System 34 (2006) 615–630

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SYSTEM

Verbal evidence of task related strategies:Child versus adult interactions

Annamaria Pinter *

Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics, Centre for English Language Teacher Education,

University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

Received 10 March 2006; received in revised form 12 September 2006; accepted 25 September 2006

Abstract

Tasks with adult learners have been discussed extensively in the language learning literaturewhilst studies about children using tasks are less widespread. Children’s ability to interact on taskswith each other grows steadily with age. This paper reports on the differences observed in the inter-actions of 10-year-old children and adult learners. The paper explores the task-related strategy use ofboth adults and children who interacted in pairs using a classic Spot the differences task in English ata low level of competence in an EFL setting. The evidence from the data suggests that adults havecontrolled the task in a different way and handled the demands of the task at hand more effectively.Implications are drawn about the specific needs of 10-year-old children in relation to working withreferential tasks and about using observation and recording task performances as an initial tool inclassrooms to explore learner strategy use on tasks.� 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Task; Task-related strategies; Children learning English; Awareness of task demands

1. Introduction

The term ‘task’ has been interpreted and used widely in the literature of second and for-eign language learning (Ellis, 2003; Bygate et al., 2001; Nunan, 2004; Skehan, 2003). Oneof the most well-known definitions proposed by Skehan (1998, p. 85; following Candlin,

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doi:10.1016/j.system.2006.09.005

* Tel.: +44 2476 523843.E-mail address: Annamaria.Pinter@warwick.ac.uk.

616 A. Pinter / System 34 (2006) 615–630

1987; Nunan, 1989; Long, 1989) summarises the main criteria for a language task asfollows:

� In tasks meaning is primary and there is some communication problem to solve.� There is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world activities.� Task completion has priority over other performance outcomes and this is what the

assessment of the task is based on.

One particular type of task within the above category of meaning focussed tasks is theso-called referential task (Yule, 1997) where messages between partners need to be com-municated with great care to avoid ambiguities and misunderstandings. These referentialtasks require that in order to complete the task successfully speakers express their ideasclearly and take the listener’s needs into account. One of the challenges, although notthe only one, of such tasks is the explicit use of referential expressions (Brown, 1995).For example, in the case of a map task that has two book shops indicated on it, speakerswho describe a route will have to point out which book shop they mean, otherwise theinstructions given to listeners about the book shop may remain ambiguous.

In order to manage task performances in language learning contexts students must usevarious strategies. Strategies are defined as specific behaviours or thoughts that learnersselect consciously or semi-consciously with the goal of improving their knowledge andunderstanding in the target language (Cohen, 2003, p. 279). Many strategy classificationshave been proposed and the main types include (1) cognitive, metacognitive, social andaffective strategies; (2) a differentiation between language learning and language userelated strategies and (3) a classification based on the four language skills (Cohen andDornyei, 2002). The majority of strategy studies have explored learners’ self-reportedstrategy use in language learning and use. However, more recently specific task-relatedstrategy use has gained prominence (e.g. Cohen, 2003; Oxford et al., 2004, p. 274). Oxford(2003) argues that in fact there are no universally effective strategies but instead a positivestrategy is one that relates well to the task at hand and one that the student employs effec-tively together with other relevant strategies for doing that task. She talks about strategiesin a flowing sequence or a ‘strategy chain’: a set of strategies that fit together to meet therequirements of the given task (Oxford et al., 2004, p. 5). Macaro (2004, p. 6) also dis-cusses strategy clusters appropriate to tasks and stresses that we should talk about theeffectiveness of clusters rather than individual strategies. When learners carry out tasks,they are likely to use a combination of different strategies. For example, according toOxford’s (1990) classification, on speaking tasks, students might use cognitive strategiessuch as translating between L1 and L2, compensation strategies such as using mimeand gestures or synonyms, metacognitive strategies such as evaluating and monitoringtheir performance, and social strategies such as asking for help or clarification.

2. 10-year-olds’ strategic behaviour and tasks

In SLA research, children’s interactive task performances, in particular in ESL con-texts, have been explored (e.g. Ellis and Heimbach, 1997; Oliver, 1998, 2000, 2002; Mackeyet al., 2003; Mackey and Oliver, 2002; Van den Branden, 1997) in order to understandtheir ability to manage interactional processes that contribute to acquisition, such as giv-ing and utilising feedback, forming questions and above all handling meaning negotiation.

