2.2. Conceptual Framework
2.2.7. Definitions of a Task
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researchers, if these problems are solved, the teaching process will be more effective with more desirable outcomes on teachers’ development and learners’ learning.
From all above, language teachers’ belief is found to have a great impact on teachers’
performance, behavior, professional development, instructional choice and planning. This ensures teachers’ innovation in the classroom provided that the factors influencing their cognition and practices are carefully considered. These factors are identified to include teachers’
personal, professional, historical, cultural and social factors. The result will be, as argued by the above literature, more innovation in the classroom leading to more effective language teaching practices and then better language learning, and this the pinnacle of innovation in the field of L2 teaching and learning.
Finally, as a way to enhance teachers’ professional development and innovation, East (2019), Sun, Wei and Young (2020) and Zheng and Borg (2014) call for teachers’ training on how to do reflective analysis of their own teaching which may include transcribing, commenting on and identifying the factors influencing their own work. For them, providing specialized training will enable teachers to keep up with the latest trends of language teaching. Explaining what kind of training should be provided, Mitchell, Myles and Marsden (2019) ask for teachers’
training on different approaches to language teaching to broaden the range of their instructional choices, allowing them to selectively choose or successfully develop the teaching practices that best suit their students leading to effective language learning.
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insists that there is no complete consensus as to what forms a task, leading to a problem in defining it. Table (1) chronologically exhibits various meanings of a task as defined by the SLA scholars and theoreticians in order to establish a clear-cut definition for the purpose of this study.
Author Definition
Long (1985)
Tasks are the works done by people in everyday life wherever they are, whether freely or for a reward, and this definition is not a pedagogical one.
Examples of tasks encompass taking a hotel reservation, buying new shoes, borrowing a book from a library, typing a letter, translating a paper and teaching a lesson.
Richards, Platt and Weber
(1985)
Tasks are activities or actions immediately performed by someone as a response to guidelines, instructions, etc. Examples of tasks include typing a paper while listening to the speaker and receiving an order while performing a command.
Crookes (1986)
Tasks are works or activities with a specific objective done at workplace, or performed as part of successfully completing an education program or conducted to obtain invaluable data for a research. Examples of tasks include reading a paragraph to understand its content and looking for up-to- date articles to identify the gap in a particular area of research.
Breen (1987)
Tasks are work plans designed with a range of outcomes, appropriate contents, specific objectives and certain working procedures to facilitate language learning, and those work plans are carefully designed from the simple activities to the more complex ones. Examples of tasks encompass developing students’ accuracy and fluency through appropriate instructional materials that consider students’ proficiency and educational levels.
Candlin (1987)
Tasks are sequential, differentiated and problem-solving activities to be performed by learners in a social environment through some communicative and cognitive procedures to achieve the desired goals and objectives.
According to this definition, students may be divided into small groups with different activities that require high mental information processing to achieve certain goals.
Prabhu (1987)
Tasks are activities done by learners through some instructions and other mental processes that help learners achieve an outcome; meanwhile, allow teachers to regulate and take control over the mental process. This definition emphasizes teachers’ role as being guides of students’ learning by providing students with instructions that link the new knowledge to the already existing one to facilitate students’ accommodation and construction of the new knowledge.
Nunan (1989) Tasks are activities taken from real-life situations then converted into pedagogical activities with a specific objective of encouraging students to
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comprehend, produce, manipulate or interact using the target language, but the main aim is to encourage students to produce meaningful rather than accurate language. This definition is the first to focus on language meaning rather than language form as the best way to improve students’ language proficiency level, claiming that language accuracy is automatically acquired through extensive use of communicative activities.
Bachman and Palmer (1996)
Tasks are activities involving students’ use of language with the aim of achieving certain goals and objectives in a given situation. Examples of tasks include asking students to express their opinion and/ or to exchange information.
Willis (1996)
Tasks are activities performed by students using the target language in a communicative environment to achieve an outcome. Again, this definition focuses on learners’ practice of language through teacher-student or student- student interaction as the most effective way to achieve language learning goals, and this can best be achieved by assigning learners to work in pairs or groups under the supervision of their teachers.
Skehan (1998)
Tasks are meaning-focused activities linked to real-life situations with special attention to completing the assigned activities, and these tasks are assessed by the degree to which students’ learning is improved. According to this definition, although the focus is given to language meaning, language accuracy is also developed by frequent exposure to authentic communicative activities.
Lee (2000)
Tasks are classroom activities or exercises with specific objectives obtainable through teacher-student and student-student interaction, and these tasks are governed by a mechanism to ensure sequential and structural interaction. The priority in this definition is given to exchange of meaning to enhance students’ better comprehension, production and/or manipulation of the target language.
Bygate, Skehan and Swain
(2001)
Tasks are activities mainly designed to enable students to practice the target language in a communicative environment with special concentration on language meaning rather than language form to achieve the set objectives.
Ellis (2003)
Tasks are work plans designed to enhance students’ use of the target language to achieve the desired outcome, and these work plans are assessed by the appropriate conveyance of the suggested content. According to this definition, the main focus is given to language meaning and students’
utilization of their linguistic resources, a matter which requires various cognitive processes by students. Moreover, students’ practice of the target language may be intended to enhance students’ oral or written skills.
Nunan (2004)
Tasks are classroom activities assigned with the aim of encouraging students to comprehend, produce, manipulate or interact using the target language, while the attention is directed towards expressing meaning by mobilizing students’ knowledge of structure.
Van den Branden (2006)
Tasks are interactive activities designed to boost students’ use of the target language and to achieve an objective. This definition is quite similar to those
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extended by Bachman and Palmer (1996) and Willis (1996) in that students’
fluency comes first, followed by explicit instruction of some grammatical rules based on students’ use of the intended language to improve their oral production in terms of fluency and accuracy.
Carroll (2009)
Tasks are interactive activities in adequate classrooms with the aim of achieving the intended objectives. This definition focuses on the communicative and international nature of language as being a medium for transferring information and for strengthening social relationships between or among language learners. Tasks, according to this definition, are purely communicative in nature and then can best be employed if students are assigned to work in pairs or groups.
Table 1: Summary of Various Definitions of a Task
A deep look at the above definitions tells that “tasks” are defined from a broad perspective as to what people do in their daily life whether language is used to perform such tasks or not, such as Long’s (1985) definition of a task. More condensed, tasks are seen as work plans designed for pedagogical purpose; that is, to motivate students to engage in meaning-driven language communication (e.g., Breen 1987; Ellis 2003; Lee 2000). Others see tasks as outcome-linked activities and accentuate the significant role of teachers in achieving the intended outcome (e.g., Crookes 1986; Prabhu 1987; Richards, Platt & Weber 1985), while Candlin (1987) views tasks as requiring both interaction and mental process in order for objectives to be achieved. The narrowest perspective sees tasks as activities performed by students using the target language in a communicative environment with a primary focus on meaning to achieve an outcome (e.g., Bachman & Palmar 1996; Bygate, Skehan & Swain 2001; Carroll 2009; Nunan 2004; Van den Branden 2006), and this latter perspective is the one considered by the researcher in his definition of what is meant by a task.
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