Final Assignment
Purpose
The purpose of today’s class is to practice critically reading a journal article. When we write academic papers, we need to summarize and evaluate previous research.
Details
- Read Legislation by Hypothesis the Case for Task-based Instruction by Michael Swan
- Summarize the main points for each section (Tamotsu Sensei and Mr. Shimane can decide who will summarize which section)
- Write a few paragraphs about which arguments of Swan’s you agree with and which areas you do not agree with. Use your knowledge of TBLT and English education to make your point!
Summary
Legislation by Hypothesis the Case for Task-based Instruction
Definition and focus
- It examines a number of claims about TBI
1.2 Characteristics of TBI
- Instructed language learning should be based on activities focusing on meaning
- Learner-centredness
- Intervention is necessary to foster acquisition
- Communicative tasks are appropriate
- Traditional approaches are ineffective
Rationale (hypotheses from which TBI is based)
- Online hypothesis
- Noticing hypothesis
- Teachability hypothesis
2 THE THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF TBI
2.1 Three hypotheses
2.2 Empirical support
- Empirical support for the claims is sparse.
2.3 Problems with the on-line hypothesis
- Claims for the online hypothesis come from research areas outside of Second Language Acquisition. Research comes from working memory. There is no smoking gun.
- The claim is also undermined because people have learned languages successfully by traditional approaches.
2.4 Problems with the noticing hypothesis
- (1) that all second-language learning requires the conscious noticing of linguistic elements; and (2) that what is noticed is surface features or exemplars ‘at a very low level of abstraction’
2.5 Problems with the teachability hypothesis
- Some structures are acquired later than others. Learners can only learn structures that they are developmentally ready for.
- There is not enough empirical evidence for a definite sequence.
2.6 The acquisition of what?
- TBI studies limit themselves to the acquisition of grammar.
- They ignore vocabulary acquisition.
2.7 Skills
- Language is a skill that needs to be practiced.
2.8 From theory to Pedagogy
TBI retains a powerful bias towards on-line learning at the expense of formal teaching.
3 THE REJECTION OF TRADITIONAL APPROACHES
3.1 The scope and focus of criticism
- The focus of criticism is traditional approaches to language teaching.
3.2 ‘Straw man’ attacks
- The wish to pit ‘good’ new methods against ‘bad’ old methods can lead writers to present a caricature of traditional classroom practice with which currently favoured approaches are contrasted to their advantage.
3.3 ‘Traditional approaches have failed’
There is no evidence that traditional methods have ‘failed’. (Indeed, it is
hard to see what evidence there could be for such a sweeping assertion.)
Countless people seem to have learnt languages over the centuries through the kind of instruction currently condemned in the TBI literature.
4 TBI IN PRACTICE: THE PROBLEM OF NEW LANGUAGE
4.1 The aims of language instruction
- Selection and presentation
- Knowledge base
- Development of recall and deployment
4.2 The naturalistic straitjacket
- For upper level students, TBI is a good methodology because they have language that they can use and improve.
- Progress means also “learning more”
4.3 Where does new language come from?
TBI focuses on methodology rather than what students will learn.
It seems to be commonly taken for granted that structures and lexis will be made available for learning (and presumably learnt) through interaction,task materials, ‘focus on form’, teacher intervention, pre-teaching, or simply the rich input felt to be associated with TBI
4.4 Interaction: learning from each other
it is difficult to see how, in many classrooms, interaction can
reliably promote the acquisition of new material during task performance. Unless the teacher is the interlocutor, task-based interaction may more easily uncover gaps than bridge them.
4.5 Other sources: pre- and post-task work, materials, the teacher
- Valuable new material is often introduced in Willis’s post-task phase, but this is decoupled from the communicative activity which could have consolidated its acquisition.
4.6 How rich is the input
TBI provides less new language