For our 8th seminar we were asked to work in pairs to examine a unit of a coursebook to focus on its tasks and ask: what is a task; what makes an effective task; and how do we categorise task types?
Aleks and I used Move Advanced (C1), module 3, unit 1. Published in 2007 – because it was available to borrow and we’d both used it. It aims to appeal to older teenagers and young adults and integrates reading, listening, speaking and writing with vocabulary and grammar input. From this point of view it is well balanced, offering all those elements within the communicative approach on the topic of literature and storytelling.
As we later discussed during the seminar, defining exactly what a task is, depends largely on who you consult and the context in which you ask the question. It might be easy to conflate language learning tasks with task-based learning for example which would be misleading. In the latter, narrower definition, learning is focused on using language in a meaning focused way to convey a message (Ellis 2003). In the former, broader definition, the scope is widened to include “what we give students to do in classrooms” (Johnson 2003:4). Thus, in this broader definition, all the activities and exercises of a unit designed to promote language learning are included for the purposes of task evaluation. And this is the definition we used.
Next, we designed a framework from which to examine our unit so the information we collected could be organised and interpreted. For this we were guided by Ellis’s (1998:227) framework for evaluating communicative tasks. He states that “the evaluation of a task requires a clear description….(that)….specifies the content of a task”. To this end we ordered out finding under these headings as he suggests:
Language activity: such as reading for gist, listening for key information, speaking to exchange information, personalised writing. (the simple description of the activity).
Input: such as pictures, texts, directions (the information the learners are supplied with).
Procedure: such as paired discussion, class brainstorm, table completion, individual reading. (the activities the learners perform to accomplish the task).
Objectives: to answer the question – was the task pedagogic (purely to facilitate language acquisition – e.g. to facilitate lexis acquisition) or real world (something that would happen in real life – the example given by Ellis is ‘writing a cheque’ and an example from our evaluated coursebook unit is ‘having a discussion about books you’ve read’).
Focus: here we used the language of task taxonomy – speculating, ordering, interpretation, analysis, matching, comparing etc. (these are the categories of task types). Defining categories can be done in a number of ways but our taxonomy most closely matched Maley’s (1998) list of ‘generalised procedures’ which included those listed above. He cites 12 in all . (As summarised in McGrath (2002:113). These task types seemed to fit quite naturally with how we interpreted what we perceived to be happening in the tasks we looked at – what learners were being asked to do cognitively. We saw evidence of 9 from that list. It is not however the only perspective from which to view task taxonomy (more on this below).
Principles: under this final heading we referred back to out beliefs about language learning in order to say if the activity was effective, in that it was able to meet one or more of our principles of language learning.
For reference, here is the scanned unit we looked at consisting of 4 pages and the completed evaluation table below that.
Concluding remarks:
We found the process of task evaluation for a whole unit quite involved and time consuming. As noted earlier we relied heavily on Ellis’s procedures and Maley’s taxonomy of tasks and found the fitted well with our approach. What we didn’t achieve in the timeframe was a final stage of the procedure – an analysis of the information collected into quantifiable collated data. We have the raw data, so this could of course be done at a later date. What we did find was a varied range of task types with interpretation and analysis tasks being the most frequently occurring.
I said earlier that a ‘generalised procedures’ taxonomy was not the only taxonomy one could use. I discovered Bloom’s Taxonomy after completing the above evaluation. It seems to add an interesting and very useful dimension to the task evaluation process. In this taxonomy, task types are synthesised into 6 broad categories (see below) and ranked in a hierarchy with the higher order skills at the peak. I think an analysis on this plane would add an extra layer to how we evaluate tasks. Not only would we see the variety of task types used but also the depth of cognitive processes involved in each. I have Anna’s blog to thank for drawing my attention to this type of task taxonomy.
References
Ellis, R (2003) Task-based language learning and teaching.
Ellis, R (1998) The Evaluation of communicative tasks. In Tomlinson B. (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching.
Johnson, K. (2003) Designing Language Teaching Tasks.
Maley, A. (2011) Squaring the circle – reconciling materials as constraint with materials as empowerment. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching.
McGrath, I (2002) Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching.