TASK DESIGN AND EVALUATION

Exercise/Task/Activity

Prior to this session, I have never really looked into the difference between exercise, task, and activity although I used them all the time. In retrospect, for what I usually ask students to do at the start of a lesson, I always call it “warm-up activity” and not “warm-up task” or “warm-up exercise”. It seems like, with the part of a lesson that is less controlled and more learner-centred, I tend to call it “activity”. Meanwhile, I use the word “task” and “exercise” interchangeably. Thus, I want to explore the similarities and differences between these terms and check whether they have implications for designing materials.

According to Richards (2014), exercise and activity can be defined as follows:

• Exercise: a teaching procedure that involves controlled, guided or open-ended practice of some aspect of language (e.g. a drill, a cloze activity, a reading comprehension passage)
• Activity: a general term that refers to any kind of purposeful classroom procedure that involves learners doing something that relates to the goals of the course (e.g. singing a song, playing a game, taking part in a debate, having a group discussion)

For “task”, the author gave a more detailed definition:

• It is something that learners do, or carry out, using their existing language resources or those that have been provided in pre-task work.
• It has an outcome which is not simply linked to learning language, though language acquisition may occur as the learner carries out the task.
• It is relevant to learners’ needs.
• It involves a focus on meaning.
• In the case of tasks involving two or more learners, it calls upon the learners’ use of communication strategies and interactional skills.
• It provides opportunities for reflection on language use.

From this explanation, it is clear that by using “exercise”, the teacher will focus on a specific language point in the lesson. In contrast, “activity” is more flexible and serves general communicate goal. However, this distinction does not mean that “exercise” and “activity” are separated from each other. As one section of a lesson can flow seamlessly into another, different components will be used by teachers to achieve different goals at the same time, reaching an equilibrium point between language focus and meaningful communication. That point of equilibrium, in my opinion, lies within the use of “task” as students can acquire a new language point or consolidate existing knowledge through meaningful activities. Therefore, this post will analyse the use of tasks in language teaching and how they can be evaluated.

Criteria for task and task types

Ellis (2011: 212) presented the following criteria as requirements for a task:

1. “Meaning” should be the main focus.
2. A “gap” needs to be included.
3. Learners should rely on their own knowledge to complete the task.
4. Apart from language practice, there should be a “clearly-defined outcome” for the task.

Based on these fundamental criteria, the author also divided “tasks” into other categories (ibid. 213):

• “Focused” (students communicating using a particular linguistic point) and “unfocused” (without the specific linguistic point)
• “Input-providing” (listening and reading) and “output-providing” (speaking and writing)
• “Closed” (tasks that have a finite number of answers) and “open” (multiple possible answers)

Even though the above categorisation helps teachers understand the core of what a “task” is and the complexity of its various aspects, I think it is still not useful enough for teachers in designing their own tasks. Thus, it could be beneficial to look at other frameworks for task design and compare with what we have known. Regarding task-based language teaching (TBLT), Willis and Willis (2007: 12-14, in Willis 2008a) mentioned a more detailed list of criteria in the form of questions to evaluate whether the activities being done in the classroom can be considered “tasks”:

1. Will the activity engage learners’ interest?
2. Is there a primary focus on meaning?
3. Is there a goal or an outcome?
4. Is success judged in terms of outcome?
5. Is completion a priority?
6. Does the activity relate to real-world activities?

However, identifying a task is not an easy job, especially while textbook instructions can come in various shapes and forms (Willis 2008b); thus, the author proposed a taxonomy comprised of six types of activities which are believed to facilitate the creation of more effective tasks:

1. Listing/Brainstorming: students can make a list of things, people, activities, places, etc.
2. Ordering and sorting: students can do something related to sequencing, ranking, or classifying.
3. Matching: students will have to link a piece of text to pictures, headlines, etc.
4. Comparing: students will be asked to find the similarities and differences between some items.
5. Problem-solving: students will have to solve some common problems, which can be quite complex and require different processes like comparing and evaluating.
6. Sharing personal experiences and storytelling: students will have to recall past experiences and tell their own stories, which can be a chance for them to speak for a longer period of time.

Willis also noted that the first three task types are often found at the beginning of a textbook for the purpose of introduction or revision. While the goal of these tasks is clear, they do not stimulate enough interaction and communication among students. Therefore, the task types 4, 5, 6 can be integrated into the same task to create more opportunities for meaningful use of language. Based on the understanding of this taxonomy, I will make an attempt to evaluate the use of tasks in a coursebook.

Task evaluation

According to Ellis (2011: 225), the process of task evaluation can be divided into the following steps:

1. Description of the task
2. Planning the evaluation
3. Collecting information
4. Analysis of the information collected
5. Conclusions and recommendations

Due to the fact that I will not be able to put the materials into real use at the moment and collect enough feedback on the tasks included in each unit, I will create a brief summary of all the task types found in the materials and analyse their uses. The coursebook that I chose is a new series called “Mindset for IETLS” (Crosthwaite et al. 2017) from Cambridge University Press. I want to look at the tasks presented in this series because I might use this material for teaching in the future.

Using the taxonomy of six task types mentioned earlier (Willis 2008b), I will analyse the tasks in the Reading section of Unit 8 of the foundation-level student book in this series. I chose this unit because I got a copy of it when attending the 2018 IATEFL conference.

There are a total of 13 questions or tasks in this sample unit. However, as the book focuses on preparing students to take the IELTS test, I think most of the components are “exercises” instead of “activities” or “tasks” as they emphasise exam techniques. Based on the criteria for tasks mentioned above, the activities that are closest to a “task” in this unit, in my opinion, are number 1 and 4. Task 1 belongs to the “Comparing” type as it requires students to compare different words in pairs and look up their meanings in a dictionary. This task seems quite useful because students can become more familiar with the notion of synonyms and antonyms without being taught explicitly. Similarly, task 4, a “Matching” type, may have the same effect as it requires students to match words and phrases which have the same meanings.

While these tasks have their own uses, there is not much connection with real-world activities and also I doubt that they can stimulate much of the students’ interests. Even though this book aims at lower-level students who are getting used to the IELTS test, that objective might have limited the potential of the reading texts and how much teachers and students can do with them. I think the authors themselves have noticed that and that is why they presented the following worksheet alongside the sample unit:

 

In conclusion, the design and evaluation of tasks in language teaching materials can be a highly complicated process. Nonetheless, thanks to this hard work, teachers can fully understand what is missing from the coursebooks that they are using and start creating materials suitable for their students.

References 

Crosthwaite, P., De Souza, N. and Loewenthal, M., (2017) Mindset for IELTS. Cambridge University Press.

Ellis, R. (2011) Macro- and micro-evaluation of task-based teaching. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed) Materials Development in Language Teaching (2nd  ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (212-235).

Richards, J.C. (2014) Difference Between Task, Exercise, Activity. Available: https://www.professorjackrichards.com/difference-task-exercise-activity  [Accessed May 10 2018].

Willis, D. and Willis, J. (2007) Doing Task-based Teaching. Oxford University Press.

Willis, J. (2008a) Criteria for identifying tasks for TBL. British Council – Teaching English. Available: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/criteria-identifying-tasks-tbl  [Accessed May 10 2018].

Willis, J. (2008b) Six types of task for TBL. British Council – Teaching English. Available: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/six-types-task-tbl  [Accessed May 10 2018].