反思任务型教学

反思任务型教学
方国爱;徐芳
【摘要】Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) has attracted more notice and has been more applied in the teaching of foreign language in the recent years. By reviewing its theoretical background and analyzing its practice in the college English classroom, we come to the conclusion in this paper that there is no best or fixed method for language teaching and the honest and active participation and communication of teachers and students play the key role in the teaching, which is rarely mentioned in TBLT.%近年来,任务型教学在外语教学中越来越受到关注且研究日益增多.该文在梳理其理论根源的基础上,通过实证研究分析了任务型教学在大学英语课堂上的应用,得出在语言教学上没有最好或固定的方法,教学的中关键是师生间真诚、积极的参与和交流,而这一点在任务型教学中是罕见的.
【期刊名称】《梧州学院学报》
【年(卷),期】2007(017)002
【总页数】5页(P101-104,108)
【关键词】任务型教学;语言教学;交际
【作者】方国爱;徐芳
【作者单位】浙江机电职业技术学院,国际交流系,浙江,杭州,310058;浙江机电职业技术学院,国际交流系,浙江,杭州,310058
【正文语种】中文
【中图分类】H315
Over the past two decades, a great number of teachers have been investing a variety of ways to make classroom more “student-centered” and investigating different ways in which students can play more active roles in discovering and processing knowledge[1]. English language teaching bears no exception. The approach reputed as “Task-based language teaching” (TBLT) falls directly into this trend. TBLT can be seen as a development within the communicative approach with the former emphasis on tasks and the latter on activities [2]. Many English teachers are trying to employ the approach in their teaching praxis, resulting in both merits and weakness. In order to have a clear picture of this approach, I will elaborate its theoretical basis in the following part, followed by analysis and discussion of its implementation in one college English class.
TBLT can be considered as one particular approach to implementing the broader “comm- unicative approach”.The or igin of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) dates back to the 1960s, with the beliefs that the goal of language teaching is to develop learners’ communicative competence including grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. Additionally, CLT means the integration of both grammatical and functional teaching, and the procedures during which learners work in
pairs or groups employing available language resources in problem-solving tasks. CLT should involve the communicative activities of meaningful tasks.
As a specific approach to CLT, TBLT has aroused confusion in discussion in that teachers and researchers have different interpretation of the term
‘task’. According to Williams and Burden, [1] a task is any activity that learners engage in to further the process of learning a language. The broad definition of task includes almost anything that students are required or chosen to do in the classroom, from formal learning activities to controlled practice activities, provided the objective of the activity is to learn the language. Some more restricted definitions of task are also available, such as “tasks are always activities where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose or goal in order to achieve an outcome.”[1] However, there are some agreements on the characteristic of tasks. They are as follows:
(1)Tasks are activities in which students work purposef-ully towards an objective.
(2)The objective may be one that they have set for them-selves or one which has been set by the teacher.
(3) Tasks may be carried out individually or (more often)in groups.
(4)Tasks may be carried out in competition with others or (more often) in collaboration.
(5)The outcome may be something concrete (e.g. a r－eport or presentation) or something intangible(e.g. agreement or the solution to a
problem).
These features define each step in carrying out each specific task ranging from the initiation to the final stage, which witness some compromises betwe en the broad and the narrow definitions. In Littlewood’s words, task-based learning is not usually simply a question of learners focusing either on meaning or on form; it is rather a matter of degree. For instance, some activities focused on the production of certain forms can still be used to express meanings in some contexts and vice versa. Concerning communication and tasks, Littlewood categories five parts of the continuum from ‘focus onform’ to ‘focus on meaning’, namely, on-communicative learning, pre-communicative language practice, commu-tative language practice, structured communication and authentic communication.[2] There are no clear-cutboundaries among the five practices. The categorizati-ons vividly elaborate Littlewood’s belief that commu-nicative language teaching (TBLT as a specific case) pays systematic attention to functional as well as stru-ctural aspects of language.
In the following part I will elaborate its practice at the college stage by analyzing the lead-in activities in one college English class.
At present, it is prevalent to discuss educational reform in terms of curriculum, syllabus and the teaching materials as well as teaching methods while the classroom discourse is the neglected Cinderella. Actually regarding the foreign language teaching reform, researchers should lay great emphasis on how those concerns are implemented in the
practical level, especially in the “black box” of classroom activities. The lead-in activity is part of my observations from one unit in College English class. The textbook “New College English” [3] is renowned for its compiling principle in terms of “the topic-based teaching style centering on the students”. The setup of the classroom is also convenient for the students to collaborate in learning, with 5 or 6 students in each group sitting around the diamond-shaped desk among the total number of 30 students.
The lead-in activity in this unit consists of three ‘tasks’, namely, one students’ presentation to the whole class; the whole class discussion of the topic “travel” and group discussions related to the topic. (See the appendix, simplified transcription of the lead-in activity in the classroom)From Littlewood’s definition it can easily conclude that the lead-in activity of the lesson is TBLT which focuses on both the formal aspects and the functional ones of the language. As for the former, look at the following dialogue:
2. S1: For most people, eh, they travel try to to relax, andmaybe they want to get more knowledge, and to know more,more about the world,
……
7. T: ok, people travel to relax and get knowledge, Very good. (…) anyone else?
The teacher’s paraphrase on the student’s ideas is to make the answer more concise or grammatical. For the functional aspects of language, the students are grouped to finish the pre-set tasks, mostly, certain questions
from the teacher. Additionally, the tasks can be initiated by the teacher or the students. For instance, the task of presentation can be varied according to the students’ preferences. As for the outc ome of the tasks we have either presentation, or the agreement to a problem’s solution, specifically, the teacher’s summary of the discussion from his prepared PowerPoint File.
