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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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 Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2006 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
| Does anyone know of any other textbooks - preferably ones available in bookshops in Korea - with recordings of people actually performing a task, as the article recommends? All too often all you get is wooden, artificial dialogues that have been constructed around whatever grammar point the chapter is focusing on so it's no wonder students can't relate it to real life situations. So the teacher ends up having to record a lot of stuff themself and basically write their own book, which, as someone pointed out, isn't going to happen a lot of the time. So recommendations anyone? |
I don't know of any textbooks, but I'd suggest seeing if you can get friends and coworkers to perform the tasks - you don't have to write anything, just give them the task and let them go for it. Proficient non-natives can play too. Of course, if this is what you have been doing and are sick of, my apologies for not being very helpful. |
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different
Joined: 22 May 2003
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| Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:41 pm Post subject: |
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I'm confused now.
After reading this thread I looked in Jeremy Harmer's How to Teach English for some clarification on the difference between PPP and TBL. It helped somewhat BUT then he talked about "Communicative Language Teaching" like it's different from both PPP and TBL!
I thought communicative language teaching meant giving students lots of time to practice using their knowledge in communication tasks. Well designed PPP and TBL lessons can both give students lots of practice. What's the difference between these approaches and CLT? |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:32 pm Post subject: |
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| different wrote: |
I'm confused now.
After reading this thread I looked in Jeremy Harmer's How to Teach English for some clarification on the difference between PPP and TBL. It helped somewhat BUT then he talked about "Communicative Language Teaching" like it's different from both PPP and TBL!
I thought communicative language teaching meant giving students lots of time to practice using their knowledge in communication tasks. Well designed PPP and TBL lessons can both give students lots of practice. What's the difference between these approaches and CLT? |
PPP and TBL are approaches within the CLT paradigm. |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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I always thought the best approach was to present the structures the students need to perform the "task", then give them the task to work on in groups.
Expecting students to do the task with no idea of the language or vocabulary needed is .........well, you figure it out.  |
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Hanson
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
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| Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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Some teachers I know take the TBL approach way too far. One specifically that I know of simply gives students a task to do, the students do it and then he grades it. Doesn't seem to have any learning going on other than what the students are getting from their group mates, which even then, is often wrong.
I agree with posters above, a mix is essential. |
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Atassi
Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Location: 평택
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| Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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I like some of the comments so far. The first thing that struck me when I read the title to the article is the assumption that these approaches are noncombinable. Tasks are necessary, and PPP is a good method to keep in mind. But do we really have to choose that PPP will get either all or none of our attention? Of course not.....
Good topic though for anyone who is serious about this field. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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from englishdroid.com
PPP
Presentation, Practice, Production. Old-fashioned methodology, where you teach the students something like �be going to� for future plans, then they practise simple sentences (controlled practice), then they start using it all the time (free practice). The only problem with PPP is that it does not work.
task-based learning
Brilliant skive. You and the students just piss about, writing a brochure or drawing pictures or building a website, and you never have to teach them grammar or anything. They just magically absorb English. Highly recommended, if you can get away with it. |
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Atassi
Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Location: 평택
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| Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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3 Ps are old-fashioned yes. I hereby present the new and improved 3 Ps!
(1) students need to be Presented with new material (implicitly or explicitly)
(2) they need to have opportunities to Practice using it (skits are great for this part)
(3) they need opportunities to hopefully Produce the target language (can be in class or out). Basically this means that the language should be useful enough to be encountered or needed outside of class. I know I know, we're in Korea...
You can use these 3 Ps along with task-based learning, where the practice comes from the tasks themselves.[/b] |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:06 am Post subject: |
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In an ideal world I think TBL is supposed to involve modelling the task through a real life example in text or voice form. The teacher then has the delicate task of choosing which parts of the model if any to highlight. TBL also means tons of extra preparation and nimble footwork from the teacher as the messy nature of the authentic English and solving the task itself could throw up all kinds of unexpected problems and queries. So ideally the teacher will have a range of material prepared for different eventualities and also be mentally prepared to handle feedback, encouragement and error correction as it comes up. Of course the teacher should be actively monitoring in the PPP approach as well but in PPP you have a better idea of what your script is going to be.
TBL is supposed to get around the disadvantage of PPP which is that it's too artificial. In PPP students end up concentrating solely on the modelled sentences, forget about meaning and communication, and use the target structures in non-natural inappropriate ways.
In the non-ideal world the teacher says here's your task then sits back. But is that the approach's fault? |
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different
Joined: 22 May 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| I always thought the best approach was to present the structures the students need to perform the "task", then give them the task to work on in groups. |
That sounds good, if you have an engaging task. Is that PPP? I guess it's not TBL, because according to the article at the start of this thread, in TBL the teacher explains structures after the students have tried the activity and prepared some kind of report about their experiences.
| Quote: |
| current SLA research suggests that TBL is more effective than PPP |
Gang Ah Jee, that statement sounds overly general. Where can I read this SLA research you're referring to? |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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| different wrote: |
| Quote: |
| current SLA research suggests that TBL is more effective than PPP |
Gang Ah Jee, that statement sounds overly general. Where can I read this SLA research you're referring to? |
Well, I did say 'suggests', but yeah, it's a fair enough question. The answer is the same place you'd read research on any other topic - peer reviewed journals! Unfortunately, most teachers outside of university contexts don't have access to these, but if you pm me your email address I have a pdf file of a state-of-the-art article on instructed language learning lying around on disk somewhere that I can send you.
The other option is books about TBL, Task-Based Learning and Teaching by Rod Ellis (2003) probably being the definitive volume at this point. Here's a review:
http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESl-EJ/ej27/r5.html
It's expensive and technical, however.
edit: also, try your luck searching on the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) and Google Scholar
Last edited by gang ah jee on Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Atassi
Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Location: 평택
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| That sounds good, if you have an engaging task. Is that PPP? I guess it's not TBL, because according to the article at the start of this thread, in TBL the teacher explains structures after the students have tried the activity and prepared some kind of report about their experiences. |
That was my peeve about the article in the first place. These methods only present ideas and guidelines to follow. TBL can look very different in different classrooms, the general idea is the same. To my knowledge no one promoting the use of tasks in the classroom comes out to say that target language cannot be given before students tackle the task. On the contrary, doing so is highly relevant to the task if the language is useful in completing the task. And let's face it, our students need suggestions most of the time on what language they can use during the task. This is still TBL. And it can also be PPP. |
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