Designing tasks for the language classroom

Zhu Linghong

Capital Normal University

Objectives

Some key points in the new syllabus Model of TBL Understanding of a task Designing a task

课程目标帮助学生进一步学习英语基础知识，培养听、说、读、写等语言技能，使学生初步形成职场英语的应用能力；激发和培养学生学习英语的兴趣，提高学生学习的自信心，帮助学生掌握学习策略，养成良好的学习习惯，提高自主学习能力；引导学生了解、认识中西方文化差异，培养正确的情感、态度和价值观 。

语言目标

帮助学生进一步学习英语基础知识 培养听、说、读、写等语言技能 使学生初步形成职场英语的应用能力

Common beliefs in LT

Language should be learned as close

as possible to how it is used in real life.

Example

Why don’t you close the door? As a question As a complaint As a suggestion ?

I can’t sleep well.

Suggestions: You should drink a glass of milk in the evening. Have you thought about drinking …? Don’t you think it’s a good idea to drink…? Why don’t you drink…? I suggest that you drink… If I were you, I would drink… You’d better drink…

教学建议

引导学生在完成任务的过程中，体验语言，培养技能，积极实践，提高语言综合应用的能力。

任务型语言教学

任务型语言教学就是让学生在做事情的过程中学习语言和使用语言。在任务型语言教学中， 学生之所以进行对话是因为需要完成某项任务。

Unit Task: Make a survey to compare the three

restaurants near your school.

An American friend will come to your school. You want to invite him/her to eat out. You want to find a restaurant with reasonable price and high food quality. Now you need to make a survey and decide on a restaurant.

Objectives of PPP and TBL

Students learn the difference between countable and uncountable nouns, and when to use a and some with them.

Students choose food and drinks for a birthday party

Procedures of PPP and TBL

Presentation Practice Production

Pre-task Task cycle Language focus

(example)

What is a task?

A task is a piece of work undertaken for o

neself or for others, freely or for some reward.

In other words, by “task” is meant the hu

ndred and one things people do in everyday lif

e, at work, at play, and in between.

( Long )

Examples

cleaning the classroom buying a pair of shoes, filling out a form, borrowing a library book taking a driving test making an airline reservation writing a check finding a street destination

What is a communicative task?

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 focused on mobilizing their grammatical knowledge in order to convey meaning rather than to manipulate form.

(Nunan)

Four components of a task

A purpose A context A process A product

Unit Task: Make a survey to compare the three

restaurants near your school.

An American friend will come to your school. You want to invite him/her to eat out. You want to find a restaurant with reasonable price and high food quality. Now you need to make a survey and decide on a restaurant.

Think and ask. 两人对话，猜猜对方包里有什么。Example:

A: What is in your bag?

B: Guess.

A: Is there a pen in your bag?

B: Yes, there is. / No, there isn’t.

Talk and find.向同伴描述你的卧室，并找出不同。

Kinds of tasks

Real-world tasks Communicative tasks Pedagogic tasks

Factors to consider

Objective Complexity of the task Difficulty level

Unit Task

Make a survey about the hobbies of your group members to set up hobby groups in your class.

Factors to consider

Objective Complexity of the task Difficulty level

Step 1 Write down your information:

Name: __________________

Age: ____________________

Group number: _______________

Likes: _______________________ Dislikes: _____________________

Step 2

Find out the information of your group members.

Names Age Group No. Likes Dislikes

Step 3

Share your group information with other groups in the form of a report and / or a chart.

Sample report

We are Group _______.

There are ____ people in our group. _______( how many ) people like ____________. ____________ people like ________________. _______________ people don’t like _____________. ____________ people don’t like ______________.

Factors to consider

Objective Complexity of the task Difficulty level

Talk and decide. 讨论并确定 Ben 在哪天购物最划算 .

Ben’s Shopping list

Item Number

Fish 1

Salad 2 packs

Pear 1.5kg

Sugar 8 boxes

Item Quantity( 数量 )

Original price

( 原价 )

Present price

( 现价 )

When on sale

How much

cheaper?

Fish 1 ￥ 8.90 Sala

d2 packs ￥ 5.99  

Pears

1.5 kg ￥ 3.60

Sugar

8 boxes ￥ 12.00

Ben wants to buy_____ _____ . It’s ___ yuan. But it is on sale on ___ . It’s __ yuan now. So It is ______ yuan cheaper in all.

￥ 8.70

￥ 7.99

￥ 3.40

￥ 12.50

Friday

Sunday

Tuesday

Saturday

￥ 0.20

￥ 4

￥ 0.30

￥ 4

￥ 12.008 boxesSugar

￥ 3.601.5 kgPears

 ￥ 5.992 packsSalad

￥ 8.90 1Fish

How much cheaper?（ in all)

When on sale

Present price

( 现价 )

Original price

( 原价 )

Quantity( 数量 )

Item

￥ 8.70

￥ 7.99

￥ 3.40

￥ 12.50

Friday

Sunday

Tuesday

Saturday

￥ 0.20

￥ 4

￥ 0.30

￥ 4

精打细算奖

Can you tell Ben on which day

he can buy the four items with the least money?

SaturdaSaturdayy

SundaySunday

Thank you !

Example

Unit task: Organize a Used Book Sale.

Your class is going to hold a used book sale. Work in groups of four and get the information of the books you want to sell and make a poster.

Talk and decide. 讨论并确定 Ben 在哪天购物最划算 .

Ben’s Shopping list

Item Number

Fish 1

Salad 2 packs

Pear 1.5kg

Sugar 8 boxes