Task-based language learning and teaching: An action-research study

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published online 19 August 2014Language Teaching ResearchMegan Calvert and Younghee Sheen

Task-based language learning and teaching: An action-research study

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LANGUAGETEACHINGRESEARCH

Task-based language learning and teaching: An action-research study

Megan CalvertMontgomery College, Silver Spring, MD, USA

Younghee SheenAmerican University, Washington, DC, USA

AbstractThe creation, implementation, and evaluation of language learning tasks remain a challenge for many teachers, especially those with limited experience with using tasks in their teaching. This action-research study reports on one teacher’s experience of developing, implementing, critically reflecting on, and modifying a language learning task to better address the needs of her students in an adult refugee English program. Task evaluation involved a response-based comparison of student success in task completion and qualitative student-based results. The results noticeably improved after the task modification and the successful implementation of the modified task led to changes in how the teacher viewed task-based teaching. The study serves as an example of how teachers can create their own tasks and of the importance of evaluating them empirically. The article concludes with the importance of action research as a means by which language teachers can address problems that arise in task-based instruction.

KeywordsAction research, communicative task, task-based language teaching (TBLT), task evaluation

I Introduction

The growing prominence of tasks and the role they play in facilitating second language learning has been noted in recent task-based language teaching (TBLT) studies (Ellis, 2003; Foster, 2009; Samuda and Bygate, 2008; Van den Branden, Bygate and Norris,

Corresponding author:Megan Calvert, Montgomery College, 930 King Street, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA.Email: [email protected]

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2 Language Teaching Research

2009; Willis and Willis, 2007). The consensus based on the growing empirical literature is that tasks have positive effects on second language (L2) learning, but less is known about the utility of such tasks by teachers in actual L2 classrooms. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to explore the ways in which TBLT research can be converted into class-room practice by adopting an action research framework.

Action research, first established in the 1940s by Kurt Lewin, involves staging research activities as the following: (1) identify a problem or question; (2) carry out an action; (3) observe and reflect on the outcome; and (4) plan another action (Lewin, 1946). The goal of action research for language teachers is to improve their peda-gogical practices by deepening their understanding of students’ learning processes, experimenting with a variety of methodological options, and critically examining and reflecting on their lessons and activities with a view to taking initiatives. Ultimately, action research empowers teachers by giving them a voice to be heard about their classrooms as well as allowing their perspectives to be documented in the field. This approach, which is used here, serves as a productive way of facilitating collaboration among teachers themselves as well as with classroom researchers (Sowa, 2009; Wyatt, 2011).

II The problem examined

Despite the increasingly well-documented theoretical and pedagogical value of tasks, the use of language learning tasks remains a challenge for many teachers because the reali-ties of using tasks in the classroom are not always straightforward. Textbook-provided activities do not always meet the criteria of a task, and tasks that are readily available may not be appropriate to meet learners’ goals and needs. Teachers may design their own tasks, but this poses several challenges in itself; chiefly:

How can a teacher who is inexperienced with tasks create ones that collectively engage learners, appropriately align to their level, and effectively meet shared learning goals?

The issue of setting a task at an appropriate level is a fundamental concern and can largely determine the efficacy of a task. In fact, a practical challenge facing teachers, especially those who are inexperienced, is students’ perception of tasks as excessively difficult (Skehan and Foster, 2001; Van den Branden, 2006). Essential for the success of task-based instruction is the ability of teachers to design and implement language learn-ing tasks at an appropriate level of difficulty so that students can engage with and learn effectively from the materials provided.

This action-research project, namely the experiences of a teacher (the author) explor-ing tasks, will be discussed. The teacher had no direct instruction in TBLT or the use of tasks in her teaching. Nevertheless, she designed a task in an English for Occupational Purposes course (a course entitled ‘English for hotel and food service workers’), which targeted recent refugees and asylees looking to work in the hospitality and restaurant industries. Classes met for three hours twice a week over a period of 10 weeks. Since none of the learners had prior experience in the food service or hospitality industries, course topics covered workplace routines and etiquette, food safety, housekeeping duties,



Calvert and Sheen 3

paychecks and schedules, using the telephone, locating job sources, and meeting job interview expectations.

Thirteen students between the ages of 25 and 56 years old enrolled in the course. Seven of these students were Nepali Bhutanese, three were Ethiopian, one was Eritrean, and two were Iranian. In terms of English language proficiency, educational background, and time spent in the USA, there were notable discrepancies among these learners. At one extreme were students with secondary and post-secondary education from their home countries with an intermediate level of English. At the opposite end in terms of educational experience and English level was a Nepali couple who were pre-literate in their own language, had had no previous formal classroom education, and exhibited extremely limited English skills even after several months of full-time instruction. The majority of students could be classified as high beginners, and most had some literacy issues as well. Even for learners with relatively strong educational backgrounds, none had a first language that was typically written in the Latin alphabet, meaning that decod-ing letters was problematic. All were enrolled simultaneously in basic English skills courses.

