some sort of clothes peg’. What other classes of word can follow ‘SORT OF?

Can you say anything about the classes of word which go before or after the other phrases you found?

4.4.6.24 Action point
Select two or three practice activities to follow your CR activities that you think would suit your students. Write out instructions for these. If possible, try them out on colleagues and revise them as necessary until you are satisfied that they could work in class. The materials you produce here will form part of the assessment task (see 4.4.11) for this activity cycle.

 
 4.4.7 Summary
In this activity cycle we have identified the stages of a task-based lesson framework as occurring in the sequence pre-task, task cycle and language focus, with the task cycle itself comprising three stages: task, planning and report. The roles of the teacher and learners at each stage were considered, and the facilitating role of the teacher was emphasized. In the second half of the activity cycle, the pre-task, planning, report and language focus stages were considered in more detail.
	Now that you are familiar with the different stages of a task-based lesson, think about the extent to which each stage fulfils the optimum conditions for language acquisition identified in activity cycle 4.1 (see 4.1.2).  Complete the table, ranking each stage on a scale from 0 to 3. (Adapted from Willis 1996: 65). You can use your ideas to complete the last stage of part ii) of the assessment task (see 4.4.11) if you have opted to do this.

		Exposure	Use	Motivation	Instruction	
Pre-task					

Task cycle	Task					
	Planning					
	Report					
Language focus	Analysis					
	Practice					

4.4.8 Beliefs check
Now that you have finished this activity cycle, in what ways (if any) have your beliefs about, or understanding of, the possible sequence of activities in a language lesson changed?
	Do you believe it is a good idea to do a task before doing any language focus work? Why (not)?
	In what ways (if any) have your beliefs about, or understanding of, the nature of teaching and learning ‘grammar’ in language classrooms changed?

4.4.9 Readings

Reading 1
If you have a copy of Jane Willis’s book A Framework for Task-based Learning (1996) I recommend that you now read sections 9.1.1 and 9.1.2 on pages 133–35, where some further problems of a ‘presentation practice production’ paradigm are discussed.

Reading 2
If you have a copy of Jane Willis’s A Framework for Task-based Learning (1996) I recommend that you now read pages 38– 40. You can also see more task-based lesson outlines in Appendix C, pages 156–68.

Reading 3
If you have a copy of Jane Willis’s A Framework for Task-based Learning (1996) I recommend that you now read section 3.1.1 on pages 40–41, and the section on ‘teacher as monitor’ during tasks on pages 53–54. You can also see the overview of the TBL framework, including teacher and student roles, on page 155.

Reading 4
If you have a copy of Jane Willis’s book A Framework for Task-based Learning (1996) I recommend that you now read pages 42–46 and the summary on page 50 (pre-task stage).

Reading 5
If you have a copy of Jane Willis’s book A Framework for Task-based Learning (1996) I recommend that you now read pages 54–61. Section 4.3.1 (page 56) contains good advice on setting up the planning stage, 4.3.2 (pages 57–58) gives details of what it means to be a ‘language adviser’, and 4.4 (pages 58–61) looks at what the teacher as ‘chairperson’ needs to do during the report stage.

Reading 6
If you have a copy of Jane Willis’s book A Framework for Task-based Learning (1996) you can find more examples of CR activities, including some for lower level students, on pages 100, 107, 158, 160, 162–64, 166, 168.

4.4.10 References
Ellis, R (1988), The role of practice in classroom learning, AILA Review 5, 20–39
Johnson, K ( 2002),  Language as skill, ELT Journal 56 (2), 190–91
van Lier, L (1999), Language Awareness, in The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, ed R Carter and D Nunan, pp 160–65, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 
Willis, J (1996),  A Framework for Task-based Learning, Longman, London

4.4.11 Assessment task
1.	Design introductory, planning, report and language focus activities to use before and after the tasks you designed in activity cycle 4.3 (see 4.3.9) , together with any classroom materials required. (In some cases you will just need to write down the teacher’s instructions for these activities, and no materials will be needed. It would be a good idea to write these out as part of a brief plan for the whole lesson(s).)

