A close examination of Task-based
language teaching in the Chinese
context
评述任务型教学法在中国的运用
中国外语教育中心 文秋芳
Email: Wenqiufang@teach.bfsu.edu.cn
1
Topics to be addressed today

General Views about Task-based language
teaching (TBLT) in China
中国英语教学界对任务型教学法的普遍看法

My personal view and explanations
我个人的看法及理由

Suggestions about the adaptation of TBLT in
the Chinese context
对任务型教学法在中国运用的建议
2
General views about TBLT in China
 Innovative,
effective
– TBLT recommended as an effective
teaching approach for primary and
secondary schools in “English Course
Guidelines” issued by Ministry of
Education in 2001
3
General views about TBLT in China

Yue Shouguo, 2002, An introduction to taskbased language teaching Approach, Foreign
Language Teaching and Research, 5: 364-367.
(任务语言教学法: 概要、理据及运用）

Huang, Yuanzheng, 2003, Teaching and
learning the new English course, Fuzhou:
Fujian Education Press. (新课程英语教和学）
4
Question
Is Task-based language
teaching importable to China?
5
Sampson (1985)
 No
teaching method can be value-
free and hence no teaching
method can be universally
applicable.
– Exporting language teaching methods
from Canada to China in Foreign
Language Teaching and Research, 1: 4451.
6
My personal views

Innovative but not necessarily
effective in China particularly for
primary and secondary school
students

Adaptable for bettering ELT in China
but not importable without any
modifications
7
Why innovative?
Previous teaching
approaches (AL &
CLT)
Task-based
language
teaching
Syllabus
(What to
teach)
Linguistic content
Tasks
(structures/
functions or notions)
Procedures
(How to
teach)
Presentation
Practice
Production
Pre-task
During-task
Post-task
8
Task-based language teaching
(What)

Treat tasks as teaching units and
design a whole course around the
tasks (Ellis, 2003)
9
Prabhu’s view (cited by Ellis, 2003)
It was necessary to abandon the preselection of linguistic terms in any form
and instead specify the content of
teaching in terms of holistic units of
communication, i.e. tasks. In this way,
he claimed, it would be possible to
teach ‘through communication’ rather
than ‘for communication’.
10
What is a task?

Skehan (1996)
A task is ‘an activity in which: meaning is
primary; there is some sort of
relationship to the real world; task
completion has some priority; and the
assessment of task performance is in
terms of task outcome’.
11
What is a task?

Nunan (1989)
A communicative task is ‘a piece of
classroom work which involves learners
in comprehending, manipulating,
producing, or interacting in the target
language while their attention is
principally focused on meaning rather
than on form. The task should also have
a sense of completeness, being able to
stand alone as a communicative act in its
own right
12
Examples of tasks
Borrowing a library book
 Making an airline reservation
 Writing a cheque
 Opening a bank account
 Post a letter in the post-office

13
Six criterial features of a task
(Ellis, 2003: 9-10)






A task is a workplan.
A task involves a primary focus on meaning.
A task involves real-world processes of
language use.
A task can involve any of the four language
skills.
A task engages cognitive processes.
A task has clearly defined communicative
outcome.
14
Advantages of using tasks

Authentic
Using language

Motivating
Active participation

Challenging
Cognitive development
15
Why not effective in China,
particularly for beginners and
low-intermediates?

Theoretically unjustifiable

Pedagogically infeasible
16
Theoretically unjustifiable

The functions of a language

Educational perspective
– Goals of learning English
– Formal/informal education

Critical pedagogical perspective

Psycholinguistic perspective
17
Overemphasis on
referential/transactional functions
•
Core
business
talk
•
Workrelated
talk
•
Social
talk
•
Phatic
communion
Holmes’ continuum (2000, cited by David,
2003: p.72)
18
The goals of learning a foreign
language

For performing communicative tasks

For widening students’ horizons and
sharpening them awareness of cultural
differences
19
‘Educational reforms’ in the
Cultural revolution

Teaching in middle school
– Physics (hand-tractor, motor, diesel engine and
water pump) (三机一泵）
– Botany (rice, wheat and cotton)

Teaching in university
– Open-door schooling
– Project-based and typical product-based teaching
20
Problems in this kind of
‘reform’

By nature, this kind of ‘reform’ relegated
whole-person-development education to
specific or vocational skills’ training.

Fragmentary and unsystematic knowledge

Unsustainable improvement
21
 TBLT
not conducive to sustained
improvement
– Tasks: too specific without
generalizability
– Unsystematic linguistic
knowledge
22
Formal/informal education

Formal education should be more
efficient than self-directed informal
learning
– swimming, painting, driving

Formal education should empower
students
23
Larsen-Freeman (2003)
The point of education is to
accelerate the language acquisition
process, not be satisfied with or try
to emulate what learners can do on
their own.
 Grasping a language system can
empower students.

24
The critical pedagogy

A critical pedagogy requires that any particular
approach to language teaching be analyzed to
uncover its underlying socio-political messages.
(Ellis, 2003: 331)

What is the norm for EFL learners to follow in
task-based teaching? Native speakers.

What is the role of the learner’s mother tongue?
Avoiding the use of L1.
25
Vivian Cook (1999)

The language used by successful L2 users
should be a model for L2 learners.

Treat L2 users in their own right but not
deficient native speakers, failed natives.

