Bygate_framing_tasks_1999

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Task as context for the framing, reframing and

unframing of language1

M. Bygate*University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

Received 20 May 1998; revised 20 September 1998; accepted 8 October 1998

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how tasks can be used systematically as a context

for developing learners' knowledge about language, their skill in using language, and our

ability to teach it. It begins by outlining a role for tasks in language learning, identi®es a

limitation in previous studies of tasks to promote learning, and suggests the need for tasks to

lead learners to integrate ¯uency, accuracy and complexity in communication. It draws on

data from a number of recent studies to illustrate how tasks can aect learners' language

focus and their language processing. The paper concludes by showing how data from learners

working on tasks can provide a basis for developing professional thinking. # 1999 Elsevier

Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Task; Speaking; Skill; Fluency; Accuracy; Complexity; Development; Repetition

1. Introduction

Levi writes that we know things through working with them, through experiences

``marked by love and by hatred, by silent, furious battles, enthusiasm and weariness,

victory and defeat, resulting in more and more re®ned knowledge'' (1988, pp. 76±

77). Learners learn language by working with it on tasks; teachers learn about tasks

by working with them in the classroom, and varying them to see what happens. This

paper presents an approach to improving our understanding of tasks by trying to see

how they work.

SYSTEMSystem 27 (1999) 33±48

0346-251X/99/$Ðsee front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

PII: S 0 3 4 6 - 2 5 1 X ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 4 8 - 7

1 This is a revised version of a plenary paper given to the 32nd International Annual Conference of

IATEFL, Manchester, April 1998.

* Tel.:+44-0113-233-4545; fax: +44-0113-233-4541; e-mail: [email protected]



A pedagogical task essentially sets demands in order to promote learning. On

communication tasks the demands are communication problems which are to be

solved through using language. This can be represented in Fig. 1 (but cf also Nunan,

1989).

The task consists of rubric and input. The term `language features' includes all

aspects of language including discourse and pragmatic features that are used on

the task. `Processing' refers to the ways in which learners attend to the language.

Tasks are not necessarily oralÐFig. 1 is equally relevant for tasks that aim to

develop reading and writing. This paper however concentrates on oral production

tasks.

Fig. 1 makes three important points. Firstly, language and processing cannot exist

separately: one cannot be practised without the other. Language is not language

unless someone processes it; linguistic processing cannot occur without language to

focus on. Secondly, using tasks gives rise to learning, and what is learnt is both

language content and processing capacities. Thirdly, Fig. 1 suggests how tasks can

act as frames for the language to be exercised: rather the way a children's climbing

frame oers opportunities for the exercise of growing muscles, tasks can developlinguistic muscles through the processing of linguistic responses. Seen from this

perspective, encountering new tasks can lead to reframing familiar language in new

contexts, and through reframing, learners can develop knowledge that can be

applied across contexts and frames, knowledge that subsequently seems to be `un-

framed'. Frames then provide support for learning. Patterns can be seen in the way

people try to use the frames: given the similarities between human beings, and the

limitations built into a given task, a small number of ways of doing them are likely

to be very widely followed (e.g. see Bruner et al., 1956 for a similar view of responses

in problem-solving tasks). Hence we can usefully ask `what language work does the

frame typically encourage, for what learning?'This may seem an unnecessary question. However, we cannot take for granted the

relation between task and language without looking at what learners actually do. To

Fig. 1. Task, processes and outcomes.

34 M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48



make this point, the reader might attempt to guess the level of the students, and the

task which is being carried out in the following extract (Bygate, 1988):

Extract 1: A group in the ®nal stages of a task

S11: he was on the corner of yours

S12: yah he was on the corner 'n and a truck was er

S10: was passing

S12: passing the corner

S9: he's been crashed

S12: he's been crushed (S10/9:mhm)

S11: then you are

S10: so yes OK so the bicycle was damaged and the man fall o' fall downÐ

fell down on the ¯oor and (S9:mhm) the other man who was going

towards to help him

S11: mhm

S9: and now we have the manÐthe other manÐ making the phone call and

the ambulance is picking up the man OK

Most experienced teachers guess that this task is intended to practise story-telling

based on the oral sequencing of pictures, and that the group is roughly intermediate;

they are right on the ®rst point, and wrong on the second. Three of the four students

held the Cambridge Certi®cate of Pro®ciency in English, and the fourth was study-

ing for it at the time of the recording. Perhaps the diculty of identifying thelevel of the learners partly re¯ects our limited understanding of the actual demands

of dierent tasks.