2.	OPTIONAL EXTRA: Draw a diagram to show the stages of a task-based lesson as suggested by Jane Willis. Add notes to describe the roles that the teacher and learners will be taking at each stage. Add notes to show which of the four conditions for second language acquisition (identified in activity cycle 4.1 – see 4.1.2) each stage fulfils. 

These will form the fourth entry for your materials file. If you are using the materials file template provided, these items should be numbered 1.5 and 2.1 (and 2.2, etc if you design more than one complete lesson).  The TBL lesson diagram and notes (1.5) should be placed in part I of the file, and the lesson plans, classroom instructions and materials (2.1, 2.2 etc) should be placed in part II.

4.4.12  Commentaries

Commentary  4.4.1

Introduction to topic and task

Task

Report

Planning

Language focus (analysis and practice)

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 2b

Stage 2c

Stage 2a

Students may now hear a recording of  others doing a similar task and compare how they all did it. *See below.

* Listening to a recording of fluent speakers doing the same or a similar task allows students to compare their findings and performance with those of more proficient speakers in terms of task achievement. It also provides feedback on the type of language fluent speakers used to complete the task. At this stage of the lesson, students are likely to be quite attentive to language form even if not directed to it, having just done planning and report  activities when they were almost certainly consciously trying to improve their accuracy level. If the transcript of the recording will then provide the data for the language focus, this listening stage provides a seamless transition from task cycle to language focus. It could be considered both as a conclusion to the task cycle, and as an introduction to the language focus.

Commentary 4.4.2

Lesson stage number (see plan)	TBL stage	
1, 2, 3	Pre-task	
4	Task	
(5), 6	Planning	
7	Report	
(8), 9, 10, 11	Language focus	
12	Condensed task-plan-report all in one.	

Commentary 4.4.3 
Suggestions for TBL teacher roles: facilitator; guide; monitor; evaluator; timekeeper; language guide / adviser; motivator; organizer (of groupings, classroom layout etc); operator of equipment (tape recorder etc); chairperson.

Commentary 4.4.4 
Pre-task = setter of scene
task = encourager
planning = linguistic adviser
report = evaluator / giver of feedback.

Commentary 4.4.5

Pre-task

Task cycle

The teacher
•	introduces and defines the topic
•	sets up activities to help students recall useful words and phrases
•	ensures students understand task instructions
•	may play a recording of others doing the same or a similar task
The students
•	note down useful words and phrases from the pre-task activities and/or the recording
•	may spend a few minutes preparing for the task individually
•	

PLANNING
The students
•	prepare to report to the class how they did task and what they discovered/decided
•	rehearse what they will say or draft a written version for the class to read
The teacher
•	ensures the purpose of the report is clear
•	acts as language adviser
•	helps students rehearse oral reports or organize written ones

REPORT
The students
•	present their spoken reports to the class, or circulate/ display written reports
The teacher
•	acts as chairperson, selecting who will speak,  ensuring all students read most of reports
•	may give brief feedback on content and form
•	may play a recording of others doing the same or a similar task

Task
The students
•	do the task in pairs/small groups
The teacher
•	acts as monitor and encourages students

Language focus

PRACTICE
The teacher 
•	conducts practice activities after analysis activities where necessary, to build confidence
The students
•	practise words, phrases and patterns
from the analysis activities
•	practise other features occurring in 
	the task text or report stage
•	enter useful language items 
	in language notebooks

ANALYSIS
    The students
•	do consciousness-raising activities to identify
and process specific language features from                    the task text and/or transcript
•	may ask about other features noticed
 The teacher
•	reviews each analysis activity with
                                        the class
•	brings other useful words, 
                                                  phrases and patterns to 
                                                      students’ attention
•	may pick up on 
  language items 
     from report stage

