Читать книгу Task-based grammar teaching of English - Susanne Niemeier - Страница 18

It will probably already have become obvious that not all proponents of task-based teaching agree on the role that grammar should play in this approach. Especially researchers with a background in communicative language teaching rather suggest to carry on teaching in the communicative way, i.e., to assume that grammar develops on its own during communicative activities and to therefore neglect an introduction to grammatical phenomena of the target language. As a consequence of this neglect of grammar, learners may develop strategies to complete the task quickly, cutting corners in their language use and form. NUNAN (1998: 97), for example, defines task-based teaching as “an approach to the design of a language course in which the point of departure is not an ordered list of linguistic items, but a collection of tasks”. On the one hand, he seems to contrast task-based teaching with approaches such as the PPP method, where normally the language form serves as the starting point, but on the other hand, he also seems to implicitly promote the view that grammar should not play any major role in task-based teaching.

Other task-based scholars, such as WILLIS, admit that there has to be a certain place for grammar in a task-based lesson, but nevertheless state that communicative meaning needs to be the primary focus of the lesson. Furthermore, the way in which Willis describes her task cycle (cf. the previous sub-chapter) – and especially the language focus at its end – can lead to the assumption that also in her approach grammar is rather seen as a “necessary evil” and although it is tolerated, it is not seen as a key issue. Researchers such as R. ELLIS or ROBINSON allocate a somewhat more important place to grammar but do not see it as playing a key role in a task-based lesson either, and also SAMUDA/BYGATE (2008: 208) state that “contrary to many common assumptions about TBLT – drawing attention to form is neither proscribed nor outlawed”, mainly addressing those researchers who try to avoid grammar topics in task-based lessons.

More importance is given to grammar by ECKERTH, who recommends so-called ‘consciousness-raising tasks’, which he describes as form-focused (hence their name ‘focused tasks’) and which can be used to “direct learners’ attention to specific L2 forms while they are communicating in the L2” (2008a: 92). In contrast to other task types, which rather focus on implicit learning, consciousness-raising tasks are directed at explicit learning. Learners are given the possibility to explore target features in a focused context while completing a task according to the guidelines given by the teacher. The grammar topic builds the focus of the lesson.

R. ELLIS (2003), on the other hand, rather suggests to use unfocused tasks and to only occasionally integrate a focused (or consciousness-raising) task because he believes that it is not possible for a syllabus to consist of only consciousness-raising tasks1. For R. ELLIS, the primary concern of a focused task should still the message content and not the form, as the learners’ attention to form is incidental (cf. 2003: 141). Similar to what this book suggests, he mentions that the learners should not be informed that a specific language form is targeted nor which form this might be. The grammatical construction in question can be targeted either in a productive (i.e., the learners produce the form in question) or in a receptive way (i.e., the learners pay attention to the form in the instructor’s input). According to R. ELLIS, it is “considerably easier to design tasks that focus incidental attention of form receptively than tasks that elicit incidental production of a targeted feature” (2003: 142). The grammar examples in the second part of the book all aim at production, as this is what the learners need to be exposed to do in order to advance their interlanguage. Just noticing a grammatical feature is not enough, it also has to be used in communication in a grammatically, pragmatically and socioculturally adequate way.

LOSCHKY/BLEY-VROMAN (1993) differentiate between three different kinds of what they call ‘structure-based communicative’ task design. The first kind of task design is ‘task-naturalness’, meaning that the target structure may arise naturally when the learners are doing the task. However, different structures could be used alongside the target structure. LOSCHKY/BLEY-VROMAN give the example of a task involving a travel itinerary, where the natural use of the simple present is targeted (“you arrive in London at 5.30 pm”), but where the learners could replace this structure by a will-form or a going-to-form and still produce grammatically correct sentences. The second kind of task design relates to ‘task-utility’, meaning that although a specific form is not strictly necessary for completing the task it is nevertheless ‘useful’. The example that the authors provide relates to prepositions and to the fact that although these are not strictly necessary to describe a picture in detail, they are nevertheless quite useful for this activity. Finally, the third kind of task design relates to ‘task essentialness’ and refers to the fact that learners absolutely have to use the targeted structure in order to complete the task and that therefore the structure is the essence of the task. The authors admit, however, that this may only be achievable in receptive tasks as there is no way to absolutely force the learners to use a specific structure. It has to be added that these two authors suggest that such structure-based communicative tasks are useful for automatizing existing knowledge, i.e., that they are not meant for the introduction of a new grammar phenomenon.

This issue is seen quite differently in the present book, as all of the examples in the second part of the book relate to the introduction of new grammatical constructions, keeping in mind that the purpose of grammar learning is not just learning about grammar but also the practical use of the learners’ grammar knowledge. Although it is true that learners cannot be forced to use a specific structure and that, furthermore, not all learners react in the same way to a task, the likelihood that they will indeed use the structure in question is quite high if the task is designed adequately and the communicative topic has been adequately chosen as well. As mentioned previously, the teacher’s utterances in the pre-task phase should provide clear input enrichment, i.e., contain the targeted construction in a frequent and salient way, and the chosen communicative topic should be a situation in which the chosen construction is used naturally by native speakers. Such input enrichment can be seen as scaffolding and helps the learners to notice the new structure, but does not make them explicitly aware of it. In the same vein, R. ELLIS (2003: 200) argues that “researchers have given theoretical grounds for claiming that if learners are led to use a specific structure through scaffolded help they are acquiring it”.