While this task is intended to practise story-telling, the learners' talk actually

consists of a joint reconstruction of the story. The transcript produces several

important uses of language, but it seems that if this type of task is to be used,

either it should be for a dierent purpose from generating story-telling (such as to

prepare for a story-telling task, or to practise the language of detectives), or else its

design should be sharpened (so that it centrally requires the students to tell the

story). In other words, as Foster (1998) has pointed out, what happens in

the classroom may not be what the theory predicts should happen. Yet this exampledoes show how a task provides a frame for language use and language development,

and how transcripts can help us assess how far the tasks serve our purposes. Overall

we need to ask: `Is the frame doing a useful job? Is it doing the intended job?' To

answer these questions, we need a view of how particular tasks can develop com-

municative ability.

There have been dierent views of the relationship between communication task

and language development. A widespread justi®cation for their use has been that

they encourage ¯uent and creative use of language resources (e.g. Allwright, 1984;

Brum®t, 1984). However, although such tasks can encourage creativity, people are

not necessarily creative: they may fall back on familiar strategies or familiar lan-guage to express their meanings (Skehan, 1998). Furthermore, tasks will be needed

for things other than creativity. Long (1981, 1985) proposed that the most important

M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48 35



role for tasks is to confront learners with language problems in the act of commu-

nication. This would lead them to identify gaps in their language, and to negotiate

appropriate input from interlocutors, enabling them to ®ll those gaps with relevant

language at the precise moment that it ®lls a communicative need. This he termed

``negotiation of meaning'' (see Foster [1998, pp. 2±4] for a recent account and dis-

cussion of this view). While this use of tasks may have a contribution to make to

learning, there are limitations: VanPatten (1996) argues that input tasks need to be

carefully structured if they are to lead students to pay attention to grammatical

features that are typically the most redundant features of language, and Foster

(1998) reports that her second language learners are not particularly interested in

negotiating for meaning. In any case, the input focus of tasks clearly neglects the

important role they might have in leading learners to integrate what they know into

their productive output. So while creativity and input are important, the relationship

between tasks and learning needs more scrutiny.

The relationship between task and response needs study where learning is the

purpose, and not only in language education. Ericsson and Hastie (1994) comment

on our ignorance about skill acquisition in everyday situations:

When we review everyday activities in leisure and work, we ®nd little evidence

for spontaneous engagement in deliberate practice or other related learning

activities. In leisure activities, such as tennis and golf, individuals spend most of

their time playing, under conditions in which new and dierent situations are

constantly generated. There is no chance to interrupt the game to correct errorsand mistakes, and there might be weeks until another similar situation emerges

naturally. (p. 66) (my italics)

For learners to concentrate on immediate results in constantly changing contexts is

unlikely to be enough to develop a full range of abilities. What could be learnt from

speci®c situations can easily be lost as one new situation is followed by another. In

other words, for learning to take place, contexts should not be continually changed,

but rather held constant.

Similarly, in language teaching, an emphasis on ¯uency and creativity in the con-

text of continually varying tasks may not be enough. In such conditions, tasks mayprovide a poor context for developing language skills. Instead, learners are likely to

achieve ¯uency by ignoring accuracy, or by concentrating on a narrow repertoire of

language. Learning, however, involves extending one's knowledge and skills, and

integrating communicative ¯uency and accuracy. For tasks to help in this, they need

to be used systematically.

