GARIS-GARIS BESAR PROGRAM PENGAJARAN
JUDUL MATA KULIAH : Second Language Acquisition
KODE MATA KULIAH : KBI 328 /2 SKS
DOSEN PENGANGGUNG JAWAB: Hery Yufrizal, M.A., Ph.D
Short Description
What is the study of second language acquisition? It is the study of how second languages are learned. It is the study of how learning creates a new language system with only limited exposure to a second language. It is the study of what is learned of a second language and what is not learned; it is the study of why most second language learners do not achieve the same degree of proficiency in a second language as they do in their native language; it is also the study of why only some learners appear to achieve native-like proficiency in more than one language. Additionally, second language acquisition is concerned with the nature of the hypothesis (whether conscious or conscious) that learners come up with regarding the rules of the second language. Are the rules like those of the native language? Are they like the rules of the language being learned? Are there patterns that are common to all learners regardless of the native language and regardless of the language being learned? Do the rules created by second language learners vary according to the context of use?
This course will be conducted as a seminar, focusing on hands-on analysis of second language acquisition data
Eka Setiawan ( 0643042009 ) Negotiation Of Meaning
Minggu, 28 November 2010
FUNCTIONS OF TASKS
DESIGNING TASK FOR INTERACTION IN SECOND AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING RESEARCH
By Hery Yufrizal
Abstract
This article highlights language learning tasks that will likely help second language learners develop their ability either by communicating in the target language with native speakers or with other nonnative speakers. The tasks discussed here are taken from those, which have been widely used in the study of second language acquisition through negotiation of meaning and interaction, through communication strategy studies, and through interlanguage pragmatic studies.
Key Words: language learning tasks, negotiation of meaning, communication strategies, interlanguage pracmatics
1. Introduction
Since the early 1980s, considerable attention has been given by SLA researchers to investigating the role of negotiation in L2 acquisition. In particular, the focus has been on negotiated interaction which occurs when conversational participants find a need to adjust and modify the linguistic form and structure of their interaction in order to be clearly understood. To resolve the communication difficulty, participants may engage in a simple sequence of moves comprising the utterance that triggered the difficulty, the utterance that signalled the non-understanding, and the utterance that responds to this signal. As Varonis & Gass (1985) and Pica, Holliday, Lewis, Berducci & Newman(1991) explain in their negotiation models, an optional fourth move that reacts to the response move may conclude the sequence.
Research on interaction is conducted within the framework of the Interactive Hypothesis, which states that conversational interaction "facilitates [language] acquisition because it connects input [what learners hear and read]; internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention; and output [what learners produce] in productive ways" (Long, 1996, pp. 451-452). Interaction provides learners with opportunities to receive comprehensible input and feedback (Gass, 1997; Long, 1996; Pica, 1994) as well as to make changes in their own linguistic output (Swain, 1995). This allows learners to "notice the gap" (Schmidt & Frota, 1986, p. 311) between their command of the language and correct, or target-like, use of the language.
In order to get data for interaction studies, tasks have been used as prominent models in studies of interaction through input-output studies, communication strategy studies, and interlanguage pragmatic studies. These will be discussed further in the following part of the article.
2. Defining task
Tasks have been defined by many scholars into various definitions. One of the general definition is Long (1985) who suggests that task is
... a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some rewards. Thus, examples of tasks include painting a fence, dressing a child, filling out a form, buying a pair of shoes, making an airline reservation, borrowing a library book, taking a driving test, typing a letter, weighing a patient, sorting letters, taking a hotel reservation, writing a cheque, finding a street destination, and helping some one across a road. In other words, by ‘task’ is meant the hundred and one things people do in every day life, at work, at play, and in between. (Long, 1985:89).
Of course, the definition above was too general and had little things to do with learning and teaching of a language. A more pedagogically oriented definition of tasks was proposed by Richard, Platt & Webber (1985). They defined a task as:
‘ An activity or action which is carried out as the result of processing or understanding language (i.e. as response). For example, drawing a map while listening to a tape, listening to an instruction and performing a command, may be referred to as tasks. Tasks may or may not involve the production of language. A task usually requires the teacher to specify what will be regarded as successful completion of the task. The use of a variety of different kinds of tasks in language teaching is said to make teaching more communicative . . . since it provides a purpose for a classroom activity which goes beyond the practice of language for its own sake’ (Richards, Platt & Weber, 1985: 289).
This definition has a closer insight to the main function of task, that is, for communication. It contains a process where a learner comprehends a message, produces and interacts in the target language, which focuses on meaning rather than form. Nunan (1993) summarizes that
a communicative task is a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form.
Moreover, Nunan (1993) states that a task should contain some input data, one or more related activities or procedures. In addition, task will have either explicitly or implicitly goals, roles of teachers and learners and a setting. The components of a task are represented by the following figure:
Figure: Key components of tasks (Nunan, 1993)
The figure and the two previous definitions of task have revealed that there are at least six components, which should exist in task. Firstly, the tasks are oriented toward goals. Learners are expected to arrive at an outcome and to carry out a task with a sense of what they need to accomplish through their talk or action. Secondly, a task should include some kind of input data which can be in the form of linguistics (e.g. a reading text), non linguistic (e.g. a set of picture or photograph). Thirdly, the task will include work or activities that should be performed by the participants. Fourthly and fifthly, the task will specify what role the teacher plays in the activity. Finally, the tasks will specify the setting in which the task will be accomplished (e.g. classroom, group work, or dyad).
In terms of task related to the interactional study, Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun (1993) has proposed a typology of task. This typology takes into consideration some interactional features in communicative activities such as interactant relationship, interaction requirement, goal orientation and outcome options.
Figure 2: Task relationship, requirement, goals and outcomes and their impact on opportunities for L2 learners’ comprehension of input, feedback on production and modifications of interlanguage (after Pica, Kanagy and Falodun, 1993).
Type Task INF holder INF requester INF supplier INF requester-supplier relationship Interaction requirement Goal orientation Outcome options
Jigsaw X & Y X & Y X & Y 2 way (X to Y & Y to X) + required +convergent 1
Information Gap X or Y Y or X X or Y 1 way>2 way (X toY/Y to X) + required +convergent 1
Problem-solving X = Y X = Y X = Y 2 way> 1 way (X to Y & Y to X) -required +convergent 1
Decision-making X = Y X = Y X = Y 2 way> 1 way (X to Y & Y to X) - required + convergent 1+
Opinion exchange X = Y X = Y X = Y 2 way> 1 way (X to Y & Y to X) - required - convergent 1+/-
Based on the specification of interactant relationship and the interaction requirement which were then elaborated into the obligation to request or supply task-related information, and the goal orientation, Pica et al (1993) suggest that there are four conditions that should be met a task in order to meet the communicative goal expected:
1. Each participant holds a different portion of information which must be exchanged and manipulated in order to reach the task outcome.
2. Both participants are required to request and supply this information to each other.
3. Participants have the same or convergent goals.
4. Only one acceptable outcome is possible from their attempts to meet this goal.
3. Tasks on the study of negotiation of meaning
Research on task type has resulted in various findings showing the effects of particular task toward patterns of interaction in and outside classroom, both in second language context and foreign language context.
Pica and Doughty (1985) investigated three classroom ESL communication activities involving group work task. The focus of their study was to find out the interactional features of conversation between teacher-fronted and group decision-making activities. They found that more grammatical input was available during teacher-fronted than during group activities. However, most of these grammatical inputs are from the teachers while students’ productions were ungrammatical in both situations. In conclusion, Pica and Doughty, stressed individual students appeared to have more opportunities to use the target language in group than in teacher-fronted activities through either taking more turns or producing more samples of their interlanguage.
On the continuation of the first study, Pica and Doughty (1986) add another variable in their study, that is, dyad. So, the second study compares three interactional patterns: teacher-fronted, small group, and dyads. The study found that there was a significant different of information exchange between teacher-fronted, group work and dyads and between required exchange task and optional exchange task. Modification of interaction was found to be higher in the group than in the teacher-fronted participation pattern. However, there was no difference in interactional modification between the group and dyad interaction patterns. In a different study, Pica, Holliday, Lewis and Morgenthaler (1989) applied three different tasks to investigate the patterns of comprehensible output of their subjects. The three tasks given were a jigsaw in which the participants were assigned to sequence a series of house, an information gap in which the one participant acts a describer of a picture and the other draw the picture, and the last task was a discussion task. The study found that the information gap task offered the largest percentage of opportunities for the NNS to modify their output in response to NS signals of request for clarification and confirmation. This result is in fact in contrary to the theoretical consideration offered by Pica, Kanagy and Falodun (1993) who suggest that Jigsaw is the most ideal tasks that can elicit the L2 interactions.
Bygate (1989) studies students’ conversation patterns in communication game task, looking at the tactics of small group oral interaction. She suggested that student-students interaction may help language development in two ways: Firstly, the flexibility for learners to choose and to collaborate in choosing the most efficient syntactic units of communication enables them to follow their own path towards integrating the grammar of language into their oral skill. Secondly, group interaction can contribute by the mechanism it activates in order for communication to take place.