Commentary 4.4.6

Task type	Report purpose: students can ...	
Listing	•	hear / read other groups’ lists and consolidate own to see how many items they got altogether;
•	vote on the most comprehensive list;	
Comparing	•	see how many have done the task the same way, or have things in common with presenters from other groups;
•	find out how many agree with the content of the report and why;	
Ordering or sorting	•	publicly justify their priorities to persuade each other;
•	take class vote on most convincing order or classification;	
Problem solving	•	compare and list strategies for solving the problem;
•	justify / evaluate solutions;
•	vote on best solution;
•	recommend one solution;	
Experience sharing	•	note points of interest and compare them later;
•	write questions to ask speakers;
•	set class quiz questions as a memory challenge;
•	keep a record of main points or themes mentioned for a review or classification later;
•	select one experience to summarize or react to in writing;	
Creative	•	say what they most enjoyed in the other groups’ work;
•	write a review of another group’s product for them to read.	

Commentary 4.4.7
Here are some of the patterns that students might find, or that you might point out to them if they get stuck. However, please note that this is not intended as ‘the answer’. Students may well have different criteria for their classifications, e.g. all the phrases beginning with ‘it’ in one group and all others in a second group. Alternative groupings are just as valid as long as students can justify them, since it is the process of ‘playing around’ with examples of language that is important, not the linguistic outcome.

Group 1: Looks like + noun
(or to be precise, ‘Looks (adv.) like + determiner + NOUN GROUP’)
it looks rather like some sort of clothes peg
it looks like a clothes peg
something that looks vaguely like a hinge
It looks like the kind of thing that
Well it almost looks like a garlic press

Group 2: Looks like + verb
(or to be precise, ‘(It) looks (to me) like + subject +VERB’)
Looks to me like you put a candle or something in that

Group 3: (It) looks as if / though + independent clause
It looks as though something could clip in 
Looks as though that’s meant to push something out
it looks as though you can actually ...
It looks as though it’s meant …
it looks as if there is some kind of ... leverage principle involved

Group 4: it looks + adjective
It looks a bit technical

Group 5: Fixed phrase ‘by the looks of it’
it’s not supposed to stay shut, by the looks of it,

Group 6: Discourse marker ‘look’ to draw listener’s attention to something
look that bit comes off
There’s two of these, look.

Group 7: Verbal use: ‘Can I look? 
Can we look at it?

Group 8: As a noun in a verb phrase ‘to have a (quick) look’
Can I have a quick look?

Commentary 4.4.8

Concordance for ‘look(s)’ phrases in the mystery objects task transcripts
(Note: a concordance is simply a list of lines of text arranged so that the key word falls into line in a central column. Once sorted, eg into alphabetic order of word immediately following the key word, patterns can become much easier to see. Here, the phrases ‘looks as if/though’ and ‘looks like a’ are made prominent by this technique. You can buy concordancing software that will find and sort examples from large collections of texts, but these aren’t essential – for commonly occurring items, such as ‘look’ in this collection of short texts, you or the students can do your own manual concordances quite quickly.)

There’s two of these,	look.		
Can I have a quick	look?		
Can we 	look	at it?	
	look	that bit comes off	
It	looks	a bit technical	
it	looks	as if there is some kind of leverage ...	
It	looks	as though it’s meant …	
It	looks	as though something could clip in	
	Looks	as though that’s meant to push	
it	looks	as though you can actually ...	
it 	looks	like a clothes peg	
Well it almost	looks	like a garlic press	
It 	looks	like the kind of thing that	
it’s not supposed to stay shut, by the	looks	of it,	
it	looks	rather like some sort of clothes peg	
	Looks	to me like you put a candle	
something that	looks	vaguely like a hinge	

Commentary 4.4.9A
Here is my summary of the language features in my transcripts that I felt were the more interesting ones that could potentially form the starting point for CR work.