Given the pedagogical challenges described above, if the teacher wished to incorpo-rate tasks into her teaching effectively, she would have to deal with the ecological reali-ties of literacy issues, a multilevel group, and limited educational, occupational, and cultural experience, as well as the typical linguistic horizons that accompany lower level classes. In the following section, examples of how teachers can overcome such chal-lenges by engaging in critical systematic examination and reflection of a task are provided.

III Addressing the problem: Teacher task evaluation as a solution

To address these concerns, the teacher decided to experiment with the development and evaluation of a task. An increasing number of studies evaluating the effective-ness of tasks and TBLT programs involve teachers in the development of tasks (Andon and Eckerth, 2009; Carless, 2004; Ilin, Inozu and Yumru, 2007; McDonough and Chaikitmongkol, 2007; Tavakoli, 2009). This step is deeply important if, as noted by Edwards and Willis (2005), tasks are expected to be widely used and accepted in the classroom. More crucially, opportunities for teachers to revise task materials may explain the relative success of one program over another (Ellis, 2003). Furthermore, retrospective evaluation can help teachers determine whether the mate-rials can be used again, which activities work or not, and how the materials can be modified so as to increase task effectiveness in future lessons (Ellis, 1997). With this background in mind, the question becomes: How would a classroom teacher design and evaluate a task?

1 Task design choices

As defined by Ellis (2009), a task should meet the following four criteria: (1) primary focus on meaning; (2) some kind of gap observed; (3) reliance of learners in their own




linguistic resources to complete the activity; and (4) the specification of a non-linguistic outcome. With these criteria in mind, a housekeeping task was created that requires learners to understand the meaning of the input given, overcome a gap through language they are free to choose, and achieve the outcome (a completed checklist). The task has the following pedagogical goals:

1. Increase learners’ familiarity with housekeeping duties, since housekeeping is one of the main jobs they are likely to obtain through the course

2. Familiarize learners with the use of checklists in the general workplace; and3. Develop learners’ ability to describe finished and unfinished duties.

For this task activity, students are paired and told that they are two housekeepers sharing the cleaning duties for a single room. They must discuss the status of each duty on the checklist. Some duties are completed (checked) and others or not (blank). Students must compare checklists, find the four unfinished tasks, and then decide how the remaining tasks will be completed. While not entirely authentic in terms of its language (modified to meet learners’ level) or work situation (many housekeepers do in fact work alone), the task does employ a plausible situation, create a genuine information gap, and require real-world language use to complete.

In designing this housekeeping task, four psycholinguistic parameters (see Pica, Kanagy and Falodun, 2009) are used. The first parameter is ‘interactant relationships’, which can be either one-way or two-way with information traveling either unidirection-ally or bidirectionally between participants. The second category specifies whether this exchange is ‘optional’ or ‘required’. Third, ‘goal orientation’ may be either convergent or divergent, meaning that task participants may be asked to agree or disagree. Lastly, outcome options may be either ‘closed’ (fitting within a pre-determined correct outcome) or ‘open’ (permitting several possible outcomes).

In all, the housekeeping task is classified as a two-way, convergent, information-gap activity with a closed outcome. It is two-way because the information is split, thus creating a genuine gap in information that must be filled in by genuine and meaningful communication; it is convergent because they must bring the information together to arrive at a solution; and it has a closed outcome in the sense that there is only one cor-rect set of duties that has not been performed in each room and thus students must discern that precise set of duties. Having a closed outcome is beneficial for a multilevel class because it helps the teacher and students verify whether or not the task has been done correctly.

One other design element worth mentioning is that the task is composed of two layers; first, the students must decide which duties have or have not been completed and, sec-ond, there must be a phase of negotiation between the participants to decide who will perform the remaining duties. While the latter requirement might make the task as a whole more difficult to understand for all participants and less easily accomplished for the lower level students, it addresses the needs of a multilevel class by adding a level of complexity and authenticity that will theoretically make the task more engaging for the higher level students.



Calvert and Sheen 5

2 Task evaluation choices

Ellis (1997, 2003) provides a framework for evaluating a task with the following three options: (1) student-based, which measures the degree to which students found the task useful and/or enjoyable; (2) response-based, which compares predicted task outcomes to the actual ones; and (3) learning-based evaluations, which attempt to measure the degree to which learning took place as a result of the task. The current article uses (1) and (2).

Student-based evaluation is a common format typically conducted using a question-naire to gauge students’ perception of a task, but is limited in that students’ positive or negative responses to tasks do not provide direct evidence for successful or unsuccessful learning. Nevertheless, it is valuable from an effectiveness standpoint to gauge the stu-dents’ interest in and perceptions about the task.