Duff, (1986) studied two different tasks: problem solving (PS) task and debates (D) to Mandarin Chinese speakers enrolled in ESL classes at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. In PS, pairs of learners were asked to solve a given problem together, i.e., they have to agree on a justifiable solution. This activity was then, called convergent task type. On D, the same pairs of learners were assigned different viewpoints on an issue and were asked to defend the given position and refute their partner’s with as many arguments as possible. This activity was then called divergent task type.
From this design, Duff proposes five hypotheses concerning the difference between the two tasks in terms of total number of words produced by pairs, total turn taking, number of words per turn taking, the number of c-unit per task. The result of his study shows that the number of total turns and subjects turn taken and inversely, the number of words per turn were the most obvious and significant quantitative differences that can be found from the task types. Duff summarises that problem-solving task generate more turn-taking, more c-units, and more questions than the debate task. However, the debate task produced longer turns, more syntactically complex discourse, and more extended discourse.
Foster (1998) found that required exchange tasks produced more negotiation of meaning and modification of input than optional exchange tasks. However, she suggests that it is the participant settings (dyadic or small grouping), not the tasks which influence the negotiation of meaning. The tasks only made a little difference in the modification and negotiation made.
Some common results of the relations between tasks and negotiation can be summarized as follows:
- one way tasks (e.g. Brown and Yule, 1983), produced more individual output, but much less negotiation work than do two-way-tasks (e.g. Long, 1981; Doughty and Pica, 1986)
- required information tasks, produced more negotiation than optional information exchange (Pica and Doughty, 1986)
- Convergent, problem solving tasks, produced more turn-taking and questioning tha do divergent, debate style tasks (Duff, 1986)
- Small group arrangement, produced more interaction negotiation than do whole class setting (Pica and Doughty, 1985)
- Increased familiarity with particular tasks and interlocutor, resulted more frequent negotiations work (Gass and Varonis, 1984; Gass and Plough, 1993)
- NNS/NNS partners produced more frequent negotiation of meanings than do NS/NNS partners (Varonis and Gass, 1985; Porter, 1986.
- NNS dyads from different L1 background produced more meaning negotiation than NNS dyads from the same L1 background (Yule and Mcdonald, 1990; Ross, 1988).
Some of the common results from task studies according to Long (1990):
1. Two way task produced more negotiation work and more useful negotiation work than one-way tasks.
2. Planned task ‘stretch’ interlanguages furthered and promoted destabilization more than unplanned task.
3. Closed tasks produced more negotiation work and more useful negotiation work than open tasks
Tasks have come under the scrutiny of research more than notions and functions or any of the other units of curriculum content. Tasks have held up well under such scrutiny, and have demonstrated a capacity to provide conditions, which can nurture the kinds of communication considered essential to L2 learning.
Research has also revealed that learner’s participation in tasks enhances their experiences in L2 learning at the process level as well. This is accomplished as learners negotiate with their interlocutor over the comprehensibility of the messages they provide and those they receive in order to carry out the task and bring it to a successful outcome. Their work sets up several distinct, but interrelated conditions considered critical to successful L2 learning.
Among the relevant studies on task, nearly all heave touched on this broad range of conditions for L2 learning, but each might be singled out for its particular emphasis on one or two , for example: Long (1980, 1981, 1985) focused primarily on input modification; Pica, Young and Doughty (1987) on comprehension , and Crookes and Rulon (1985, 1988), Gass and Varonis (1985) , Pica, Halliday, Lewis and Morgenthaler (1989) and Pica et al. (1991), on feedback and production of modified input . The tasks used in these studies were reviewed, together with others, in Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun (1993), and included in a task typology I which types of tasks were classified and compared according to their potential contribution to L2 learning. Among the most potentially effective types of tasks identified, two features were apparent. First , such tasks required , rather than simply invited the exchange of information among task participants. Further, they were targeted toward only one possible solution rather than several acceptable outcomes. Specific examples included tasks which required participant to part unique pieces of information known only to them in order to complete a picture (as in Pica et al., 1991, Pica et al. 1989), assemble an object on display (as in Doughty and Pica, 1986; Pica and Doughty, 1985a, 1985b; and Pica, Young and Doughty, 1987) unravel a mystery story (Gass and Varonis, 1985) or solve a mathematics problem (Long, 1980; Crookes and Rulon, 1985, 1988).