Words, parts of words	
LOOKS
looks (modifier) like + NOUN
it looks rather like 
something that looks vaguely like
it looks like the kind of thing
it almost looks like a
looks (…) like + subj. +VERB
Looks to me like you put 
looks + …
it looks a bit technical 
it looks as though you can 
it looks as if there is
 	SORT
sort of + noun
some sort of clothes peg
a sort of wall 
the sort of, umm, the loop
it’s sort of an odd shape 
sort of + VERB
it sort of opens
it sort of fits
sort of + ADJECTIVE
it’s sort of rather crude	SOME...
something
something could fit
something to do with a
it could be something to do with a picnic
I bet it’s something like a de- 
something that looks like
a sort of wall or something
you put a candle or something in 
some kind/sort of
there is some kind of
maybe it’s some sort of
a NOUN + of some …
a hinge of some description
somehow
have to somehow go 	
	KIND
some + kind of + NOUN
there is some kind of leverage
some kind of washer		

IF
Zero conditional
if you press the end there... it moves up and down
If you push that back it sort of opens the end
you can push it, if you pull it this way 
if you put your fingers in there
If you put that over the line … and slide it down ... It tightens it so it locks on the line
First conditional
what would happen if … if you put something into the loop
VERB + as if  
it sort of fits as if …		
LIKE
(note the overlap between this set and the ‘looks’ set above)
looks (modifier) like + NOUN
it looks rather like 
something that looks vaguely like
it looks like the kind of thing
it almost looks like a
looks (…) like + subj. +VERB
Looks to me like you put
Other
(not)… anything like a door
there’s, like, some kind of a …
Like, there’s a hole		COULD/WOULD/MAY
I think it could be
something could fit
it could be a big ring
I’d say that’s 
maybe it’s	

Commentary 4.4.9B
			
Themes, notions and functions	
movement (of parts)
Phrases which refer to parts of the object which move
if you press the end there … it moves up and down
If you push that back it sort of opens
Does it actually open completely?
It’ll go the other way
that bit comes off
If you put something into the loop ... it sort of fits
If you put that over the line … and slide it down ... it tightens it so it locks on the line
That’d have to somehow go in there
It’s supposed to open and …. shut something
a loop of wire that makes that spring back
I guess it must go through there
If the screw goes through maybe then it umm  will either stop it
You make a hole, you put it through, you push the spring through and it springs open the other side and you can tighten it up.
Does it open?
It opens both ends.
It’s just there to fit them together
never pull out crown when watch is wet
that’s meant to push something out
it doesn’t go very far
you’re meant to slot something in there
then press that in
Stick your finger in there	uncertainty
Words and phrases which show the speaker is unsure or is being imprecise 
I think it could be
It looks rather like
it’s a sort of a
it looks as if there is some kind of
it sort of opens
a sort of wall or something
you put a candle or something in
something that looks vaguely like a hinge
a hinge of some description
it sort of fits
That’d have to somehow go in there
It’s sort of rather … crude
there’s like, some kind of a, a washer
If the screw goes through maybe then it umm  will either stop it
probably goes through the other way, doesn’t it.
it seems to spring back
Possibly
a candle or something
Maybe it’s some sort of storage container
it could be something for a picnic
that’s a, a camping … thing
for drinking out of, or whatever
for cooking, possibly
to fit them together perhaps
maybe you’re meant to slot something in
a sort of an odd shape
there’s sort of ridged bits
	compariNg
Sentences and phrases that compare or relate one thing to another thing
it looks like a clothes peg
It looks like the kind of thing that ... would open a cupboard door
it almost looks like a garlic press	