Response-based evaluation, on the other hand, is conducted by analysing the oral and written products of a task rather than student perceptions. The aim of this analysis is to examine whether the task achieved what it was intended to achieve. If the actual oral and/or written outcomes of a task match the predicted outcomes, the task is considered to have ideal high internal validity. The main purpose of student-based and response-based evaluations, however, is not to determine whether a task promoted language learning per se, but to deter-mine whether a task was enjoyable, useful and meaningful, which in turn influences teach-ing effectiveness. Arguably, it is these two types of evaluations that would be most practical and thus approachable to teachers who wish to explore the effectiveness of their own tasks.

3 Task-based language learning and teaching: Task 1

The original task was implemented to fit into the second day of a four-day unit on house-keeping. The previous day, students discussed the duties of a housekeeper and learned the names of different housekeeping supplies. Prior to entering the task cycle described below, the students also completed a picture matching activity to learn the words for things in a hotel room and participated in a ‘labeling race’ in which two teams had to tape words to items found in the building such as sink, toilet, bed, carpet, and wastebasket. The task cycle in the lesson plan for that day – broken into pre-task, main task and post-task sections – was as follows:

a Pre-task phase

•• Students are asked to look at the picture from the matching activity and imagine that they are housekeepers. What will they need to do to make up the room? Students generate a possible checklist for housekeepers as a group on the board.

•• Students are given the checklists that they will use for the task and are asked to read over them. Students then discuss the checklist as a group: What items on our class’s checklist are the same as the ones here? What items are not the same?

•• The teacher groups the students into pairs, separating students who share a first language, and explains the task.

•• The teacher models the task by performing it with her assistant. Students listen and observe how the task is done.




b Main task phase

•• Each student has a blank checklist with a ‘to do’ list at the bottom and each pair has a two-sided card on a small stand showing what each has and has not done (see Appendix 1).

•• Students check the tasks that have already been completed on their own lists, cir-cle the ones that have not, and decide which of the remaining tasks they should write on each of their ‘to do’ lists.

c Post-task phase

•• To check if students have obtained the correct answers, the students stand up and act out the duties they must perform (each student should theoretically have exactly two), while students guess which duty they are performing.

•• If necessary and/or if time allows, the cards can be redistributed, new handouts can be given, and the task can be repeated with teacher feedback.

In the actual implementation of this lesson, the lesson was followed accordingly with the exception of the post-task phase, which was omitted in its entirety due to time constraints and a perceived lack of success with the task. The total time given for task performance was approximately 32 minutes, as measured by an audio recording of this portion of the lesson. At the end, the handouts were collected from students for analysis, and evalua-tions were distributed to be filled out at home and collected in the following lesson.

4 Evaluation of Task 1

The outcomes of Task 1 were tallied from the handouts collected immediately following the task cycle, compiled, and then analysed in comparison to the intended closed out-comes. The results are summarized in Table 1 below. All student names are pseudonyms.

The success of the task outcomes was measured in two ways. First, were the stu-dents able to discern the four unfinished duties correctly given the information they had? Second, were the students able to correctly divide the unfinished duties between them without overlap? Table 1 shows that only one pair of students were able to com-plete the task accurately (i.e. determining the correct number and nature of unfinished duties and by dividing them). Discussion with the classroom assistant, an intern from a local high school who was present that day, revealed later that there was potentially some interference with the data for this exceptional pair. She describes her assistance to them by saying, ‘I explained it … twice, and you explained it … three times … I sat down with them and basically said, “This is what you would do and this is what you would do”.’ The data, however, remain in the analysis since it is impossible to deter-mine precisely whether or not the nature of her assistance could be considered as pro-viding the correct answers, or merely explaining and scaffolding, something which is a rather subtle distinction.

It should also be noted that, for similar reasons, data from the low-literacy pair of students were excluded entirely from this study. Answers were provided to them directly by the assistant and they merely copied the necessary words. For the other pairs of



Calvert and Sheen 7

students, the few responses that matched their targets may also be interpreted as mere chance, since no pair was even able to identify the correct number of responses. In fact, the percentage of total correct responses for these other students did not exceed 25% in any single case. Allowing for the possibility that Pair 4 did in fact successfully complete this task of their own accord, a generous measure of the overall response-based success rate of this task would be 26%.