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Generally, the findings from these studies suggest that learner age is an important variableand children manage their interactions somewhat differently from adults. For example,Oliver (1998, 2002) found that there were important differences between children (8–13-year of age) and adults in their proportional use of negotiation strategies, i.e. childrenusing far less comprehension checks than adults. This, according to Oliver, may indicatea developmental effect in that children can focus on their own output more readily than ontheir interlocutor’s.

Although the above studies are beginning to build up a picture about the differencesbetween adults and children in general when it comes to managing interactional processes,it is often the case that quite a wide age range is considered. In addition to accumulatinggeneral information about differences between adults and children, it is also important toexamine possible differences within a wider age range and on specific task types, in thiscase referential tasks. Ten-year-old children are in the middle of the 8–13 range and inter-estingly, there seem to be some mixed research findings about this age group in the refer-ential communication literature. These children in many respects begin to resemble adultpatterns of thinking and talking yet in some ways, they may ‘still share some of the vul-nerabilities of younger children’ (Garbarino and Scott, 1992, p. 65).

Typically, 10–11-year-olds can think in an organised and logical fashion and theirattention is more selective, more adaptable, and more planful than younger children’s.They can focus on the relevant aspects of tasks at hand and can control both internaland external distracting stimuli (Berk, 2000) while attending to a learning task. By theage of ten most children are efficient and flexible strategy users and produce appropriatestrategies on a wide range of cognitive tasks (Miller et al., 1986). Another importantgain they have over younger children is their ability to reflect about their own thinkingand their own language use and to take others’ view and opinions into account. Indeed,research by Lloyd (1990, 1991) shows that adults’ and 10-year-olds’ performances arevery similar when interacting on referential tasks. 10-year-olds were able to provide com-municative support to each other through setting up premises with care and sensitivityto their partners’ needs, through drawing their partners’ attention to information thatwas lacking and through presenting the information to their partners in manageablechunks. However, other research suggests that 10-11-year-old children still show someweaknesses as conversational partners and this may have an effect on their performancein speaking tasks (Halliday, 1975; Clark, 1978; Karmiloff-Smith, 1992; Romaine, 1984).For example, 10-year-olds’ ability to talk coherently and explicitly without the immedi-ate support of the context is still developing. Communicating with someone who has notshared the same experience can still be a demanding task (Brown and Yule, 1983)because it requires abstracting chunks of the experience and determining the amountof background knowledge based on the judgement of what the listeners may or maynot know. Menyuk and Brisk (2005, p. 120) suggest that from 9 to 13 years of age con-versational interaction is still far from being lengthy or fully responsive to what has beensaid previously. Carpenter et al.’s (1995, p. 160), study shows that children may be reluc-tant to contribute to interactions when they were not entirely sure what they are goingto say whereas adult language learners happily begin utterances even if they are not surehow to continue.

Given such mixed research evidence with regard to 10-year-old children’s ability tocommunicate using referential language tasks, this study will specifically contrast theirbehaviour with adults to find possible differences in order to inform both teachers and

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materials designers of children’s EFL courses. Specifically the following research questionsare asked:

1. Are there any differences between 10-year-old children’s and adults’ performances whenthey interact using a referential task?

2. Based on the verbal evidence, what observable task related strategies do children andadults use?

3. The description of the study

3.1. The tasks

A classic information gap task (Spot the differences) specially designed for this studywas used as an elicitation tool (see Appendix for sample pictures for speakers A and B)where two speakers ‘A’ and ‘B’ had to sit facing each other, holding their picture so thatthe other person could not see it. The goal of the task was to locate 6 differences betweenA’s and B’s pictures by talking to each other. All pictures depicted a house with fourrooms (one bathroom, one kitchen, one living room and one bedroom). In order to prac-tise with this task type the subjects were recorded first in their L1 and then 3 times in Eng-lish. Several sets of the same ‘Spot the differences’ were created so that speakers wouldencounter a new house with new differences every time they were recorded. This was donein order to avoid speakers memorising the content of the task but at the same time toensure that task demands were kept constant in the sets.

The ‘Spot the differences’ task is a typical referential communication task (Yule, 1997),which means that there has to be information transfer between the two speakers and thustheir interaction will be characterised by the transactional function (Brown and Yule,1983). The task contains certain ‘referential conflict points’ (Yule and Macdonald, 1990;Yule and Powers, 1994) and accordingly the following types of differences:

� Type 1: in picture A a particular item was present but it was missing in picture B� Type 2: the number of a particular item in picture A was different from B� Type 3: a particular item in picture A was replaced by something else in picture B, or

the same person was doing something different in each picture

Thus, the details of the message (how many items, where exactly, is it instead of some-thing else I have got?) are of paramount importance and both speakers are thereforeexpected to check understanding, negotiate meaning and communicate in a way whichminimises the occurrence of misunderstandings, or if misunderstandings occur, deal withthem effectively.

3.2. The subjects and the procedures

The study was conducted with ten pairs of children in a state primary school in Hun-gary and five pairs of college learners of English also in Hungary. Both groups were atbeginners/post-beginners’ levels of competence in English. The children were in their sec-ond year of English and the adults were all attending a beginner’s course at college once aweek.

Table 1Children and adult speakers: their last English performances

Average figures Words pertask

Turns pertask

Turns that containL1

Differencesfound

Child pairs (last Englishperformance)

126 21 15% 2.8

Adult pairs (last Englishperformance)

170 45 3% 5.5

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The children were learning English in a traditional environment where access to Eng-lish outside classes was limited. At the beginning of the study they were told that thetasks had been designed by the researcher and she wanted to see how well they workedwith real learners of English. The children were reassured that this was not a test of anykind and their performances would remain confidential and would not count towardstheir assessment. The researcher spent a week getting to know the children before intro-ducing the study. A set of pictures was used to introduce the task but no specific instruc-tions or training was given to the children as to how to do the task (how to search, whatlanguage to use or how to monitor performance). They had several opportunities (oncein L1 and three times in L2) to practise with different versions of the Spot the differencestask in the same pairs. When they were invited to record, the children were told to man-age the task by themselves and decide together when they wanted to stop (either becausethey finished or because they did not want to continue for some reason). The recordingswere made on school premises but outside their normal classes. For the purposes of thispaper, I will look at the children’s last English performances which reflected their ‘best’competence after practising with the task through repetition, rather than their more ten-tative attempts at the beginning. After the initial analysis of the child data, further datafrom five pairs of adults in the local college studying a variety of subjects was collectedusing the same task sets. They were given the same instructions as the children. Theypractised with the first set of the task in their L1 and then carried out the task twicein English. Again, their last English performances in English will be discussed and exam-ined in this paper.

4. Differences in task outcomes

The analysis of the task outcomes reveals clear differences (see Table 1). When theytackled the task in their L1, children found four differences on average. When theyattempted the task in L2 (after practising with the task twice) their average scoresdropped to 2.8 differences. In comparison, all adult pairs found all six differences wheninteracting in their L1, and they slipped back only a little in L2, to 5.5. What helped theadults be more consistent?

To a large extent successful location of the differences on this particular task can beenhanced by making use of a cluster of strategies. Because of the types of differencesinvolved, i.e. the intentionally planted referential conflicts, it is important to noticeand clear up ambiguities through careful questioning, checking and monitoring.Another useful strategy is to help keep the information about already located differ-ences in the short term memory by some sort of tally keeping. It is important that thisis done jointly so that both participants are aware how many differences have been

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located. Finally, there seems to be a cognitive strategy that can enhance performanceon this task. When a systematic ‘left to right’ or ‘top to bottom’ strategy for searchingfor differences is followed, misunderstandings and ambiguities are less likely to occurbecause both partners focus on the same part of the visuals and can progress withthe search in a highly predictable way. These strategies are most effective when appliedin combination.

The main differences between the children’s and the adult’s performances were imme-diately obvious in the data. The children used less time and less language than the adultsto complete the task and typically did not keep a verbal tally of the differences theyfound. However, they often used other ways of regulating their memories such as bycounting with their fingers under the table to show the differences. They did not followa ‘top to bottom’ type of search strategy. They had their own approach such as targetinganimals first and people next, or targeting items where they suspected the difference tobe, or simply avoiding those items where they were not sure about the English words.They used one word acknowledgments (yes or no) after each other’s utterances anddid not use much checking. Sometimes they even disagreed about whether the taskwas actually finished. Adults typically produced more language and their interactionslasted longer than children’s. They all used explicit verbal tally keeping and searchedthe pictures systematically from top to bottom and left to right. They also used a greatdeal of checking and monitoring of their interactions and supported each other by fre-quent repetition and co-construction of utterances.

In the next section, I will illustrate these claims through a detailed analysis of the dia-logues that emerged in both the children’s and the adults’ performances.

5. Differences in tally keeping and searching

This below is a typical child interaction where the two partners take turns in a balancedway to offer descriptions, seemingly randomly, targeting different parts of the picture ineach line.

5.1. Example 1: M and Z (children)

Line 1: M: There is a cat on the ground floor.Line 2: Z: Yes, there is a dog on the first floor.Line 3: M: Yes. There is a milk on the second floor.Line 4: Z: Yes. There is a two spider on the first floor.Line 5: M: One. There is a bread on the second floor.Line 6: Z: Yes.

In example 1, above, M starts with describing a cat on the ground floor. Z acknowl-edges that he has got the same by saying ‘yes’ but immediately afterwards he changes thefocus for the search, moves up a floor and says he has got a dog. M agrees and thenmoves the search again to a different floor, this time to the second floor into the kitchenand he points out that there is milk in the kitchen. Then Z moves back to the first floorto talk about the spiders. Z says he has got two spiders and M says he has only one.This is where they find the first difference but there is no verbal acknowledgement ofthe fact that the first difference was located. Most participants kept physical tallies using

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their fingers but this was not shared because their hands were not seen under the table.Immediately after saying one, (line 5) referring to the spider, M goes back again to thesecond floor and talks about the bread on the table. Z agrees. They are interacting con-fidently but they seem to be playing the game as if it was down to chance to find thedifferences.

The following adult interaction is a clear contrast exhibiting a ‘top-down’ search strat-egy and a verbal tally keeping. In addition, when they find items that seem to be the samein both pictures, these speakers double check again by adding extra information about theitem in question.

5.2. Example 2: B and G (adults)

Line 1 G: The first floor it’s a man and he drinks anything anything.Line 2 B: On my picture he read a book.Line 3: G: Yes, different. And in the first floor is a table. And on the table is a lamp.Line 4: B: I don’t see lamp. This is the second.Line 5: G: Second, yes. And on the first floor is the cat on the carpet is a cat.Line 6: B: Yes.Line 7: G: And what do the cat on the picture?Line 8: B: He listen the radio.Line 9: G: Yes, me too. And on the first floor there is a woman.Line 10: B: Yes.Line 11: G: And she on the bed and she sleeps.Line 12: B: Yes.

These two speakers start from the first floor of the house and explore this part of thepicture fully, step by step, before they move on. G starts by saying that he has got aman who is drinking. B responds by stating that his man is doing something else. Thisis a difference and indeed G confirms verbally that this is their first difference. He thencontinues by saying that he has got a table on the same floor. B, again, quite explicitlystates that he cannot see a lamp and therefore this is the second difference. Such explicittally keeping makes it easier to keep the number of differences in their mind. Next, Gmentions the cat on the same floor. B acknowledges this by saying ‘yes’ but just tocheck it is in fact the same, he asks the question: ‘what is the cat doing?’ B says thecat is listening to the radio. G is satisfied that he has got the same and explicitly con-firms this by saying ‘yes, me too’. G then describes the next item: the woman who isalso in this part of the picture. B confirms that he has got the woman but in orderto make sure it is the same, he offers a description of the woman by stating she ison the bed sleeping. B agrees.

6. Differences in checking and sorting out misunderstandings

Given that the task was planted with referential conflicts, it was expected that misun-derstandings and ambiguities would arise. In this section, I look at how children andadults handled these problematic episodes.

In this first example, there are several breakdowns but they are sorted out by the twochildren rather quickly and without carefully checking the details.

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6.1. Example 3: V and S (children)

Line 15 S: One floor ballLine 16 V: Yes. One floor a (++) books.Line 17 S: Mi? (What?)Line 18 V: One floor a booksLine 19 S: Aha! Books. Akkor(Then) two floor spiders.Line 20 V: No.Line 21 S: Nincsenek pokok? (Have not you got spiders?)Line 22 V: Ja, de. (Oh yes). One floor a pig, pig.Line 23 S: What?Line 24 V: Malac (Pig)Line 25 S: Yes. Two floor flowers, window.Line 26 V: No.

In line 15 S suggests that she has got a ball on the first floor. V says yes and adds thatshe has got books. S does not understand this and asks for clarification using L1. Vrepeats her utterance prompting S to exclaim ‘aha’! She repeats the word ‘books’ butdoes not say whether she thinks this is a difference or not. (In fact in their pictures thisis a difference). S says she has got spiders. V says no. S decides to check on this and asksa question in L1: have not you got any spiders? V says she has but again the differencedoes not get sorted out. One of them has two spiders and the other has just one. V car-ries on and initiates a new search. There is a pig on her first floor. S does not seem tounderstand this and asks for clarification prompting V to translate the word. S says yes.Does this mean ‘yes, I have the same’ or say ‘I understand now’? It is impossible toknow. S does not seem to be concerned about this or does not notice the ambiguityand introduces the next item: some flowers on the second floor. The two girls seem tohave an urgency to get through this game without being drawn into disentangling fur-ther details.

This pattern of one word acknowledgement, failure to confirm differences and toleranceof ambiguity is typical of the children’s interactions, as a further example illustrates:

6.2. Example 4: M and L (children)

Line 4 M: In the second floor two fish or three.Line 5: L: Mi? (What?)Line 6: M: Vagy (or) two fish.Line 7: L: In the second floor one frog in the bathroom.Line 8: M: In the third floor one cheese.Line 9: L: Yes. In the in the first floor one cat and one dog.

Overall, it is clear that these children were able to signal their lack of understandingand they asked clarification questions but these questions were kept to a minimum andoften if one question did not sort the problem out, they decided to leave it andcarry on with another description/item instead. They may have interpreted that itwas more of a priority to get on with the game than get bogged down with sortingout problems.

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The adults’ behaviour is strikingly different. In the following example, they invest agreat deal of effort into sorting out a particular misunderstanding that occurs early on.

6.3. Example 5: R and Z (adults)

Line 5 R: The flowerLine 6 Z: Yes. . . The yellow flowerLine 7 R: Two, twoLine 8 Z: No, just one.Line 9 R: Ok. Kitchen, floor, or milk, cheese and bread.Line 10 Z: Yes, two applesLine 11 R: Two apples. And picture, one man one woman.Line 12 Z: No, no. I have not a flower. It is aLine 13 R: CactusLine 14 Z: Cactus, yes.Line 15 R: Yes.Line 16: Z: Have you got?Line 17: R: Yes, cactus, two.Line 18: Zs: Yes, ok.ok. Other pictureLine 19: R: Two apple?Line 20: Zs Yes.Line 21 R: Different?Line 22: Zs: It is not.Line 23: R: Not.

R (in line 5) is describing the top left-hand side of the picture where there are two cacti.She can not use the word ‘cacti’ so she uses a broad synonym ‘flower’ instead. Z thinksthat her partner is describing the yellow flower in the window and adds that the floweris yellow. R then clarifies that she has got two of these flowers, (meaning two cacti). Zresponds and says that she has got only one flower. This is a potential misunderstandingbut at this point they do not realise it and move on. R moves the search forward to theright-hand side of the picture to explore the kitchen. They co-construct the next utterancelisting the food items, moving from left to right in the kitchen one by one. R then carrieson and says that she has got a picture too, with a man and a woman on it. Then, all of asudden, Z realises that their previous discussion of the flowers was problematic and deci-des to go back to it. She says she has not got two flowers. She starts an utterance ‘It is a. . .’She does not know the word she wants (cactus) and she is waiting to see if her partnermight help. R indeed offers the missing word: cactus. Z repeats it enthusiastically and says‘cactus yes’. R repeats ‘yes’. Z then double checks that her partner has got two of these.Only when R says yes she has got two cacti too, do they return to the right-hand sideof the picture. Z signals her move by saying: ‘other picture’. R then offers the first descrip-tion about the new part of the house suggesting that she has two apples. Z says yes, mean-ing she has got the same but her partner is not satisfied with this. She chooses to doublecheck and explicitly asks whether Z thinks this is a difference. Z confirms that it is not. Rthen repeats this to herself: ‘not’.

What seems strikingly different here is both speakers’ persistence to clarify and dou-ble check ambiguities and potential misunderstandings that may arise as a result of

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their limited competence in English as well as the nature of the task. They do not hes-itate to break the flow of the interaction by reverting to previous parts in order tomake sure they have not missed something. Their perseverance to sort out problemsis very obvious. Such determination is typical of adult speakers who as the followingexample illustrates, are prepared to use mime, gestures and repetition to control thetask and make sure no differences are missed. In this case, considerable effort goes intoconfirming the specific nature and position of an object missing from one of thepictures.

6.4. Example 6: E and A (adults)

Line A: A lampE: [Shaking her head]Line A: Lamp. In the table.Line E: In the table? No.Line A: I have got a table es(and) on the table I have got a lamp. No?Line E: [Shaking head] Lamp? [pointing to the light above her head in the room]Line A: Lamp. Lampa (Lamp) [gesturing: small, round].Line E: First picture?Line A: First picture.Line E: Cat and table [gesturing the locations]Line A: The cat, the table, and on the table a lamp.Line E: No, not.

7. Practical implications

This study shows that 10-year-old children approached the task differently from adults,at least with regard to those strategies that were clearly observable in the adult data set.They did not find as many differences as adults in either L1 or L2. In general the childrenused a looser approach to handling referential conflicts in the task while the adults held avery strong grip on these.

Table 2 illustrates the main differences with regard to the strategy cluster identified ear-lier. The children were able to respond to each other, clarify messages, keep tally of thedifferences and they interacted confidently on the task but with regard to the listed strat-egies, the adult learners used them to a larger extent.

What are the implications of these findings for classrooms, teachers and researchers?First of all, unlike in the studies by Lloyd (1990, 1991) there were some quite sub-

stantial differences between these 10-year-old and adult learners in the way in whichthey handled this task. The children did not use the same sort of strategies to the sameextent spontaneously as the adult learners did. Teachers and materials designers there-fore need to be cautious about what types of tasks might be suitable for this age group.Given that communicative language learning programmes promote communicationtasks for all ages, it is important to explore just what features are appropriate for dif-ferent age groups’ developmental levels. Games, puzzles, gap tasks and other commu-nicative activities for this age group should be different from younger learners’ tasks(e.g. 5–7-year-olds and 8–9-year-olds) but also different from adult learners’ tasks. In

Table 2Broad categories and types of strategies observed in the data

Observable strategy types

Broad categories of strategies(following; Oxford, 1990)

Children Adults

Cognitive More random targeting of items More systematic top to bottom searchof items

Cognitive Immediate change of focuswithout checking

Exploring one part of the picture fully

Cognitive: recognising a problem Not returning to previousproblems

Returning to potential problems

Metacognitive: planning for thenext move, signalling finishingpart of the task

Less signalling of moves withinthe picture

Often signalling moving on to a newpart of the picture/checking whichpart of the picture an item is in

Metacognitive: monitoring No verbal acknowledgement ofdifferences

Explicit verbal acknowledgement ofdifferences

Metacognitive: monitoring No verbal tally keeping or usingfingers for tally keeping withoutsharing with partner

Joint verbal tally keeping

Compensatory: Less repeating of own andpartners’ phrases

More repeating of own and partner’sphrases

Compensatory: using differentways of referring to items thatthey do not know the word for

Using one way: naming Using alternative ways to describeitems: synonyms, gestures, mime

Social Less co-construction of phrasesand sentences

More co-construction of phrases andsentences

Social Mainly short, one-wordresponses (often open toambiguous interpretations)

Often asking questions and clarifyingtheir messages via providingadditional information about items

Social Less prompting for help Prompting partner for help

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this case, the referential conflict points specially planted were perhaps too difficult forthe children.

Naturally, it is difficult to say exactly what tasks should or should not be used with thisage group because children in different contexts will have different interests, different levelsof English proficiency, different past experiences in English and thus different expectations.However, it is perhaps sensible to suggest that children at this age are ready for interactivepractice in L2 starting with simple ‘pairing/matching’ activities, then ‘listen and draw’activities, ‘spot the differences’ activities, ‘follow the route on the map’ and other similarcommunication tasks. After initial practice, each type of task can be further manipulatedby introducing an increasing number of items, more complex items, more differences ormore referential challenges. However, as this study demonstrates referential challengesneed to be built up gradually. All tasks can be evaluated according to what types of dif-ficulties they hide (e.g. Cameron, 2001; Pinter, 2006) and teachers can vary the difficultylevel according to their learners’ everyday needs and not least to what the children canor cannot do in their L1.

Another implication arises from the methodology used in this study. The differencesbetween adults’ and children’s task related strategies were uncovered by using observa-tion and recording. It is, of course, widely acknowledged that many strategies are ‘for

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the most part unobservable’ (Chamot, 2004, p. 3) and strategies may also overlap andthus a particular behaviour may reflect more than one strategy at the same time.Observing task performances without asking the learners, therefore, cannot give a fullpicture of the strategies used. Yet, observations have their own advantage. As Cohen(2003, p. 283) argues, self-reports rely on what students think they might do in differentlearning situations rather than what they actually do in real task performances. This isespecially an issue for children, who might be less able to report on their strategy usethan adults. The observed strategies identified in this study, although they make uponly an incomplete list, do begin to outline a cluster of strategies for this task. I wouldargue that observation/recording of task performances can provide a very good startingpoint from teachers’ point of view about what learners can or cannot do and whatstrategies they may be using to handle a particular learning task. Recording groupsand pairs working together on a task can later on lead to classroom discussions aboutdifferent approaches to language tasks. As part of this kind of discussion, teachers canbegin to encourage children to think about what they are doing and why, how theywould evaluate their performance on a particular task and how their performancecan be improved on a subsequent occasion. Task-related strategy training based on ini-tial observations of performances can be usefully integrated into young learners’ class-rooms. In this way tasks can be used to develop cognitive and metacognitive skills inaddition to linguistic and social skills, all of which are identified as key objectives ofEFL programmes worldwide.

Finally, it is important to acknowledge two issues. First of all, the differencesbetween adults and children discussed above may also at least partly be due to the factthat children interpreted the task in a different way from adults, given that no instruc-tions were given at the beginning about how to approach the task. This is in line withthe findings of many studies (e.g. Coughlan and Duff, 1994; Platt and Brooks, 1994;Roebuck, 2000; Brooks and Donato, 1994; Appel and Lantolf, 1994) that have sug-gested that learners do not always interpret task the same way as teachers or research-ers would have intended. It is in fact appropriate to differentiate between a task as‘blueprint’ and the task activity as ‘outcome’. It is quite possible that the children inter-preted the task as a fast moving game where you should not get bogged down for longdiscussions about small details and where finding the differences is a matter of luck. Itis also possible that the dominant classroom discourse of naming things that the chil-dren are so used to may have influenced the way they approached the task as they alltook turns in naming items in their pictures. The adult learners on the other handinterpreted the same task as problem solving where getting the differences exactly rightwas the main goal regardless of how long the interactions took and how hard they hadto negotiate with each other. Secondly, it is important to mention that there may wellbe individual differences among participants both in the adult group and the children’sgroup.

Many more issues such as individual differences and task interpretations might beexplored in further research. In addition, more research is timely using different tasks withdifferent age groups in different contexts. In the meantime, the findings of this researchalready suggest potentially fruitful directions for classroom explorations by teachers ofchildren at this vital developmental stage.

A. Pinter / System 34 (2006) 615–630 627

Appendix

Sample task sheet A:

628 A. Pinter / System 34 (2006) 615–630

Sample task sheet B:

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