4. Tasks in the study of communication strategies
Both input/negotiation and communication strategies view non-native speakers as inherently defective communicators. Unlike in discourse analysis and conversation, primary theoretical categorization of the subject being investigated had been defined very firmly. In input modification studies, the categorization of negotiation of meaning has been defined of having the following characteristics: clarification request, conformation check and comprehension check. Speech modification has been defined on the level of phonology, morphology, syntax and discourse and so on. In communication strategies, nine taxonomies have been developed by researchers so that new research studies could easily follow the available models.
Tasks designed to elicit data for communication strategies are different from tasks designed for the study of input and negotiations. Tasks selected for the study of communication strategies are not strictly designed as those in input and negotiations. Some of the tasks are picture description (Byalistok and Frohlich, 1980: Varadi, 1980), picture reconstruction (Bialystok, 1983), translation (Galvan and Campbell, 1979); sentence completion (Blum-Kulka and Levenston, 1983); conversation (Haastrup and Phillipson,1983), narration (Raupach, 1983); instruction (Wagner, 1983), word transmission (Paribakht, 1985), and interview (Raupach, 1983). These tasks did not produce different communication strategies, however, from the application of such tasks, nine taxonomies of communication strategies in second/foreign language learning have been produced. (see Dornyei and Scott, 1997).
5. Tasks in the study of interlanguage pragmatics
Interlanguage pragmatic studies interaction in terms of how different types of speech acts are performed by NNSs with a variety of language background and target languages (Kasper, 1989). It focuses on the meaning in relation to speech situation. Interlanguage pragrmatics may be dealing with interaction between native speaker and non-native speaker or among non-native speakers in various kinds of communication setting.
Interlanguage pragmatics as a research discipline is relatively younger than other interlanguage studies such as interlanguage phonology, syntax and semantics. In relation to second/foreign language acquisition, interlanguage pragmatic research has centered on the realization of request in the learner’s interlanguage in comparison to native speaker performance resulting data collections of requests in natives as well as non-natives, e.g. Tannen (1981) (English and Greek); House-Kasper (1981) (English and German); House-Kasper (1987) (English, Danish and German); Blum-Kulka (1983) (Hebrew and English).
Interlanguage pragmatic is a complicated study of speech act realization that the tasks designed to elicit data also need careful considerations from the researchers. Cohen (1995) stated that there are two basic methods for interlanguage pragmatic studies. The first method is ethnography where the researchers collect the data from natural conversation of the native speakers and the nonnative speakers. This method has been found to be effective for collecting certain speech acts such as compliments (Wolfson, 1989), while Aguilar Murillo, Agular and Meditz (1991) found that speech act of apologizing was time consuming and hard to achieve. The second alternative is using elicited methods where the researchers elicit speech act data from role simulation activities. This kind of method has been used for study of interlanguage pragmatic for quite sometime (see Trosborg, 1996; Gass and Neu (1995).
Furthermore, Cohen (1995) suggests that for elicited data for interlanguage pragmatic study, there are two types of tasks that have been applied so far. The first type of task is the so-called Discourse Completion Test (DCT) which were firstly introduced by Blum-Kulka (1982). This task is actually a written questionnaire given to the NSSs and NSs on how they actualize a certain type of speech act in particular situation. Other types of tasks used for interlanguage pragmatic is role play (and its variant of role enactment (Trosborg, 1996) and simulation (see also Gass and Neu, 1995; Faerch and Kasper, 1987).
Like in the conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and communications strategies, the tasks in interlanguage pragmatics do not play as crucial role as in the study of input and interaction. The tasks for interlanguage pragmatic study is used in order to elicit data for particular speech act, the tasks in the study of input and interaction influence the projected interaction very significantly. (see the review from Pica, 1994, Wagner, 1996).
6. Conclusion
From the discussion above, it can be concluded that tasks play a very important role eliciting data for the study of interaction. From the study of interaction many forms of tasks have been used, among others are information gap task, jigsaw tasks, problem solving task, decision making tasks, information exchange tasks and many others which promote learners to use the target language. In terms of communication strategies and interlanguage pragmatics tasks are designed in such a way to meet the purposes of the study. Creativity of lecturers and researchers are still needed to support and promote language learners use the target language as much as possible that will eventually produce abundant data needed and thus promote second and foreign language learning.
7. References
Crookes, G and Gass, S (eds.), (1993). Tasks in a Pedagogical Context: Integrating Theory and Practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, Ltd.
Gardner, R.C. (1985). Social Psychology and Second Language Learning: The Role of attitudes and motivation. London: Edward Arnold.
Gal, J.P., Gal, M.D., and Borg, W.R. (1999). Applying Educational Research: A practical guide. New York, Longman
Gass, S.M. and Selinker, L. 1994. Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Pica, T & Doughty ,C. (1985). The role of group work in classroom second language acquisition. Studies in second language acquisition, 7, 233-248.