In a nutshell, the lead-in activity of the unit is typically TBLT centring upon the students.
Nowadays teachers of all subjects are being told that TBLT should be used the in class. Yet in an article entitled “The task-based approach: some questions and suggestions”, Littlewood [2]proposes that TBLT can be seen as a development within the communicative language teaching and the definition of task is fraught with questions. Just as label “communicative approach” has frequently misled people in some way, the sign “task-based approach” may doom the same criticism. Yet we can't disperse with the labels, because it will not satisfy our need to describe the world, Littlewood uses his own preferred wording label “communicative-oriented language teaching” to cover both communicative approach and task-approach for they are always finalizing towards communication.
Nevertheless, no matter what kind of label is connected to the teaching approach, we should ponder over what can really promote the learning process. Can we find the best method? The answer is definitely negative. Prabhu [4] argues that the notion of good or bad methods is itself
misguided for the pedagogic operation is quite complex; if we have good teaching method, it reduces teaching to a faithful following of highly specific routine-something of a pedagogic ritual; it’s necessary t o conceive good teaching as an activity in which there is a sense of involvement by the teacher and the students with the former is the major condition for classroom rapport.
I’ll move back to the classroom discourse analysis. The tasks are pre-set
in the textbook only the teacher showing them in a different manner with the PowerPoint file from the overhead projector. From the transcription on task 3, we can find that most students are brainstorming some words concerning travel activities. They are talking in Chinese and later on translating them into English. After being interviewed in the class, they told me that they only talk in English when the teacher is standing nearby. In most cases, they will discuss the questions in Chinese. Undoubtedly, we can’t blind the fact of the teacher’s involvement in the teaching process as his well-prepared PowerPoint with all the reference answers to the tasks can be seen as an illustration. Nevertheless the involvement should incorporate the students’ active participatio n in the learning process as well, which could not be found in the first and second task in the lead-in activity, even the group discussion of the third task. In other words, the communication in the classroom cannot reach or share understanding between th e participants. Even the “authentic communication” defined
by Littlewood [1] is the communication in which the teacher still ‘controls’ the activity, by creating a situation which he regards as suitable to fulfill
the learning task.
Here we can still find the teacher’s “dominant” role in the class activities. The authority of the teacher, nevertheless, is not in “real” sense in that the power is from the textbook, from the curriculum and from the language teaching evaluation mechanism. Any prescribed syllabus was regarded redundant from when the teacher and students began working and that the only genuine syllabus would be a retrospective account of what the teaching had covered and what had been achieved from it. [5]18 The concept of process syllabus can be conceived to replace the conventional syllabus. The process syllabus aims to engage both the teacher and the students in working out the actual curriculum of the classroom. In the book “ClassroomDecision-Making”,the practicability of process syllabus at all levels of the education is testified to be beneficial for both learners and teachers, from primary to secondary schools, from tertiary institution to practices in teacher education. Also, we can find its practice in some Chinese English classes.[6]
By analyzing the practice of TBLT in one college class, I hold that there is no best method or fixed method in language teaching, in that the active involvement and participation of the teacher and students cannot be realized through any pedagogical rituals. The active participation and genuine communication of both parties is essential in the classroom practice, which needs to be further researched.
Appendix: Simplified transcription of the lead-in activity in the classroom Task 1 (One Student’s Presentatio n)
S1: Good afternoon, everyone. Today I will tell you a very interesting story, maybe someone has read it.
Task 2 (The Whole Class Discussion on the Purpose of Travel)
1.T: …… I’d like you to think about what’s the purpose of travel, (…) Try to say someth ing about … the purpose of travel
2.S1: For most people, eh, they travel try to to relax…
3.T:So just you mentioned two purposes, one is to…to re-lax yourself,
4. Ss: relax.
5.T: and the second to, to learn more knowledge and
6. Ss: learn more knowledge
7.T:ok, people travel to relax and get knowledge. Very good. (…) anyone else?
8.S2:Maybe some people travel to, travel to spread his own opinions to other people……
Task 3(Group Discussion on Questions of Travelling)
T:now next, I’d like you to discuss some words related to t-ravel, … Group 1 and Group 2 please, list some words related to transportation. …Group 5 and group 6 list something you need when you travel, so the things you need when you travel, so these group which means of transportations do you like best? Why? Which means of transportation do you like and why? (One group’s discussion is as follows)
S1:我们谈论是一些活动, 我们是group 3
S2:爬喽
S3:登山,划船
S4:mountain 太高,
S1:那么hills 吧
S2:去旅游作些什么活动呀?
S3:可登山,可划船,还有什么
S1:C-L-I-M-B
S3:滑翔
S4:飞翔
S2:飞翔fly, 滑翔查一下吧
S1:glide
……
Xu Fang（1980-）, Female, TA in Department of Internatio-nal.Exchange of Zhejiang Institute of Mechanical and Electri-cal Engineering, Research Field: English Language Teaching and Critical Discourse Analysis.
【相关文献】
[1] Littlewood,William.Task-Based Language Teaching:What’s Old and What’s New[R].北京:首届中国英语外语教学国际学术年会发言稿. 2002.
[2] Littlewood,William.The Task-based Approach: Some quest-ions and
Suggestions[J].Oxford:ELT Journal, 2004, (1).
[3] 浙江大学.New College English, Book I[M].北京:外语教学及研究出版社,1999.
[4] Prabhu,N.S.There is No Best Method——Why?[J].TESOL Quarterly,1990, (24).
[5] Breen,M.P.&A.Littlejohn.Classroom Decision-Making[M].Cambridge:CPU, 2000.
[6] 黄爱凤.探讨大学专业英语学生综合素质培养模式——（RICH教学介绍和研究[J].山东外语教学,2003,(5).。