What this book does not intend to do is to make a grammatical construction the sole topic of a task, a possibility for designing tasks that was proposed by R. ELLIS (cf. 2003: 162ff.). He suggests to give learners examples of correct and incorrect language and to have them discuss these examples. This is supposed to train their noticing skills and their awareness of the use of a specific grammatical phenomenon. Although a discussion about the language examples can certainly also be seen as communication, it is not a naturally arising conversation that could also be used beyond the classroom. It is rather a variety of linguistic analysis and not the communicatively adequate topic-related use of language that the learners are meant to acquire and practice.

With respect to the issue of consciousness-raising tasks, FOTOS differentiates rigidly between two different types, namely communicative consciousness-raising tasks and grammar consciousness-raising tasks, claiming that whereas the communicative consciousness-raising task

… is ungrammatical, but requires either recognition of the target structure or its use in reaching the task solution, the content of the grammar consciousness-raising task is the target structure itself. Second, the grammar consciousness-raising task is not aimed at developing immediate ability to use the target structure but rather attempts to call learners’ attention to grammatical features, raising their consciousness of them, and thereby facilitating subsequent learners’ noticing of the features in communicative input. (FOTOS 1994: 326)

It is somewhat difficult to see why FOTOS’ two types of task should be so rigidly separated from each other, because the grammatical construction in question should already be a subliminal part of the communicative pre-task. Furthermore, contrary to FOTOS’ belief, the grammar part should not start out by making the learners notice the structure in question but they should already have used it while communicating during the task before their explicit attention is raised towards it in the language focus. Additionally, the learners’ noticing should not only be related to the target structure itself but also to its communicative usage. This once again means that the structure should not only appear in what FOTOS calls “subsequent (…) communicative input” but should already have been used – albeit generally without the learners’ awareness – in the communicative input prior to the language focus. FOTOS seems to fall into the traditional trap of separating communication/lexis and grammar and does not seem to realise that they are actually related and inseparable, although of course the learners’ focus of attention can at certain points in the lesson be directed more towards one pole of the grammar-lexis continuum than to the other.

There are not many studies on the effect that consciousness-raising tasks can have on learners, but those few studies that exist provide support for the use of such tasks in L2 classrooms. For example, FOTOS herself (1994) conducted research on the effectivity of grammar tasks. Her results showed that the learners having been instructed with grammar consciousness-raising tasks outperformed those learners who had received traditional teacher-fronted instruction, not only in immediate post-tests but also in delayed post-tests. This indicates that grammar consciousness-raising tasks are a more powerful teaching tool than traditional formal instruction, but, on the other hand, this does not rule out that the results could have been even more convincing if grammar and communication had not been seen as separated issues and if the communicative aspect of the sample lessons had not been neglected to a certain extent.

ECKERTH could also prove the effectivity of using what he calls consciousness-raising tasks2. In one of his studies, he found that

… consciousness-raising tasks succeeded in generating not only the same amount of speech production, meaning negotiation, and output modification as unfocused tasks, but also extensive individual discursive turns and complex collaborative dialogue. (ECKERTH 2008a: 110)

In other words: such tasks lead to more complex L2 utterances than unfocused, or grammar-free, tasks, as in unfocused tasks the learners “tend to rely on semantically-based communication strategies” (ibid.). In another of his studies, ECKERTH (2008b) could even show that not only the targeted linguistic structure was statistically significantly better acquired by the learners but also other grammatical structures that had not even been targeted, due to the process of meaning negotiation during pair work. Therefore, if the use of focused tasks allows the learners to obviously make linguistic and communicative progress, R. ELLIS’ suggestion of rather using unfocused tasks as the norm (see page 38) can no longer be upheld.

As already mentioned in the introduction, this book goes one step further than the task-based varieties presented so far in that it sees grammar as standing side-by-side with the communicative topic of the lesson. Somewhat similar to ECKERTH’s view, one could even go so far as to say that the grammatical topic actually determines the communicative topic of the lesson, as the teacher, when planning the lesson, first of all has to know which grammatical structure s/he wants to introduce and then needs to find an everyday communicative situation in which the structure in question has to be used in the target language. This communicative situation then becomes the basis for creating a task for the learners. Of course, the other way around would work as well – if a teacher wants to introduce a certain communicative situation s/he may, as a second step, think about structures that normally occur in this situation and then decide on one structure that will form the grammatical focus of the lesson. This alternative way of planning a task-based lesson would, however, make grammatical progression somewhat more difficult, as the communicative topic would decide about the grammatical structure and grammar would again be seen rather as a by-product.

Summing up, the task-based teaching approach allows to promote grammar acquisition in a communicative setting in various ways. One can either hope for the learners’ grammar skills to develop during communication, or one can include specific grammar lessons (consciousness-raising tasks) in an otherwise purely communicative way of teaching, or else one can integrate grammar teaching and still focus on communication and on a task outcome. This latter perspective is the one taken by this book and is outlined by a number of examples in its second, more practically oriented part. The grammatical approach of choice is based on cognitive grammar and there are many good reasons for this choice, as is explained in the next chapter.