Commentary 4.4.9C
	
CATEGORIES OF MEANING AND USE 	
Meaning: Find all the phrases containing the word ‘sort’ that describe an object. How many other examples of ‘sort’ did you find? What do they describe?	
Meaning: Study the concordance for the words ‘look’ and ‘looks’, and find all the lines for ‘looks as if’, ‘looks as though’ and ‘looks like’ (be careful to find them all – there might be an extra word between ‘looks’ and ‘like’! There are ten altogether). Which of the three different phrases can describe
•	an object
•	an action	
Meaning: Find all the phrases with the word ‘like’ that compare one thing to another thing. What are the left over examples?	
Use: Find the two phrases with the word ‘something’ that come after an object (noun). 
What word comes between the noun and ‘something’?	
Use: Find all the examples of the word ‘looks’ which:
•	are followed by the word ‘like’
•	are followed by the word ‘as’
How many more examples of the word ‘looks’ are there? Which of these belong with the ‘looks like’ or ‘looks as’ group? Now how many are left?
Can you divide either or both the ‘looks like’ and ‘looks as’ groups into smaller groups?	
Use: Find all the phrases that contain both the words ‘looks’ and ‘like’. What words can come between ‘looks’ and ‘like’? Did you find more examples with ‘looks like’ next to each other, or separated by one or more words? Which word most often comes before the word ‘looks’? 	

Commentary 4.4.10
My starting point was  the notion of vagueness or uncertainty, realized by language such as ‘sort of’, ‘some kind of a’, ‘something that ...’, etc.
Activities 1 and 2 are transitional between the task cycle, in that they give students a chance to listen intensively to an extract from the tape that they have just heard as part of the follow-up to the report phase, and they also begin to focus attention onto the target language area. Activity 3 appears to be a fairly straightforward ‘find all the examples’ exercise, but note that there is no clear definition of what is to be found – students must first decide for themselves the nature of words and phrases they wrote down in exercise 2. So in this respect, activity 3 is already beginning to demand some analysis work of students. Activity 4 is a more straightforward classification exercise, but by no means easy, as there are many possible ways of sorting the large amount of data activity 3 will have generated. Activity 5 begins to direct students towards the patterns that their examples are found in – especially useful for examples like these that occur as semi-fixed phrases. 

4.4.13 Transcripts

OBJECT A (to play the recording, double click) 
1	Corony	Right. What I have here in this bag 	
2	Judith	Is it food? I’m quite hungry!	
3	Corony	No …   are some objects	
4	Bob 	Mmm Hmm	
5	Corony	And I’m going to hand them to you one at a time	
6	Judith	Mmm	
7	C	And you have one minute to talk about each one and try and decide what it is. OK?	
8	J	OK	
9	B	OK    Fair enough	
10	C	Here’s the first one	
11	B	Do we go one at a time or both together?	
12	C	Oh no  well you … you have to agree	
13	J	Umm I think it could be something to do with a washing line	
14	B) talking
J) at same
     time	Yes. It looks rather like some sort of clothes peg	
15		It looks as though something could clip in there ‘cos it looks like a clothes peg as well	
16	B	And if you press the end … no no no … yes well if you press the end there …	
17	J	It moves up and down, doesn’t it? So something could fit in there. Something could fit in that little hole.	
18	B	Hmm	
19	J	Don’t break it	
20	B)	Well I mean it’s a sort of a … I dunno – it looks as if there is some kind of …	
21	J)	Does it actually open completely? It’ll go the other way, won’t it?	
22	B	…leverage principle involved. If you push that back it sort of opens  …  the end	
23	J	 Yeah, but you can push it, if you pull it this way	
24	B	Mmm hmm                      	
25	J	No, it didn’t do anything 	
26	B	Well what would happen if …	
27	J	Oh yes it does, yeah, look that bit comes off	
28	B	If you put something into the loop	
29	J	Into that bit there	
30	B	Yes	
31	J	And it sort of fits as if …	
32	B	…that was bigger than the, the sort of umm, the loop, as it stands ….. at rest, so to speak	
33	J	Hmm. So like if you put your fingers in there	
34	B	Laughs … or my thumb	
35	J	That’d be useful … it could be a big ring … for people with very large hands … that need the, you know 	
36	B	Now you’re being facetious, Judith	
37	J	Yes, I know	
38	B	Umm. I’ve got no bloody idea …basically … not at all	
39	J	Laughs                	
40	C	OK – you’ve had your minute   …   here’s the next …	
41	B	But, but I mean it, it’s obviously for clipping something …..  a clothes peg?   Or …	
42	C	Yeah, well you’ve done it   Do you want  me to tell you? 	
43	J	Yeah	
44	B	Mmm hmm	
45	C	It’s a storm-proof clothes peg.  If you put that over the line … and slide it down …	
46	J
B	Oh yes … yes
 Ah … yes. OK	
47	C	It tightens it so it locks on the line	
48	J	So we got it! Next!	
49	B	Fair enough	