The questionnaire responses showed that for Task 1, three out of five comments dis-played an overall negative attitude towards the task. Parto, for example, wrote, ‘I feel very hard. This activity must be approved’, by which it can be inferred that she meant ‘improved’. Of the remaining two students who submitted responses, one seemed to blame himself for his dissatisfaction with the task: ‘Becous you are good theacher If she study to me I am understand … Becous It is not hard or very hard when I am hard stadie it is very easy [sic].’ The only somewhat positive response was ‘the [father] is smileing Peace [sic].’ After careful examination of the data, the teacher’s and assistant’s initial conclusions were that the students struggled with the task and felt significant frustration. The difficulty of the task is illustrated in the following interaction between the teacher and her students:

T: … No it’s not finished. Did you clean the bathtub?Gagan: Cleaned the bathtub.T: You did not clean the bathtub. [To other student] Did you clean the

bathtub?Kebedech: Yes.T: No.Kebedech: No no no …T: Kebedech, if there’s a check, you did it …

Table 1. Response-based results of Task 1.

Participant name

Participant level

Responses (numbers correspond to position)

Four duties correctly identified?

Duties divided correctly?

Ratio of correct responses to total given

Gagan (1A) Low intermediate

2, 3, 4, 7, 10 no no 1/5

Kebedech (1B) High beginner 5, 8, 9, 11, 14 no no 1/5Bijay (2A) High beginner 13, 12, 5, 14 no no 1/4Amita (2B) High beginner 4, 6 no no 0/2Parto (3A) High beginner 1, 4, 10 no no 0/3Kalavati (3B) Beginner 9, 12, 2 no no 0/3Asnakech (3C) Intermediate 9 no no 0/1Bhupen (4A) High beginner 12, 14 yes yes 2/2Muluwork (4B) Intermediate 10, 11 yes 2/2 Total 7/27 (26%)




In this interaction, the students’ willingness to engage is apparent, but the teacher and students are both frustrated by the students’ inability to understand. The teacher reverts to explaining a key concept (the function of a check on a checklist) again, realizing that this may be a barrier to effective task completion.

IV Critical examination and teacher reflection: Task 1

By all accounts, Task 1 was far from a success. Students were not able to accomplish the task set before them, reported negative attitudes towards the task, and even exhibited possible emotional barriers that may impede language learning. This latter issue is extremely common for this particular population. One could easily see how a teacher unfamiliar with TBLT, yet making a first foray into task design and implementation, might conclude that tasks are not ultimately appropriate for her students, or even that tasks in general are not an effective means of instruction. A less likely but even more lamentable result might be that a teacher could refuse to modify her teaching and dog-matically insist on the use of such tasks, leaving her students feeling frustrated and push-ing them out of the learning process rather than inviting them into it. In the action research context, reflection and modification become essential, thus leading to more effective solutions.

In the process of reflection, the teacher examined the results, discussed them with more experienced colleagues at her school, and examined relevant materials such as Ellis (2003) and Willis and Willis (2007). An analysis of literature was also conducted into issues of task complexity (Foster, 2009; Pica et al., 2009; Robinson, 2001; Robinson and Gilabert, 2007; Skehan, 2001).

In light of this particular classroom context, the most relevant revelation is a considera-tion of various factors that influence attentional demands on the students. Skehan and Foster (2001) divide these factors into three main areas: (1) code complexity, which refers essentially to the difficulty of the language; (2) cognitive complexity, which relates to the cognitive demands placed on participants to understand and process the task input and to perform task requirements; and (3) communicative stress, which refers to features of how the task is expected to be carried out, such as within a time limit or without one, that make it more or less difficult to complete. The second factor (cognitive complexity) is of par-ticular concern to us and thus features largely in the barriers described in Figure 1. That is to say, the amount of cognitive load in Task 1 made it difficult for the learners to focus on linguistic factors due to their limited attentional capacity.

From this analysis, research and reflection, five general categories of factors that posed barriers to effective task completion were outlined in Figure 1. These include code complexity, cultural and schematic barriers, students’ task familiarity and orientation, the teacher’s role in the task, and cognitive difficulties. Code complexity, i.e. the linguistic difficulty of the task, clearly cannot and should not be eliminated entirely or reduced excessively, or the purpose of the task will be defeated; however, there are certain aspects of the language that posed undue difficulties on the learners. The checklist, for instance, was 14 items, a number which is unnecessarily high for low literacy and beginning learn-ers and which creates a rather untenable amount of vocabulary words to retain. Furthermore, additional practice with the language itself prior to beginning the task



Calvert and Sheen 9

would have prepared students to better understand the vocabulary involved, thereby free-ing their attention to devote to other aspects of the task.

In terms of cultural and schematic difficulties, it became apparent from reflection that students had struggled with the unfamiliar concept of a checklist. This might not be a problem with learners who have strong educational backgrounds. For the limited or interrupted education of these learners as well as their limited literacy, however, we can-not assume a square and a crooked line through it will not automatically be interpreted as ‘finished’. Furthermore, ‘to do’ lists were a concept that were also not likely to be famil-iar for low-literacy learners who, even if they were familiar with goal-setting practices,

Code complexity (Language):

• Checklists were long (14 items each); • Students were not sufficiently comfortable with decoding, pronouncing and interpreting

vocabulary; • Some language was more difficult than necessary.

Cultural/schematic difficulties:

• Purpose of checklist not clearly understood; • Meaning of checks as ‘finished’ not understood ; • ‘To Do’ List not understood; • Desire to share tasks rather than divide them and work separately.

Task familiarity and orientation:

• Activity was regarded as exercise rather than task (some students simply read their lists aloud);

• Lack of familiarity with information gap tasks; • Lack of familiarity with teacher-designed dual-sided cards as learning tool.

Teacher’s role in task:

• Insufficient scaffolding; • Teacher instructions did not clearly explain reason for division of information, role of ‘To

Do’ List, exact number sought in outcome, or how to accomplish task; • Modeling activity lacked effectiveness because students could not see the card or checklists

involved; • Teacher had difficulty verifying the correctness of responses and assisting students since

cards were different for each pair.

Cognitive difficulties:

• Difficulty in transferring information from dual-sided cards to blank handouts, due in part to lack of reading skills;

• Confusion derived from looking at multiple different lists (each pair had four in total); • Difficulty in scanning and properly locating test items because of multiple unnumbered

items; • Inability to see or understand partner’s checklist in order to get a broader sense of the

task.

Figure 1. Perceived barriers to successful task completion.




were not likely to write their goals down and mark them upon completion. Another cul-tural barrier that may have played a role was that learners were not necessarily predis-posed towards assigning individual chores once the uncompleted chores were determined. Rather, they may have wished to simply work together on whatever needed to be done, allowing this process to take place in a more organic fashion.

A lack of task familiarity also appeared to be an issue and was one mentioned in the literature with far more educationally experienced learners in mind as well (see, for example, Ellis, 2003: Chapter 8). Learners in this situation, in which even the teacher had had limited experience with classroom tasks, clearly did not have a mental concept of how this type of classroom activity was meant to progress and conclude. Some learners, more familiar with exercises of this nature, began simply to read the checklists aloud. Of particular concern was the conceptual difficulty posed by the teacher’s use of dual-sided cards because they were intended to ensure that a gap was present (i.e. learners could not look at both sides of the card at the same time), but instead became a major source of confusion.

The teacher’s role in preparing students for the task and guiding them through it is an important one to examine. It was found that pre-task activities were insufficient and inef-fective, leaving students with too little opportunity to learn both the cultural concepts and minimum language required for the task. The modeling activity, while useful in theory, was poorly executed since students were unable to see what the teacher was doing with the assistant and instead only listened to an interaction. This was likely to confuse rather than help them. Moreover, although the teacher designed the checklist in order to ensure a genuine information gap, prevent cheating, and afford opportunities for easy task rep-etition, this design decision made it more difficult for her to quickly assess the accuracy of students’ results because each pair’s checklist was different. Her role in facilitating the task was, therefore, less effective.

The last major barrier to task completion worth considering was cognitive difficulties. One difficulty that was already mentioned was that the number of items on the checklist was unnecessarily long; however, the fact that these items were unnumbered merely con-tributed to the difficulty of coping with this list. Furthermore, we found that for several reasons the design of the task increased the cognitive difficulty and communicative stress that these learners faced rather than moderating it. First, the dual-sided card was unfamil-iar to the students, as mentioned earlier. Second, the students had to read each list twice – once on the card and once on the handout in front of them – and had to deal with multi-ple copies of the checklist (four for each pair). Third, the students’ job of transferring the information from the card to their handouts was a difficult task in and of itself, and one that was not explained to students clearly or even explicitly required of them. This excerpt from Task 1 demonstrates the difficulty in transferring this information, even when the choices were relatively limited, as they were at the heading of the handout.

T: What room number is this? You can put it here.Kebedech: Here? B.T: No, no.Kebedech: Room number B.T: No, look. ‘Checklist for Room Number 409.’ You’re housekeeper B.



Calvert and Sheen 11

This exchange reveals that even determining the codes used by the teacher that were intended to simplify the task (room numbers and ‘A’ and ‘B’ for each partner), merely complicated the task for these overtaxed students. In short, students were not able to assess their own achievement, and felt unsure if they were accomplishing the task cor-rectly or not.

V Action: Modification of the original task

After critically examining and reflecting on the outcomes of Task 1, a number of modi-fications were made to address the difficulties described in Figure 1. The changes are summarized in Figure 2. For example, the additional scaffolding activities were included to (1) familiarize students with the cultural concepts of checklists and checks, (2) increase familiarity with the linguistic items on the checklists, and (3) provide students with more practice and preparation in describing finished and unfinished housekeeping duties as well as the process of negotiating and dividing these duties.

To reduce these barriers, the ‘to do’ list was removed as it posed one more unneces-sary cultural/linguistic element of the task to be understood. The students were also each given handouts that they were allowed to compare side by side if necessary. This essen-tially halved the amount of information that they were required to comprehend in order to understand the task and prevented errors in the process of transference. Although this may have resulted in less spoken language between participants, there are linguistic (reading, negotiating division of labor), cognitive (identifying, interpreting, comparing) and cultural (checklists, teamwork, polite negotiation of and/or volunteering for duties) challenges that learners still cannot circumvent even if the two papers are placed side by side. This modification also gives students greater control over the level of difficulty they are able to manage with the task; the more capable and ambitious students may not look at each other’s checklists in order to complete the task while less advanced students can benefit from having the option of doing so.

Another modification involves the decision to replace the modeling activity as a per-formance of the task between the teacher and her assistant with the use of a whole-class

1. Greater scaffolding was provided through additional checklist-related activities.2. More transparent pre-task modeling was offered through use of board and handouts.3. Double-sided card was removed and information was placed on handouts.4. Students were given permission to look at their partner’s lists.5. ‘To Do’ List was removed; students were instead told to mark their chores by whatever means

they preferred.6. Task input was made uniform amongst pairs to allow better teacher feedback.7. Total housekeeping duties were reduced from 14 to 10 and number of completed duties for

each partner was reduced from 5 to 3.8. Checklist items were numbered for more accurate scanning and referencing.9. More explicit teacher instructions were given, including clear indication of how many

unfinished duties remained.

Figure 2. Modifications of Task 1 made in Task 2.




sample task completion. As described in the task cycle below, the teacher wrote one checklist on the chalkboard in large letters (‘Housekeeper A’s checklist), and guided students through actually doing the ‘finished’ chores before checking them off. She then distributed copies of ‘Housekeeper B’s checklist’ to the students and guided the students through a version of the task extremely similar to the paired information gap. Whereas students were passive listeners in Task 1, unable to connect what they were hearing to the small-sized papers before them, in Task 2 the idea was that they would be able to partici-pate, experiment linguistically, or at the very least better observe the actual process of the task completion in order to better understand it. The advantages of this kind of activity were echoed by Prabhu (1987) amongst others as an important pre-task means of scaf-folding the partner task for learners. Whole-class modeling is, in addition, a means of addressing the lack of task familiarity. Embedding the task in a realistic situation of ‘finished’ and ‘unfinished’ tasks (e.g. having students actually vacuum the floor, etc.) maintains a sense that some real meaning is being communicated and also reduces the likelihood that learners will merely treat the task as an exercise. Furthermore, it gives learners a better understanding of information gap activities as a means of language learning since they are not very likely to have prior experience with these.

1 Implementation of Task 2

The modified version of the original task (Task 2) was implemented two weeks later, with two lessons in between. During those two lessons, additional scaffolding activities were included as follows.

1. Students brainstormed situations for using a checklist at work. This enabled them to better understand their value and purpose.

2. A checklist of only five items was written on the board and explained as the duties that needed to be accomplished for the day. Real cleaning supplies were brought into the classroom and one student was asked to be the ‘manager’. The manager then gave each ‘employee’ one of the instructions from the board one at a time. The students had to respond as they would to a real manager (using repetition, appropriate agreement), perform the actual task, then locate the item and check it off the list. This reinforced the meaning of the checks as ‘finished.’

3. The checklist was then expanded to include 10 items, and a new ‘manager’ was selected from the students to direct the completion of the 5 additional duties. This allowed students the benefits of repetition and gave them additional experience with scanning a larger list of items.

4. All checks were erased and the students were told that it was a new day and the boss had gone to lunch and left them instructions in writing. Students selected cards, read them silently, and performed the duties written there while the rest of the class guessed which duty they had received. The duty performer then checked the finished item off the list. This allowed for additional practice with scanning, reinforcement of meaning of the vocabulary items, practice reading the items, and reinforcement of the concept of checking finished items.




5. All checks were again erased and students were told they had to decide amongst themselves who would do each of the duties. The students’ names were written beside each task as students volunteered or responded to teacher’s and fellow students’ negotiations for these duties. The students were then asked to perform their tasks and check them off the list. This provided scaffolding for negotiation of duties.

6. In a separate lesson, students generated their own checklists for housekeepers in various places in a hotel. This reinforced the meanings and forms of words used to describe housekeeping duties.

The cycle for the modified task (Task 2) was as follows:

a Pre-task•• A checklist identical to the one on the task handout (see Appendix 2) was written

in large visible letters on the board and explained as the checklist that housekeep-ers would need to use. Random items were checked and students were asked to demonstrate their comprehension of the checklist concept briefly by telling which activities were finished and which were not. Positive and negative past tense forms were modeled orally by the teacher.

•• Three students were asked to do three specific tasks then check them off the list in order to create ‘Housekeeper A’s’ checklist. Copies of a checklist with three other pre-checked finished tasks for Housekeeper B were then distributed to students. The info-gap task was then explained and completed using the teacher as one ‘partner’ and the students collectively as the other. This way students were able to see the process of the task from the perspective of both partners, rather than sim-ply trying to observe and understand a process they cannot see.

b Main task•• Students were divided into pairs, attempting to (1) divide language groups for

greater first language (L1) use, except in the case of the one low-literacy student (in which case a shared L1 was seen as potentially beneficial) and (2) match simi-lar language levels to avoid learner frustration.

•• The same task with different input information was distributed to the pairs on hand-outs and learners were asked to locate, circle and divide up the four unfinished tasks.

•• Students reported to the whole class the housekeeping duties that each of them had decided to do.

c Post-task•• Students were asked to fill out evaluations on their opinions of the task. Handouts

and evaluations were collected during the same class period.

2 Evaluation of Task 2

As shown in Table 2, Task 2 produced positive results in that the students were able to determine which chores had and had not been finished in each room. In every pair, even




the group in which there was one significantly low-literacy student, all students were in fact able to locate the unfinished tasks. For the second layer of the task, it appears that only one pair of students (Pair 3) out of six failed to complete this portion of the task accurately. These results suggest that the task was aimed at a more appropriate level for these learners than Task 1, and may even have been easy. Combining the two aspects of the task into 12 total parts, two for each of the six pairs, we can consider the overall response-based success rate of this task to be 91.7%.

In addition to the improved accuracy of responses, the student-based evaluation as measured through the brief questionnaires immediately following the task also demon-strated greater student perceptions of enjoyment and success for Task 2. From the teach-er’s and assistant’s perspectives, this task seemed to go much more smoothly and the mood in the classroom seemed to remain lighter throughout. The students’ own words corroborate these views; all seven questionnaires submitted marked the task as either ‘good’ or ‘very good’ (note: the actual results are not included in this article due to space constraints, but are available upon request). Open-ended comments also demonstrated positive feelings and a subjective sense of learning; one student wrote, ‘I teach some new sentence and new [words] and I become brave for conversation … my class is very good because It isn’t bouring and It is very active and fun! [sic]’ Another wrote, ‘I’m happy For practice on the class … I am soon learning in the class … I think activity was good

Table 2. Response-based results of Task 2.

Participant name

Participant level Responses (numbers correspond to position)

Four duties correctly identified?

Duties divided correctly?

Ratio of correct responses to total given

Gagan (1A)* Low intermediate

6, 9 yes yes 2/2

Asnakech (1B)* Intermediate 2, 5 yes yes 2/2Bina (2A) Beginner 5, 6 yes yes 2/2Bijay (2B)* High beginner 2, 9 yes Yes 2/2Amita (3A)* High beginner 2, 9 yes no 2/2Kalavati (3B)* Beginner 7, 9 yes no 2/2Bhupen (4A)* High beginner 2, 6 yes yes 2/2Ganesh (4B)* True beginner

and low literacy5, 9 yes yes 2/2

Parto (5A)* High beginner 2, 6 yes yes 2/2Kebedech (5B)* High beginner 5, 9 yes yes 2/2Afsaneh (6A) Low

intermediate6, 9 yes yes 2/2

Muluwork (6B)* Intermediate 2, 5 yes yes 2/2 Total 24/24

(100%)

Note. Possible correct responses-same for all pairs: 2, 5, 6, 9; * Indicates student had been present for the original task.




[sic].’ One of the more advanced students marked the task as ‘very good’ and compared it specifically to the first task: ‘[T]he second time experians and the team work is good [sic].’

VI Critical examination and reflection: Comparison of Task 1 and Task 2

The results from the response-based and student-based evaluations show that Task 2 was a more effective and more preferable task than Task 1 because (1) student responses in Task 2 showed at least 66.7 % greater accuracy, (2) the task was completed much more quickly (13 minutes as opposed to 32 minutes), and (3) the students as well as the instruc-tor had much more positive perceptions of the second task than the first. These differences are summarized in Table 3. Using these factors as criteria, the concluding impression is that the modifications and additional activities implemented between Task 1 and Task 2 were effective in making this task more accessible and enjoyable for learners.