Pica, T. & Doughty, C. (1988). Variations in classroom interactions as a function of participation pattern and task. In J. Fine (Ed.), Second Language Discourse: A Textbook of Current Research (pp.41-55). New York: Abex.
Pica, T. Holliday, L., Lewis, N., & Morgenthaler, L. (1989). Comprehensible output as an outcome of linguistic demands on the learner. Studies in Second Language acquisition, 11, 63-90.
Pica, T.,Holliday, L., Lewis, N., Berducci, D., & Newman, J. (1991). Language learning through interaction: What role does gender play? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 13.(2), 343-376.
Pica, T., Kanagy, R., & Falodun, J. (1993). Choosing and using communication tasks for second language instruction and research. In G. Crookes & S. Gass (Eds.). Tasks and Second Language Learning (pp.1-22). Cleveland: Multilingual Matters.
Trosborg, A. (1995). Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. New York. Mouton de Gruyster.
Yufrizal, H. 1991. Communicative task and learning styles: negotiation of
meaning and second language development in Indonesia.TEFLIN
--------. 2000. Negotiation of meaning in EFL dyads in Indonesia: The roles
of gender, proficiency, and learning styles. Unpublished doctoral thesis,
La Trobe University, Australia.
---------.2007. Negotiation of Meaning by Indonesian EFL Learners. Bandung: Pustaka Reka Cipta.
Yufrizal, H. 2009, Gaya Belajar dan Gaya Mengajar. Bandung: Pustaka Reka Cipta.
By Hery Yufrizal
Abstract
This article highlights language learning tasks that will likely help second language learners develop their ability either by communicating in the target language with native speakers or with other nonnative speakers. The tasks discussed here are taken from those, which have been widely used in the study of second language acquisition through negotiation of meaning and interaction, through communication strategy studies, and through interlanguage pragmatic studies.
Key Words: language learning tasks, negotiation of meaning, communication strategies, interlanguage pracmatics
1. Introduction
Since the early 1980s, considerable attention has been given by SLA researchers to investigating the role of negotiation in L2 acquisition. In particular, the focus has been on negotiated interaction which occurs when conversational participants find a need to adjust and modify the linguistic form and structure of their interaction in order to be clearly understood. To resolve the communication difficulty, participants may engage in a simple sequence of moves comprising the utterance that triggered the difficulty, the utterance that signalled the non-understanding, and the utterance that responds to this signal. As Varonis & Gass (1985) and Pica, Holliday, Lewis, Berducci & Newman(1991) explain in their negotiation models, an optional fourth move that reacts to the response move may conclude the sequence.
Research on interaction is conducted within the framework of the Interactive Hypothesis, which states that conversational interaction "facilitates [language] acquisition because it connects input [what learners hear and read]; internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention; and output [what learners produce] in productive ways" (Long, 1996, pp. 451-452). Interaction provides learners with opportunities to receive comprehensible input and feedback (Gass, 1997; Long, 1996; Pica, 1994) as well as to make changes in their own linguistic output (Swain, 1995). This allows learners to "notice the gap" (Schmidt & Frota, 1986, p. 311) between their command of the language and correct, or target-like, use of the language.
In order to get data for interaction studies, tasks have been used as prominent models in studies of interaction through input-output studies, communication strategy studies, and interlanguage pragmatic studies. These will be discussed further in the following part of the article.
2. Defining task
Tasks have been defined by many scholars into various definitions. One of the general definition is Long (1985) who suggests that task is
... a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some rewards. Thus, examples of tasks include painting a fence, dressing a child, filling out a form, buying a pair of shoes, making an airline reservation, borrowing a library book, taking a driving test, typing a letter, weighing a patient, sorting letters, taking a hotel reservation, writing a cheque, finding a street destination, and helping some one across a road. In other words, by ‘task’ is meant the hundred and one things people do in every day life, at work, at play, and in between. (Long, 1985:89).
Of course, the definition above was too general and had little things to do with learning and teaching of a language. A more pedagogically oriented definition of tasks was proposed by Richard, Platt & Webber (1985). They defined a task as:
‘ An activity or action which is carried out as the result of processing or understanding language (i.e. as response). For example, drawing a map while listening to a tape, listening to an instruction and performing a command, may be referred to as tasks. Tasks may or may not involve the production of language. A task usually requires the teacher to specify what will be regarded as successful completion of the task. The use of a variety of different kinds of tasks in language teaching is said to make teaching more communicative . . . since it provides a purpose for a classroom activity which goes beyond the practice of language for its own sake’ (Richards, Platt & Weber, 1985: 289).
This definition has a closer insight to the main function of task, that is, for communication. It contains a process where a learner comprehends a message, produces and interacts in the target language, which focuses on meaning rather than form. Nunan (1993) summarizes that
a communicative task is a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form.
Moreover, Nunan (1993) states that a task should contain some input data, one or more related activities or procedures. In addition, task will have either explicitly or implicitly goals, roles of teachers and learners and a setting. The components of a task are represented by the following figure:
Figure: Key components of tasks (Nunan, 1993)
The figure and the two previous definitions of task have revealed that there are at least six components, which should exist in task. Firstly, the tasks are oriented toward goals. Learners are expected to arrive at an outcome and to carry out a task with a sense of what they need to accomplish through their talk or action. Secondly, a task should include some kind of input data which can be in the form of linguistics (e.g. a reading text), non linguistic (e.g. a set of picture or photograph). Thirdly, the task will include work or activities that should be performed by the participants. Fourthly and fifthly, the task will specify what role the teacher plays in the activity. Finally, the tasks will specify the setting in which the task will be accomplished (e.g. classroom, group work, or dyad).
In terms of task related to the interactional study, Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun (1993) has proposed a typology of task. This typology takes into consideration some interactional features in communicative activities such as interactant relationship, interaction requirement, goal orientation and outcome options.
Figure 2: Task relationship, requirement, goals and outcomes and their impact on opportunities for L2 learners’ comprehension of input, feedback on production and modifications of interlanguage (after Pica, Kanagy and Falodun, 1993).
Type Task INF holder INF requester INF supplier INF requester-supplier relationship Interaction requirement Goal orientation Outcome options
Jigsaw X & Y X & Y X & Y 2 way (X to Y & Y to X) + required +convergent 1
Information Gap X or Y Y or X X or Y 1 way>2 way (X toY/Y to X) + required +convergent 1
Problem-solving X = Y X = Y X = Y 2 way> 1 way (X to Y & Y to X) -required +convergent 1
Decision-making X = Y X = Y X = Y 2 way> 1 way (X to Y & Y to X) - required + convergent 1+
Opinion exchange X = Y X = Y X = Y 2 way> 1 way (X to Y & Y to X) - required - convergent 1+/-
Based on the specification of interactant relationship and the interaction requirement which were then elaborated into the obligation to request or supply task-related information, and the goal orientation, Pica et al (1993) suggest that there are four conditions that should be met a task in order to meet the communicative goal expected:
1. Each participant holds a different portion of information which must be exchanged and manipulated in order to reach the task outcome.
2. Both participants are required to request and supply this information to each other.
3. Participants have the same or convergent goals.
4. Only one acceptable outcome is possible from their attempts to meet this goal.
3. Tasks on the study of negotiation of meaning
Research on task type has resulted in various findings showing the effects of particular task toward patterns of interaction in and outside classroom, both in second language context and foreign language context.
Pica and Doughty (1985) investigated three classroom ESL communication activities involving group work task. The focus of their study was to find out the interactional features of conversation between teacher-fronted and group decision-making activities. They found that more grammatical input was available during teacher-fronted than during group activities. However, most of these grammatical inputs are from the teachers while students’ productions were ungrammatical in both situations. In conclusion, Pica and Doughty, stressed individual students appeared to have more opportunities to use the target language in group than in teacher-fronted activities through either taking more turns or producing more samples of their interlanguage.
On the continuation of the first study, Pica and Doughty (1986) add another variable in their study, that is, dyad. So, the second study compares three interactional patterns: teacher-fronted, small group, and dyads. The study found that there was a significant different of information exchange between teacher-fronted, group work and dyads and between required exchange task and optional exchange task. Modification of interaction was found to be higher in the group than in the teacher-fronted participation pattern. However, there was no difference in interactional modification between the group and dyad interaction patterns. In a different study, Pica, Holliday, Lewis and Morgenthaler (1989) applied three different tasks to investigate the patterns of comprehensible output of their subjects. The three tasks given were a jigsaw in which the participants were assigned to sequence a series of house, an information gap in which the one participant acts a describer of a picture and the other draw the picture, and the last task was a discussion task. The study found that the information gap task offered the largest percentage of opportunities for the NNS to modify their output in response to NS signals of request for clarification and confirmation. This result is in fact in contrary to the theoretical consideration offered by Pica, Kanagy and Falodun (1993) who suggest that Jigsaw is the most ideal tasks that can elicit the L2 interactions.
Bygate (1989) studies students’ conversation patterns in communication game task, looking at the tactics of small group oral interaction. She suggested that student-students interaction may help language development in two ways: Firstly, the flexibility for learners to choose and to collaborate in choosing the most efficient syntactic units of communication enables them to follow their own path towards integrating the grammar of language into their oral skill. Secondly, group interaction can contribute by the mechanism it activates in order for communication to take place.
Duff, (1986) studied two different tasks: problem solving (PS) task and debates (D) to Mandarin Chinese speakers enrolled in ESL classes at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. In PS, pairs of learners were asked to solve a given problem together, i.e., they have to agree on a justifiable solution. This activity was then, called convergent task type. On D, the same pairs of learners were assigned different viewpoints on an issue and were asked to defend the given position and refute their partner’s with as many arguments as possible. This activity was then called divergent task type.
From this design, Duff proposes five hypotheses concerning the difference between the two tasks in terms of total number of words produced by pairs, total turn taking, number of words per turn taking, the number of c-unit per task. The result of his study shows that the number of total turns and subjects turn taken and inversely, the number of words per turn were the most obvious and significant quantitative differences that can be found from the task types. Duff summarises that problem-solving task generate more turn-taking, more c-units, and more questions than the debate task. However, the debate task produced longer turns, more syntactically complex discourse, and more extended discourse.
Foster (1998) found that required exchange tasks produced more negotiation of meaning and modification of input than optional exchange tasks. However, she suggests that it is the participant settings (dyadic or small grouping), not the tasks which influence the negotiation of meaning. The tasks only made a little difference in the modification and negotiation made.
Some common results of the relations between tasks and negotiation can be summarized as follows:
- one way tasks (e.g. Brown and Yule, 1983), produced more individual output, but much less negotiation work than do two-way-tasks (e.g. Long, 1981; Doughty and Pica, 1986)
- required information tasks, produced more negotiation than optional information exchange (Pica and Doughty, 1986)
- Convergent, problem solving tasks, produced more turn-taking and questioning tha do divergent, debate style tasks (Duff, 1986)
- Small group arrangement, produced more interaction negotiation than do whole class setting (Pica and Doughty, 1985)
- Increased familiarity with particular tasks and interlocutor, resulted more frequent negotiations work (Gass and Varonis, 1984; Gass and Plough, 1993)
- NNS/NNS partners produced more frequent negotiation of meanings than do NS/NNS partners (Varonis and Gass, 1985; Porter, 1986.
- NNS dyads from different L1 background produced more meaning negotiation than NNS dyads from the same L1 background (Yule and Mcdonald, 1990; Ross, 1988).
Some of the common results from task studies according to Long (1990):
1. Two way task produced more negotiation work and more useful negotiation work than one-way tasks.
2. Planned task ‘stretch’ interlanguages furthered and promoted destabilization more than unplanned task.
3. Closed tasks produced more negotiation work and more useful negotiation work than open tasks
Tasks have come under the scrutiny of research more than notions and functions or any of the other units of curriculum content. Tasks have held up well under such scrutiny, and have demonstrated a capacity to provide conditions, which can nurture the kinds of communication considered essential to L2 learning.
Research has also revealed that learner’s participation in tasks enhances their experiences in L2 learning at the process level as well. This is accomplished as learners negotiate with their interlocutor over the comprehensibility of the messages they provide and those they receive in order to carry out the task and bring it to a successful outcome. Their work sets up several distinct, but interrelated conditions considered critical to successful L2 learning.
Among the relevant studies on task, nearly all heave touched on this broad range of conditions for L2 learning, but each might be singled out for its particular emphasis on one or two , for example: Long (1980, 1981, 1985) focused primarily on input modification; Pica, Young and Doughty (1987) on comprehension , and Crookes and Rulon (1985, 1988), Gass and Varonis (1985) , Pica, Halliday, Lewis and Morgenthaler (1989) and Pica et al. (1991), on feedback and production of modified input . The tasks used in these studies were reviewed, together with others, in Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun (1993), and included in a task typology I which types of tasks were classified and compared according to their potential contribution to L2 learning. Among the most potentially effective types of tasks identified, two features were apparent. First , such tasks required , rather than simply invited the exchange of information among task participants. Further, they were targeted toward only one possible solution rather than several acceptable outcomes. Specific examples included tasks which required participant to part unique pieces of information known only to them in order to complete a picture (as in Pica et al., 1991, Pica et al. 1989), assemble an object on display (as in Doughty and Pica, 1986; Pica and Doughty, 1985a, 1985b; and Pica, Young and Doughty, 1987) unravel a mystery story (Gass and Varonis, 1985) or solve a mathematics problem (Long, 1980; Crookes and Rulon, 1985, 1988).
4. Tasks in the study of communication strategies
Both input/negotiation and communication strategies view non-native speakers as inherently defective communicators. Unlike in discourse analysis and conversation, primary theoretical categorization of the subject being investigated had been defined very firmly. In input modification studies, the categorization of negotiation of meaning has been defined of having the following characteristics: clarification request, conformation check and comprehension check. Speech modification has been defined on the level of phonology, morphology, syntax and discourse and so on. In communication strategies, nine taxonomies have been developed by researchers so that new research studies could easily follow the available models.
Tasks designed to elicit data for communication strategies are different from tasks designed for the study of input and negotiations. Tasks selected for the study of communication strategies are not strictly designed as those in input and negotiations. Some of the tasks are picture description (Byalistok and Frohlich, 1980: Varadi, 1980), picture reconstruction (Bialystok, 1983), translation (Galvan and Campbell, 1979); sentence completion (Blum-Kulka and Levenston, 1983); conversation (Haastrup and Phillipson,1983), narration (Raupach, 1983); instruction (Wagner, 1983), word transmission (Paribakht, 1985), and interview (Raupach, 1983). These tasks did not produce different communication strategies, however, from the application of such tasks, nine taxonomies of communication strategies in second/foreign language learning have been produced. (see Dornyei and Scott, 1997).
5. Tasks in the study of interlanguage pragmatics
Interlanguage pragmatic studies interaction in terms of how different types of speech acts are performed by NNSs with a variety of language background and target languages (Kasper, 1989). It focuses on the meaning in relation to speech situation. Interlanguage pragrmatics may be dealing with interaction between native speaker and non-native speaker or among non-native speakers in various kinds of communication setting.
Interlanguage pragmatics as a research discipline is relatively younger than other interlanguage studies such as interlanguage phonology, syntax and semantics. In relation to second/foreign language acquisition, interlanguage pragmatic research has centered on the realization of request in the learner’s interlanguage in comparison to native speaker performance resulting data collections of requests in natives as well as non-natives, e.g. Tannen (1981) (English and Greek); House-Kasper (1981) (English and German); House-Kasper (1987) (English, Danish and German); Blum-Kulka (1983) (Hebrew and English).
Interlanguage pragmatic is a complicated study of speech act realization that the tasks designed to elicit data also need careful considerations from the researchers. Cohen (1995) stated that there are two basic methods for interlanguage pragmatic studies. The first method is ethnography where the researchers collect the data from natural conversation of the native speakers and the nonnative speakers. This method has been found to be effective for collecting certain speech acts such as compliments (Wolfson, 1989), while Aguilar Murillo, Agular and Meditz (1991) found that speech act of apologizing was time consuming and hard to achieve. The second alternative is using elicited methods where the researchers elicit speech act data from role simulation activities. This kind of method has been used for study of interlanguage pragmatic for quite sometime (see Trosborg, 1996; Gass and Neu (1995).
Furthermore, Cohen (1995) suggests that for elicited data for interlanguage pragmatic study, there are two types of tasks that have been applied so far. The first type of task is the so-called Discourse Completion Test (DCT) which were firstly introduced by Blum-Kulka (1982). This task is actually a written questionnaire given to the NSSs and NSs on how they actualize a certain type of speech act in particular situation. Other types of tasks used for interlanguage pragmatic is role play (and its variant of role enactment (Trosborg, 1996) and simulation (see also Gass and Neu, 1995; Faerch and Kasper, 1987).
Like in the conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and communications strategies, the tasks in interlanguage pragmatics do not play as crucial role as in the study of input and interaction. The tasks for interlanguage pragmatic study is used in order to elicit data for particular speech act, the tasks in the study of input and interaction influence the projected interaction very significantly. (see the review from Pica, 1994, Wagner, 1996).
6. Conclusion
From the discussion above, it can be concluded that tasks play a very important role eliciting data for the study of interaction. From the study of interaction many forms of tasks have been used, among others are information gap task, jigsaw tasks, problem solving task, decision making tasks, information exchange tasks and many others which promote learners to use the target language. In terms of communication strategies and interlanguage pragmatics tasks are designed in such a way to meet the purposes of the study. Creativity of lecturers and researchers are still needed to support and promote language learners use the target language as much as possible that will eventually produce abundant data needed and thus promote second and foreign language learning.
7. References
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Pica, T & Doughty ,C. (1985). The role of group work in classroom second language acquisition. Studies in second language acquisition, 7, 233-248.
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Pica, T.,Holliday, L., Lewis, N., Berducci, D., & Newman, J. (1991). Language learning through interaction: What role does gender play? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 13.(2), 343-376.
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