Of course, people have long pointed out that both ¯uency and accuracy are

important (e.g. Fries, 1945; Mackey, 1965; Stern, 1983; Brum®t, 1984). But the

importance of integrating them has only surfaced relatively recently (e.g. Ellis, 1994;

Willis, 1996; Seedhouse, 1997; Doughty and Williams, 1998; Skehan, 1998). Further-

more it is only recently that the context has started to be seen as a potentially impor-tant factor in achieving that integration. The question is how tasks can be used so that

the various processes that are crucial to language learning can be integrated into

36 M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48



communicative practice. If systematic eects of tasks cannot be found, then their

pedagogic use would be essentially a `blind' pedagogy, weakening the case for a

task-based approach. In what follows I consider four speci®c questions:

1. Can tasks systematically target the use of dierent features of language?

2. Can dierent tasks systematically aect the way language is processed?

3. Can the implementation of dierent tasks contribute to language development?

4. Is there a use for task data in professional development?

Answering these questions may help to `re®ne' our knowledge about language

learning tasks, and their various contributions to communicative language devel-

opment. In what follows I illustrate the discussion by referring to a series of studies.

2. Tasks and language learning

2.1. Can tasks target dierent features of language?

We have already seen that tasks might not lead to the language or the interaction

that we might expect. But this does not mean that they lack language focus.

Extract 2

S10: OKÐi where which continent is that country

S12: s south americaS11: Ðehm south america is it ehÐa the north part of south america or at the

south part of south america south america

S12: it's in the ahmÐmiddle yes in the middle

S11: the centre

S12: the centre

S9: so perhaps ermÐis it a big oneÐor is it ermÐis it bigger than our country

S12: no it's shor'er

S9: it's shorter

S10: er is it next to the ocean, or paci®c ocean or atlantic oceanÐwhich ocean is it

next toÐor it doesn'tÐit's not next to the to any oceanS12: no it's not

Extract 2 is typical of the language produced by students at most levels of pro-

®ciency on a 20-questions game (Bygate, 1988). The task practises verb±subject

inversion. However, other patterns may be as important as verb±subject inversion:

for instance, speakers get several turns; turns are short; the focus of each turn is on

vocabulary items, especially semantically related items (here, geographical vocabu-

lary); prepositional phrases tend to be used; and because the task is jointly con-

structed, learners often re-use each others' vocabulary. Hence we could describe this

as a vocabulary ¯uency task focusing on lexical sets; change the topic, and wechange the lexical sets. Furthermore, the group can become involved in passing

lexical items around, like coins in the market place.

M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48 37



The language focus in Extract 2 contrasts with that of narrative tasks. In the Leeds±

Budapest project, we have been studying oral and written performance on oral narra-

tive and discussion tasks in secondary school classes in Budapest. One issue concerns

the dierences in the oral language used on the two tasks (Bygate, 19982); both tasks

involved pairwork. In the narrative tasks students told each other a story from a pic-

ture. The discussion task involved prioritising from a range of choices and agreeing on

the top three choices. We compared a number of aspects of the pupils' talk (Table 1).

There were no dierences in the amount of language generated by the two tasks.

However, there were signi®cant dierences in the incidence of language features.

Firstly, t-unitsÐindependent clauses, whether simple or complexÐwere signi®cantlylonger on the narrative task. Secondly we looked at verb argumentsÐclause elements

such as subjects, adverbials, direct objects, indirect objects, BE complements and

prepositional complementsÐaround the verbs. A speaker producing SVO, SV, SVC,

SVAdv clauses produces clauses with just one or two verb arguments. SVOdOi,

SVOAdv, SVAdvAdv clauses use three verb arguments. In our comparison the nar-

ratives systematically generated more verb arguments than the discussion tasks.

This was con®rmed on comparing the numbers of types of words used on the

tasks. Signi®cantly more nouns were used on the narrative task. This makes sense if

on narratives the students produced more verb arguments. Meanwhile the discus-

sion task involved more verbs. Also, although there was no dierence in the amountof subordination, given the higher number of `I think' expressions, we suspect that

there may be more nominalisations in the discussion task and more relative clauses

in the narrative task. Others (e.g. Brown and Yule, 1983; Tarone, 1987; Yule, 1997)

point out that narratives also encourage attention to grammatical features that help

cohesion, although we did not look at this. Hence, we are able to show the dierent

patterns of language that narratives and discussions seem to produce. The patterns

which emerge following comparison of a 20-questions task, a narrative task, and a

discussion task, are shown in Table 2.

So dierent tasks seem to activate dierent linguistic muscles; some tasks may be

more lexical, others more syntactic; some may be more verby, others perhaps more

Table 1

Summary of occurrence of features across two tasks

Narrative task Discussion task n a

Words per t-unit + 67

Verb arguments + 15Verb groupsb + 15

`I think' + 15

Noun tokensb + 15

a Sample size was reduced for the more detailed analyses.b Counted as a proportion of the total number of words (+, signi®cantly more than on other task,

p ` 0X01).

2 Project funded jointly by the British Council and the Hungarian Ministry of Education.

38 M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48



nouny; or using a dierent metaphor, it may be a bit like dietary balance. Feed

people with narrative tasks and they will crunch up some aspects of language in one

way, sharpening certain linguistic teeth, i.e. cognitively mapping certain types of

language against certain types of communicative demand. Feed them dierent tasks,

and dierent linguistic teeth might develop. More research is needed on this, but

there is credible evidence of distinct patterns of language on dierent task types.

2.2. Can dierent tasks systematically aect the way language is processed?

We have seen that tasks can aect the language content, but also that language

cannot be present without processing. The next question, then, is whether tasks can

also aect how learners process the language.

When we produce language we use processing capacity in two main ways: to

manage the content (sorting out what to do); and to execute plans by connectingmeanings to forms (doing it) (Levelt, 1978; Bialystok, 1990). These are probably two

fundamental and inseparable elements in most human activities. Shifting the bulk of

attention to the content generally slows down production; whereas, prioritising

speed of production generally limits attention available for the selection and hand-

ling of content. Tasks provide an opportunity to attend to both, and might in¯uence

the importance of either. In language processing, prioritising content can, to use

Levelt's (1989) terminology, include conceptualisation, i.e. attending to the message

content (checking that all the relevant information content is included, checking that

it is adequately organised), formulation (attending to the ways in which the infor-

mation is expressed), and articulation (checking on the pronunciation, and intona-tion). Prioritising speed of production concerns ¯uency. It is perhaps worth pausing

for a moment to consider content and ¯uency a bit more closely.

Attending to content eectively means attending either to the accuracy of one's

performance, or to its complexity. `Accuracy' refers to two considerations: one is the

extent to which the speaker's message conforms to the information that is to be

conveyed; hence all speakers have to monitor their formulation and articulation to

check that they are keeping to their intentions. A second aspect of accuracy is the

extent to which a speaker's selection of the formal features of the language

(vocabulary, idiomatic phrases, grammatical morphemes, pronunciation patterns)

corresponds to patterns that a representative section of the target population of speakers would ®nd normal, and avoiding what they would ®nd abnormal, for the

meanings being conveyed. This builds largely on Hymes' (1979) account of native

Table 2

Summary of features occurring across three tasks

Task Features

20-questions more lexical sets, fewer clauses, more phrases

Discussion more verbs, and fewer verb arguments; more nominal `that' clauses

Narrative more nouns, more verb arguments, more focus on cohesion; more relative clauses

M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48 39



speaker norms. Language learning is inescapably concerned with the learning of new

norms, and accuracy is the quality of being congruent with those norms.

Complexity is the second aspect of content, and this too can have two senses. One

is the complexity of processing of the information content and of matching content

to adequate formulation. A second aspect of complexity re¯ects the quality of the

structures used in the communication, in terms of the number of words clustered

within structures, and the extent to which structures themselves are clustered to-

gether. In the rest of this paper, accuracy and complexity will refer to the qualities of

formulation, not of conceptualisation.

Processing the content, then, can involve attention to accuracy and a capacity for

complexity. Finally, there is the attention to the processing of the task, which con-

cerns the speaker's capacity for ¯uency. Fluency is the quality of smoothness of

execution of the performance. Accuracy, complexity and ¯uency are assumed to be

intrinsic qualities of performance in all kinds of tasks. To take an analogy: a brick

wall could be built with varying degrees of simplicity/complexity, with varying

degrees of precision in the placing of the bricks, and with varying degrees of speed.

Or in athletics, the action of a hurdler may be more or less intricately structured,

carried out with greater or lesser precision, and implemented more or less evenly and

quickly. We know that complexity can vary in language according to conditions.

Chafe (1982) reports that in written language, where language users have more time

and ¯uency is less of an issue, grammatical structure is commonly (though not

necessarily) more complex (`integrated'). Speech, on the other hand, which is pro-

duced under greater time pressure and with a ¯uency requirement, is typically more`fragmented'. These three qualitiesÐ¯uency, accuracy, complexityÐare always

present to varying degrees in all performances, and all three draw on the capacity of

the performer.

Skehan (1998) points out that there is a tension between them; what he calls a

``trade-o'' eect. Pawley and Syder (1983), for instance, give an a example of an

extract of relatively complex and precise speech, involving longer more sustained

syntactic structures and careful choice of vocabulary, which characteristically was

accompanied by a slower tempo of production with more pausing. Hence, an

increase in attention to one of the qualities can compromise performance on the

other two. Attending to ¯uency or accuracy would narrow the capacity for proces-sing more complex structures. Centrally whether native or non-native speakers, it is

dicult to distribute attention equally between ¯uency, accuracy and complexity: so

tasks or individual preference may aect our use of attention.

Skehan (1998) in fact proposes that the dierent focuses of attention carry dier-

ent implications for learning. Hence, a pre-occupation with accuracy is likely to lead

learners to produce slower and perhaps less complex speech, so as to select language

that they are con®dent of. A focus on complexity would lead learners to explore new

combinations of language features, with the risk of making mistakes, while a will-

ingness to focus on ¯uency would lead to less attention to accuracy or complexity.

Presumably, attention to all three can contribute to learning. Skehan and Foster(1997) found that speakers' performance varied in terms of whether they focused on

¯uency, accuracy or complexity. Better performance on one aspect seemed to imply

40 M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48



more limited performance on the other two. They also found that dierences in

focus arise from dierent individual priorities, and may be encouraged by dierent

tasks: more structured tasks encouraged an emphasis on accuracy and ¯uency; less

structured tasks encouraged an emphasis on complexity.

While this account requires far more research before it can be properly

evaluated or extensively applied, initial ®ndings suggest that it corresponds to

facts about second language processing and the in¯uence of tasks on learner

talk. From this there are some interesting implications in terms of learning and

teaching:

1. learners may dier characteristically in their preferred direction of attention;

2. tasks may be used to emphasise one aspect of processing or another;

3. language pro®ciency involves the integrated use of accuracy, complexity and

¯uency of language processing; and4. learning involves the development and integration of all three.

This in turn implies that we need to ®nd ways to use tasks to lead learners to vary

the type of processing they use, and to integrate their capacity for ¯uent processing

of accurate and complex language. The big challengeÐfor language teaching in

general as much as for task-based teachingÐis how this can be done. This is the

topic of the next section.

2.3. How can the teacher's use of dierent tasks contribute to language development?

Two ways of approaching integration of processing capacities are ®rstly through

task repetition, and secondly through the use of pre- and post-task activities.

2.3.1. Varying focus through task repetition

Task repetition may help develop this process of `integration'. Experience suggests

that we improve our ability to handle communicative situations through repeated

encounters with similar demands (e.g. service encounters, small talk, telephone

conversations, professional encounters). Typically we ®rst focus on the message

content, scanning our memory for appropriate language to cope with the task. This

establishes familiarity with useful message content and language knowledge, andprovides a basis for handling the task. On subsequent occasions this familiarity

gives us the time and awareness to shift attention from message content to the

selection and monitoring of appropriate language. By enabling a shift of attention,

learners may be helped to integrate the competing demands of ¯uency, accuracy and

complexity.

In Extract 3 (Bygate, 1996) consider the performances of a learner on a task

repeated 2 days apart. She was asked to watch a short extract of a video cartoon and

to retell itÐa simple unscripted communication task. There was no warning that the

task would be undertaken or repeated, it was not part of a class, at no point was any

teaching directed towards the task, there was no discussion between learner andsta, and no-one else performed the task, so it could not be discussed with informed

peers.

M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48 41



Extract 3

T1 T2 (2 days later, without warning)

I saw a little ®lm about a cat and a mouse I saw a very nice cartoon about

Tom and Jerry

and the cat would like to eat the mouse and er the cat tried to catch the

mouse

and there was a board the mouse er run up to a cupboard

covered over and overF F F and there were a lotF F F

F F Fwith plate and and bowls F F Fof dishes especially plates

and the mouse put it down and the mouse put up the plates

and taked down

and the cat was afraid that the plates because he had fear that the dish

will get break

are break damaged

and in the end there was er a big a big er I

don't know a big hill with the dishes

and in the end there is a lot and

um very high just like a hill

and then she took the tail of the cat as a towel and after that she used the tail of

the cat as a towel

and she gave her erm she touch her with her feet and she kicked the cat

and all the plates and the bowls break and go

g down

and all the dishes falling down

and all the things was damaged and all the plates are broken

and the landlady took the cat and she picked up the catand go to punish to give punishment to the cat to give her a terrible punishment

The sample shows a striking change in accuracy at time 2 (T2), in terms of vocabu-

lary, idiomaticity, grammatical markers and structure. There were also signs that the

speaker became more ¯uent: at T1 she used a lot of repetition before producing

words and phrases; at T2 she repeated rather to self-correct after producing words

and phrases. That is, at T1, hesitation occurred generally to ®nd formulations; at T2

it occurred more to check formulations. This all suggests a greater capacity for form

on the second occasion.

In a bigger study3

, I compared the performances of learners on two types of task,narrative (based on a video cartoon) and interview. The learners all performed one

version of each task; over 10 weeks, one group of learners then practised narrative

tasks, while the other group practised interview tasks; after the 10 weeks, we studied

three things: the second performance of the tasks that had been performed 10 weeks

earlier; performance of a new version of the type of task they had practised over the

10 weeks and of the task type they had not practised; and overall performance

across the two types of task (Table 3).

Firstly, comparing performance on the new exemplars of the two types of task,

the 10-weeks practice on just one of the task types did not have any signi®cant

3 Study funded initially by the Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Reading (1993±4),

and subsequently by ERSC (1997±8).

42 M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48



eect. In `contrast, the performance of both groups is more ¯uent and more

complex on the repeated tasks than on the new tasks, whether or not they had

practised the task type over the 10 weeks. In other words, speakers were helped

far more by the fact that they had already done precisely the same task 10 weeks

earlier, than by having practised a task type. This strongly con®rms the ®ndings

of the earlier study regarding the eects of task repetition. Furthermore, results

also showed an interaction between speci®c task familiarity and group practice:

students who had exposure to interview tasks did even better on the repeated interview

task, while those who had exposure to narrative tasks did better on the repeated nar-

rative task. This was more marked for the interview group, suggesting that the inter-

view format is particularly conducive to encouraging students to build on their

previous working of the material. Disappointingly, however, learners did not show

the transfer of any bene®t from generic task practice to performance on new tasks.The absence of this generic practice eect needs further investigation. Meanwhile, it

does seem that task repetition can be a powerful help for learners to integrate ¯uency,

accuracy and complexity, and that generic practice can have some eect. Hence

developing ways of using task repetition may be worth consideration. Since exact task

repetition is usually unlikely to be the best way of implementing this in classrooms, a

range of ways of repeating tasks in class could be a valuable pedagogic resource (a

procedure explored, albeit somewhat dierently, by Willis (1996)).

2.3.2. Pre- and post-task phases for integrating ¯uency and accuracy

Task repetition is not the only way of aecting task processing. Skehan and Foster(1997), following Ellis, 1987, and Crookes, 1989, found that planning can increase

the ¯uency, complexity and accuracy with which tasks are carried out: detailed

planning giving rise to greater complexity, and undetailed planning giving rise to

greater accuracy. More generally, Willis (1996) argues that pre- and post-task

activities can help learners to develop task performance by altering their focus of

attention via the distinct phases of rehearsal and performance. Altering focus of

attention in this way may help learners to integrate accuracy and ¯uency on tasks.

Similarly, the studies I have been reporting provide evidence that task repetition can

lead speakers to bring together the ¯uency with which they deal with the content and

forms, and the accuracy with which they ®nd and use the words and expressionsthey need. Taken together, the various studies suggest that thoughtful use of tasks in

the classroom can help promote language development.

Table 3

Study of task familiarity and task repetition (10-week interval)

n=32 Narrative group Interview group

Task type practice eect ns ns

Speci®c task repetition eect + +

Task eect + +

+, Eects signi®cant ( p ` 0X05) for measures of ¯uency and complexity, but not for accuracy; ns, not

signi®cant.

M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48 43



2.4. Is there a use for recorded extracts in professional development?

The preceding discussion needs to be validated by other professionals. As a step in

this direction, in this ®nal section I wish to show that task-based performance data

can help professional development.

At Leeds we were contracted by a local secondary school to work with subject

teachers on their strategies for teaching their subjects to speakers of English as an

additional language (EAL). The teachers gave us permission to use the recordings

for professional purposes4. The main problems teachers raised concerned their

pupils' in-class understanding, involvement, and achievement. We adopted a task-

based approach to the issues, considering potential problems around speci®c tasks

that teachers had set the pupils. We taped and transcribed samples of teachers' and

pupils' talk, and then discussed them individually with the teachers. One illustration

is of an art teacher who had asked pupils to paint a picture, and was circulating

around the class, commenting. Here is an extract from her comments (Cameron et

al., unpublished data):

Extract 4: Teacher concluding an extended comment on a year 8 EAL pupil's use of

perspective in a painting task

you've got the informationF F Fthat you want to give me

it's all thereF F Fbut it's just that it's not in the right kind of places

and you need to put it in a placeF F Fto make it meaningfulÐ

and think about what you really see, think about where you're standingÐ because I think that's half the troubleÐ

what you're doing is you're standing up here to look down on that table,

and you're standing here to draw in front of you, and xxx that's lovely is

thatÐ

and you're stood there to draw thatÐ

but we rarely stand in three dierent pla places when we're drawing a

picture

we normally stand in one

and that's what's causing the confusion

you've got to make your decision where you standÐ you want to be standing up there at the xxxxx that's ®neÐ

but one place

Together with the teacher, we discussed a number of potentially problematic

points in relation to the task in question. These included ambiguity about the

teacher's orientation point; diculty in conveying her main message; uncertainty

about whether the pupil was focusing on the issue concerning the teacher; and lack

of the use of strategies to check on the pupil's understanding. This analysis led to the

4 The data and ideas in this section bene®ted from the involvement of Lynne Cameron and Jayne

Moon of the University of Leeds, Mark Robinson, now of the University of York, who helped with

transcription, the anonymous school and the ten school teachers who participated in the project (1995±7).

44 M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48



planning of a subsequent lesson. Due to timetable constraints, this was on a com-

pletely dierent topic: the use of sewing machines.

The lesson was planned as a series of subtasksÐsome individual, some group,

some led by the teacher, some notÐinvolving reading and labelling, observation,

and hands-on operation. Through this sequence, pupils focused on content and

later, increasingly, on formal expression. The lesson was recorded and similarly

analysed. An extract is shown below (Cameron et al., unpublished data):

Extract 5: Extract from closing phase of sewing machine lesson with form 8 pupils

T: right EveF F Ftell me what the hand wheel does

P: hand wheel

T: yes

P: it takes up the needle

T: it takes up the needleF F Fthat's a pretty good explanation well doneF F Fer

M. what is the free arm of the sewing machine F F Fcan you remember

P: xxxxx

T: a-a-aF F Fyou're not called M. SharonF F Fthe free arm

M: Inaudible comment

T: no

P: xxxxxxx

T: you rest your fabric on there thank you very much xxxxxxxxF F Fnow then

what then is aF F FaF F Fwhat's the hinge coverF F Fnumber twenty fourF F Fwhat

does that hideP: miss the bobbin

T: what

P: the bobbin

T: the bobbin put the bobbin in there

(continues for a further 14 turns)

This extract matches names of three parts of the machine to three functions. The rest

of the extract picks out a further three technical terms and two functions. A striking

thing about the transcript is that emerging at a similar stage of the lesson to the

previous extract, the teacher±pupil talk here is far more interactive and morefocused. It seems probable that this change is due to the clarity that everyone has

about the purpose of the task; that clarifying the function of the task resulted in

clarifying the structure of the lesson; and that the clarity of structure of the task

washes back into the teacher±class interaction. Shared task familiarity has provided

the basis for interaction. In other words, being explicit about the purpose of the task

seemed to have been bene®cial for teacher and pupils.

A further and more general point is that studying the transcript provided a useful

perspective for teacher development5. This may well be because studying speci®c

learners' responses on the earlier task brought us perhaps as close to the `heart' of

5 The use of task data for teacher development is discussed more fully in Cameron (1997). and

Cameron et al.

M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48 45



the teaching enterprise as it is possible to getÐthe shared understanding of learner

and teacher: a central point for the teacher to work on. The teachers' talk in the

subsequent class was rooted in her clearer attention to the learners' work on task.

Thinking about the task might, of course, also help the learners themselves by get-

ting them to consider the demands of the task and how they respond to it. Perhaps

also, as teachers we too can bene®t from task repetition.

3. Conclusion

In this paper I have asked whether tasks can enable targeting of language and

processing capacities, and provided some evidence that they can. I have argued that

integrating processing capacities must be important for language development, and

that this can be promoted through the use of task repetition and of pre- and post-

task phases. I have suggested that this may provide recurring frames in which

learners can gradually shift their attention from content to form, integrating their

accuracy, complexity, and ¯uency within speci®c performances. Subsequent refram-

ing of abilities can lead to a point where those abilities can become context-free. I

have proposed that tasks might provide some interesting connections between

teacher±class talk and learner focus. I have also suggested that the notion of fram-

ing, reframing and unframing may apply as much to the work of teachers and other

language professionals as to that of learners. Observing tasks can help us all to get a

better grasp of the tools we are using.6

In 1980 Brum®t called for numerous small-scale studies of innovations, as a way of

building up a qualitatively revealing data-base about the way learning takes place in a

wide range of classrooms. Although data-based studies have become far more

numerous, we are still far from having the evidence which we need to illustrate learn-

ing on dierent types of task, and with dierent types of pre- and post-task activity. A

substantial and accessible data-base is needed for professional development, as well as

for materials writers, curriculum developers, inspectors, testers, teacher trainers

(analogous perhaps to the case studies of trainee doctors, or the way lawyers study

past legal cases), and for learners themselves. It would enable us to relate teaching to

learning more fully and more systematically. Data of the kind I have been discussinghere are intended to make this kind of contribution.

Above all, data is needed to relate theories to the classroom. In a recent paper,

Leung (1993) comments that principles of language teaching are couched at too high

a level of generality to be of use in the classroom. We need to connect principles

more closely to practice to investigate how they work. Instead of relying on meta-

phors to guide language teaching methodology, perhaps a task-based approach can

focus us more closely on real language use and real language learning.

6

A lot more research is possible and I think desirable around these issues. I have not discussed thecrucial issues of task and level of pro®ciency; task and learner perceptions; or the issues of awareness-

raising or new language acquisition through tasks (see Crookes and Gass, 1992; Swain and Lapkin, 1996;

Doughty and Williams, 1998 for discussion of some of these issues).

46 M. Bygate / System 27 (1999) 33±48



Levi (1998) warns us about the dangers of analogies when he considers some

alternatives:

Should the educator take as his model the smithF F F

, or the vintnerF F F

? Is it better

for the mother to imitate the pelican, who plucks out her feathers, stripping

herself, to make the nest for her little ones soft, or the bear, who urges her cubs

to climb to the top of the ®r tree and then abandons them up there, going o

without a backward glance? F F F Beware of analogies: for millennia they cor-

rupted medicine, and it may be their fault that today's pedagogical systems are

so numerous, and after three thousand years of argument we still don't actually

know which is best. (p. 77)

Perhaps a task-based approach can turn our attention away from corrupting ana-

logies to concentrate instead on what actually happens in our classrooms. Of course,

data-based work can never precisely predict what will happen in any classroom. Yet

teaching and learning themselves need to be data-based, and without data-based

studies, the reports and explanations of language learning will only be very

approximately related to the daily classroom data which teachers and learners are

involved with or to the pedagogic procedures that teachers use. Some will say that it

is not possible to avoid the use of metaphor entirely: that we can't interpret real

events without appealing to some form of metaphor, whether in research, or in

classroom pedagogy; maybe not, but a concern for what actually happens is crucial

if our metaphors are to remain in touch with reality.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to David Block and Virginia Samuda for their critical comments.

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