While not all modifications can be directly attributed to this positive change, certain modifications showed evidence that the items in Task 2 were more effective. A good example is the modification that removed the double-sided cards and allowed the learn-ers to compare their checklists side by side. At first the teacher was rather reluctant to make the change as she feared it could eliminate the required element in the information gap activity. However, this modification to the original task was possibly the only proce-dural element that made the task comprehensible for some students, as observed in this excerpt from Task 2:

T: Did anyone dust the furniture?Kebedech: Yes.T: Did you dust the furniture?Kebedech: Housekeeper … yes.T: No. Who dusted the furniture? See there’s no check here

[points], and no check here [points]. Nobody dusted the furniture.

Parto and Kebedech: Ohh!

Table 3. Comparison of results for Task 1 and Task 2.

Time for Main Task completion

Response-based evaluation

Student-based evaluation

Task 1 32 minutes 26% accurate responses

3 out of 5 comments were negative; no positive comments

Task 2 13 minutes 91.7% accurate response

7 out of 7 comments were positive

Difference between Task 1 and Task 2

Task 2 was accomplished in 19 minutes less time

Task 2 produced 66.7% more accurate responses

Task 2 received far more positive student responses




It seems that without this ability to visually discern the differences in the checklists, the concepts behind the task may have been inscrutable to these students. While it is likely that a more advanced group of students might find double-sided cards motivating, this original design feature was found to be an inappropriate in this context.

Another modification that the teacher hesitated to make was adding numbers to the checklists because she feared that the students’ focus would shift away from the target vocabulary to the far easier vocabulary of numbers. After the numbers were included in Task 2, these fears were observed to be true in some cases, but not nearly in every cir-cumstance. As proof, learners from three different pairs in the process of completing the modified task (Task 2) are quoted below.

Kebedech: Mop the bathroom floor. No finished. Circle.Asnakech: I work dust the furniture and mop the bathroom.Bijay: I am asking ‘empty the wastebaskets’ and ‘change the sheets’.

The language used may not be grammatically or pragmatically correct, but learners are able to draw from a variety of linguistic resources to convey meaning and get the task done without having to resort to numbers. Furthermore, regardless of whether or not the linguistic forms used were limited to numbers in some cases (arguably still a useful set of lexical items for beginning learners), numbering was seen as essential in reducing the cognitive load that beginning learners face in completing the task. Therefore, this added feature in Task 2 was important in making the challenge manageable.

VII Conclusions

The creation, implementation, and evaluation of these two tasks (Task 1 and Task 2) bore significant benefits for both teachers and classroom researchers, namely providing a greater understanding of learners’ needs and limitations and how best to address those needs. The study also highlighted ways in which teachers can make tasks more accessi-ble and enjoyable for students. Tasks can serve as a means of incorporating enjoyable, beneficial, and communicative activities in the L2 classroom, as Task 2 attests. Task 1, on the other hand, can serve as a caveat to teachers to carefully develop and test their tasks, and to consider all of the possible schematic and cognitive limitations faced by their learners.

The contrast between these two tasks allows broader conclusions to be rendered. First, if a single task does not appear to succeed with learners, teachers should not necessarily conclude that the task is an ineffective means of learning. This is because several changes in the task structure, input, and implementation may be required to better address the specific learner population involved. The process of modification exemplified in this action research and its documented success can also serve as inspiration to teachers who may not otherwise be inclined to create their own tasks or improve upon existing tasks, or who may need examples of what modifications are required.

While the process of creating and evaluating one’s own tasks may be overwhelm-ing, it can also be valuable and rewarding for teachers and learners alike. This action research demonstrates these benefits by reporting how the teacher’s critical




systematic examination and reflection enabled her to modify a task-based pedagogi-cal activity to improve its effectiveness. The teacher’s successful implementation of the modified task also led to positive changes in how she viewed task-based teach-ing. To conclude, this article serves as an example of how teachers can create their own tasks and of the importance of evaluating them empirically. In so doing, it also highlights the importance of action research as a means by which language teachers can address problems that arise in a TBLT lesson and, more generally, develop their reflective skills.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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My ‘To Do’ List

Appendix 1. Student checklist for Task 1.

Checklist for room number _________________Housekeeper ________

Empty the wastebaskets Put dirty sheets in the laundry bag Put dirty towels in the laundry bag Clean the sink Clean the toilet Clean the bathtub Wipe the mirrors Dust the furniture and TV Mop the bathroom floor Vacuum the carpet Put clean towels in the bathroom Make the bed Put a new roll of toilet paper in the bathroom Put a candy and a welcome card on the table




Appendix 2. Simplified student checklist for Task 2.

Checklist for room number _________________Housekeeper ________

1. Empty the wastebaskets 2. Dust the furniture 3. Clean the sink 4. Clean the toilet 5. Mop the bathroom floor 6. Vacuum the carpet 7. Change the towels and washcloths 8. Change the sheets 9. Put a new roll of toilet paper in the bathroom 10. Put a candy and a welcome card on the table



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Task-based language learning and teaching: An action-research study