Comparing the characteristics of native
speakers and of L2 users is like comparing
tomatoes and apples, useful only at a gross level.
26
Vivian Cook (1999)
Apart from the never-dying but usually decried
grammar-translation method, virtually all
language teaching methods since the Reform
Movement of the 1880s, whether the
audiolingual and audiovisual methods, the
communicative method, or the Silent Way, have
insisted that teaching techniques should not
rely on the L1. (p. 201)
27
Psycholinguistic perspective

Limited attentional resources

Automaticity
– Frequency effects
28
A dangerous moment

Student A
Have you ever been in a situation where you
tell your life was in danger? Describe the
situation to your partner. Tell him/her what
happened. Give an account of how you felt
when you were in danger and afterward.
 Student B
Listen to your partner tell you about a
dangerous moment in his/her life. Draw a
picture to show what happened to your partner.
Show him/her your picture when you have
29
finished it.
Pedagogically infeasible
Difficult to cover the whole language
system
 Lack teachers who are sufficiently
proficient in English to engage easily
and comfortably in face-to-face
interaction.
 Reducing students’ confidence

30
Rod Ellis’ view (2003)

It should be noted that the rationale
for task-based syllabuses is largely
theoretical in nature, there being little
empirical evidence to demonstrate
that they are superior to linguistic
syllabuses (p. 210)
31
Ellis’ framework (2003, p. 206)
Tasks
1. Task types
2. Themes/topics
3. Sequencing
criteria
Language
Forms
Functions
Task-based syllabus
Unfocused tasks
Focused tasks
Teaching materials—task workplans
32
Two options (Ellis, 2003)

Option One: unfocused tasks
– Specify the tasks to be included
– Determine their thematic content
– Sequence the tasks

Option Two: focused tasks
– Specify the tasks while considering the
forms and functions of language
– Introduce a focus on form into a
meaning-centered curriculum
33
Option One:
Neglect the linguistic content
Tasks
Unfocused-tasks
?
Linguistic content
Pronunciation
Grammar
Notions
Functions
Vocabulary
Discourse
34
Option Two: Difficult to implement
Tasks
Focused-tasks
?
Linguistic content
Pronunciation
Grammar
Notions
Functions
Vocabulary
Discourse
35
Lack English teachers with high L2
oral proficiency

First, task-based instruction is seen as
impractical in foreign language contexts
because of the limited class time available for
teaching the L2.

Second, task-based teaching is seen as
difficult to implement by non-native speaking
teachers whose L2 oral proficiency is
uncertain.
36
English teaching in China
Level of education
Number of students
Tertiary institution
16 million
Senior middle school 29 million
Junior middle school
67 million
Total
112 million
(Jan. 6, 2004, China’s Ministry of Education)37
Without capitalizing on non-native
teachers’ strengths

Medgyes (1994) points to several advantages of
teachers being non-native speakers — they
provide good models for their students, they
know what learning strategies can be usefully
taught, they can supply information about the
English language, they can anticipate and
prevent difficulties, they are good at showing
empathy, and, most obviously, they can exploit
the use of the students’ L1. Task-based
teaching, however, may not be the most
obvious vehicle for maximizing these strengths.
38
Reducing students’ confidence

Without adequate practice of the needed
structures, students were reluctant to speak
in a so-called meaning-driven
communication.

One highly possible explanation is that they
lack adequate practice in doing so.
(Larsen-Freeman, 2003, p. 100)
39
Adaptable but not importable
 Rod
Ellis’ view (2003)
– Task-based language teaching
– Task-supported language
teaching
40
Ellis’ suggestion

It suggests that… a clear distinction needs to be
made between asking teachers to adopt a taskbased course and asking them to experiment
with individual tasks alongside their existing
practices. The former is challenging and one
would predict that the innovation would run into
problems. The latter is relatively unthreatening
as it requires only modification to the way
teachers teach, rather than a radical change. It is
likely to succeed. (p.323)
41
Task-supported language teaching

Teaching based on a linguistic content,
whether this is specified in structural
terms as a list of grammatical features or
in notional/functional terms

Using tasks in the last stage in a
methodological sequence consisting of
present-practice-production (Ellis, 2003)
42
Suggestions
 Modify
what has been done in
presentation, practice and
production
– Presentation: input, interaction
– Practice: from grammar to
grammaring
– Production: tasks
43
Why ELT in China is ineffective?
Factors accounting for ineffectiveness
 Teaching methods
 Students’ efforts
 Unrealistic goals
– Wen Jin (1998: 156)
The major factor accounting for low
efficiency in ELT is great discrepancy
between English and Chinese which
requires a lot of efforts and time on the part
of the learner.
44
Problem for education in general

Prepare students for future life
– Solid theoretical foundation
– Learn what has been needed in the
society

The theory-practice continuum
Theory
Practice
45
Systematic training to foster abilities
rather than specific skills
 Learning through doing

46

Accelerating natural learning is, after
all, the purpose of formal education.
And helping our students learn faster
than they would on their own way
may well call for explicit teaching
and learning to complement the
implicit learning that they naturally
do (Larsen-Freeman, 2003, p.25).
47
References
Block, D. 2003. The social turn in second language
acquisition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Ellis, R. 2003. Task-based language learning and
teaching. Oxford: Oxford University.
Larsen-Freeman, D. 2003. Teaching language: From
grammar to grammaring. Boston: Heninle.
Sampson, G. P. (1985). Exporting language teaching
methods from Canada to China. Foreign Languages
Teaching and Research 61: 44-51.
Savignon, S. J. 2002. Communicative competence:
Theory and classroom practice. Boston: The McGrawHill Companies, Inc.
Skehan, P. 1998. A cognitive approach to language
learning. Oxford: Oxford University.
48
Yue, S. G. 2002. Task-based language
teaching approach: An Introduction,
rationale and application. Language
Teaching and Research, 5: 364-367.
49