Tamostu and His Small Tasks

Flow of Tamo-san’s research

(現状 on） I Interaction and assessment at Iwate Schools → II Proposal → Research questions →　III Validation （検証, answering the research questions）→ Further Development

Part I Tentative Findings of Interaction and Assessment in Iwate

• Teachers in Morioka do practice tasks: 変換タスク、短答タスク、making skits, speech, only 2 out of 20 did opinion exchange tasks
• For interaction, teachers do small talk and performance assessment of projects
• Student scores were low on the national achievement test

Part II Proposal

• Regularly do small tasks with interaction for various lesson types in the textbook: basic dialog (enhance try?), reading (share opinions), speaking, writing
  • Try first(?): TPPT
  • Small task → Lesson → Small task
  • Idea:
    • Make Pairs
    • Person A: You call Tamotsu’s house. You want to speak to Tamotsu.
    • Person B: You are Tamotsu’s father. Tamotsu is not home.
    • Please begin.
• TSLT: One big task at the ending of each program
• Variables
  • Timing within lesson (First, last?)
  • Timing within the curriculum (Every lesson?, ending of program?)
  • Textbook lesson type (Reading, basic dialogue, writing, speaking, project, etc.)
  • Task type: Role play, information gap, picture description
    • Pedagogic vs. Real-world task
  • Four points:
    • 1.Focus is on meaning. 意味（意味する事柄を伝えること）に主な焦点が置かれている2.Some kind of gap exists. (タスクは、何らかの「ギャップ」が存在する。)3.The participant chooses the linguistic resources to use.(タスクを行うのに必要な言語手段を参加者が選ぶ。)
      4. The outcome of the task is clear. (タスクの成果が明確に設定されている。)

Part III Validation

• Periodic assessment of students = validation
• Questionnaires to learners
• Note: We discussed Flipgrid.

Part IV Schedule

Meet with James on 10/16 and 11/6, 13:00.