OBJECT B 
1	B	King Pack  …. Birmingham, England	
2	J	Right, let me see	
3	B	Errm	
4	J	Can’t see	
5	B	Well, it’s a, it’s a screw, and ...	
6	J	Mmm. It looks a bit technical	
7	B	...something that looks vaguely like a hinge of some description	
8		Mmm. It’s a very long screw	
9	B	Mmm hmm.	
10	J	That would imply that it’s going into a sort of wall or something, ‘cos it couldn’t go through anything like a door, could it, ‘cos it’s, it’d go out of the other side of the door	
11	B	Mmm hmm	
12	J	So it’s quite a long screw …. That’d have to somehow go in there. Maybe it’s, yeah, maybe it’s like umm , for a cupboard. It looks like the kind of thing that you would, that would open a cupboard door or something	
13	B	You can’t … Yes. We can’t take it out of the packet, or can we?	
14	C	Umm … yeah, why not.	
15	B	It’s just that I wanna check … what this … this little piece here does ….     It’s OK	
16	J	Here, I’ll 	
17	B	I think I’ve done it 	
18	J	You’ve already done it.	
19	B	All right. This is obviously supposed to … umm … oh, and it’s sprung,          it’s sprung as well	
20	J	It’s supposed to open and …. Shut something, isn’t it?	
21	B	Well, it’s not supposed to stay shut, by the looks of it, ‘cos it seems to spring back on itself.  Umm.	
22	J	So it’s a thing that’s supposed to stay open.	
23	B	Well I dunno. It’s sort of rather … crude, actually, but, the, it’s only a, a loop of wire that makes that spring back	
24	J	And where does the screw go? In that middle bit?  Do you think?	
25	B
B	God knows. Yes. There’s, there’s like, some kind of a, a washer that …                                  through the, the middle.	
26	J	Like there’s a hole that’s, that’s quite … yeah  … mm.	
27	B	So if you imagine …. If you imagine that through there, and I guess it must go through there	
28	J	So if you put that bit …    mm	
29	B	Although with difficulty, frankly        	
30	J	Mm 	
31	B	Because of this wire spring that’s in the way. But if the screw goes …	
32	J	If the screw goes through maybe then it umm  will either stop it ….	
33	B	The screw clearly goes through that …	
34	J	And does it still spring then?	
35	B	Yeah. 	
36	J	So somebody’s going to fix it to something, probably goes through the other way, doesn’t it.	
37	B	Possibly	
38	C	I think you’ve had your, you’ve definitely had your minute.	
39	B	Oh, Ok. Sorry. Can you tell us what it is, exactly?	
40	C	Yeah. It’s, er, the label says, cavity wall fixing.      You make a …   	
41	B	Aaah.  OK. Yes yes yes yes	
42	C	You make a hole, you put it through, you push the spring through and it springs open the other side and you can tighten it up.	
43	J	 Oohhh – yes.  Mmm.	
44	B	Yes. Yes yes, I should’ve known that.	
45	J	You should’ve – you’re a man!	
46	C	It’s an unusual one	
47	J	It’s a bore knowing those kinds of thing!	
48	B	Hmm	

OBJECT C 
1	J	Ah! It’s got the word STORM written on it	
2	B	Mmm hmm	
3	J	And on the top it’s got a registration number; I don’t think that’ll help us	
4	B	Does it open?	
5	J	Yes  … and there’s, there’s something written inside there. Can we look at it?	
6	B	Looks to me like you put a candle or something in that … oh, no, you couldn’t	
7	J	Yes,  you could, ‘cos you could get the light, there, couldn’t you	
8	B	No, but there’s no air ... which means it would go out	
9	J	And there’s nowhere to put the candle holder	
10	B	Pretty well immediately, wouldn’t it	
11	J	Maybe it’s some sort of storage container	
12	B	Can I have a quick look?	
13	J	It’s, that says what it is, does it?  Oo! Oh right, OK. This could, this could just be trying to put us off the scent	
14	B	It opens both ends. I’d say that’s the, that’s a, a camping … thing … for, for drinking out of, or whatever, or , or for … cooking possibly	
15	J	But why’s the middle bit clear? Surely there’s a, there’s got to be a reason why that bit’s clear	
16	B	Well, you can use it as a glass … to drink out of … 	
17	J	You could … yes but why’s it clear?	
18	B	Or … you’ve got,  two, two tins for cooking in or for 	
19	J	Why do glasses have to be clear?	
20	B	Well, they don’t, do they?  It’s just there to fit them together perhaps	
21	J	This mentions a battery	
22	B	Ooh, really?	
23	J	You don’t need a battery for that!       laughs	
24	B)	A battery. There’s nowhere to put a battery.	
25	J)	Battery and Spandex straps	
26	B	There’s nowhere to put a bloody battery.	
27	J	Water resistance. There’s two of these, look. It was bought in Rackham’s last summer. So it could be something to do with a picnic.	
28	B	Mm hmm	
29	J	Never, never pull out crown when watch is wet	
30	B	The watch	
31	J	Watch	
32	C	Right, you’ve had your minute.	
33	B	Oh, dear. 	
34	J	OK	
35	C	It’s just a, a fancy packaging container for a watch. For a fashion watch.	
36	J	Really?	
37	C	Storm is the brand of the watch, yes.	
38	J	Oohh.	
39	C	Instead of coming in a box… I know, exactly what a waste!	
40	B	My God! What a big waste.	
41	J	What a waste of money	
42	C	Anyway, you’ve had some far better ideas for it. I’ll take it camping next time I go!	
43	J	Here you are!	
44	B	Right. Jolly good.	

OBJECT D 
1	J	Got another one?	
2	B	Next	
3	C	Yeah - there’s this one and one more	
4	J	Hmm	
5	B	Well it almost looks like a garlic press	
6	J	 Yes yes	
7	B	Umm 	
8	J	 It looks as though it’s meant … maybe it’s … oh, I bet it’s something like a de- … umm, like you get apple corers	
9	B	Hmm	
10	J	Looks as though that’s meant to push something out, doesn’t it, except it doesn’t go very far	
11	B	Hmm. ... Don’t know	
12	J	So maybe you’re meant to slot something in there and then press that in	
13	B	Stick your finger in there and see what happens	
14	J	Laughs No!	
15	B	Umm. It’s a sort of an odd shape as well, isn’t it?	
16	J	Hmm … and there’s sort of ridged bits	
17	B	Ahh!  Umm … is it for olives? To take the, the…	
18	J	To take the stones out   	
19	B	For coring olives	
20	J	Yes, that sounds a good idea	
21	B	That’s what it is, yes?	
22	J	Is that what it is?	
23	C	Yeah, yeah. There’s a …	
24	B	Ah, OK. I’d like one of them!	
25	J	Yes!	
26	B	There’s a what?	
27	J	A de-pit … so you can get pitted olives. 	
28	B	Oh OK	
29	J	Ah, right. So then that makes more sense, ‘cos it looks as though you can actually , ‘cos otherwise it’s like teeny weeny bit that you can move	
30	C	I think it’s originally designed for cherries but you can use it for olives as well	
31	B	Yes.  Ah right. OK