Introduction

Martin Bygate University of Leeds

This special issue of Language Teaching Research is devoted to the

theme of tasks in language teaching. The term ‘pedagogic task’
refers broadly to structured, bounded, purposeful activities
involving the processing of language, which learners undertake in
order to learn. They are used both inside and outside classrooms,
and can vary widely in kind and purpose. They may involve
listening, speaking, reading and writing. They may vary in their
grammatical, lexical, or discourse focus. They may be undertaken
by learners individually, or in groups, or with a teacher. They may
be more or less scripted in terms of the language to be used, more
or less controlled in terms of the ways in which the learners can
work, involving varying degrees of processing for meaning
(although communicative and task-based approaches to language
teaching insist on this as a central ingredient), and more or less
open in terms of the possible outcomes (see Pica, Kanagy and
Falodun, 1993). What they have in common is that they consist of
some kind of brief for learner action, the learners’ use of language
in response to that brief, and the fact that they are undertaken in
order to promote some aspect of learning (Ellis, this issue, discusses
the definition of tasks more fully).
Tasks are then a major locus for learners’ involvement with the
language in order to promote its learning. It is important to note,
however, that tasks can be studied from a wide range of theoretical
perspectives, each one illuminating different aspects of the
teaching–learning process. Further, the choice of task as unit of
analysis does not pre-empt the choice of language-teaching
approach, or of research methodology used to explore it. This
special issue illustrates some of the ways in which this can be done,
and indicates a wealth of potential directions.
Address for correspondence: School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT;
[email protected]

© Arnold 2000 1362–1688(00)LR067.ED

186 Introduction

Why now an interest in pedagogic tasks? In past decades, much

professional attention has focused on promoting or evaluating
principles of method, methodology, or learning theory. More
recently, however, in what Kumaravadivelu (1994) has termed a
‘post-method’ era, interest has shifted away from a principal
concern with the packaging of teaching approaches towards
understanding the repertoires of different kinds of tasks available
to teachers and learners. The assumption is that informed selection
and use – by teachers and by learners – of a range of tasks is more
important for successful learning than seeking to identify an ideal
combination of teaching procedures. Hence, tasks have become a
focus of research interest. Of course whether they are of interest
to teachers is a different – and an empirical – question. There is
some evidence (Mitchell, Parkinson, and Johnstone, 1981) that they
are, and indeed a lot of tasks have been produced by teachers (e.g.
Harper, editor, 1986). One of the key reasons for studying tasks,
however, is the belief that they are a significant site for learning
and teaching.
Although current interest in tasks can be related to a ‘post-
method’ perspective, early preoccupations with tasks by
researchers started in one of two ways, both of them explicitly
articulated in a paper by Johnson (1979). As Johnson put it,
‘methodologies should be based not only on linguistic insights as
the nature of knowledge of language, but also on psycholinguistic
insights as to the processes involved in its use’ (1979: 198). Shortly
after he concludes ‘It is for reasons such as this that fluency in
communicative process [sic] can only develop within “task-oriented
teaching” – one which provides “actual meaning” by focusing on
tasks to be mediated through language, and where success or
failure is seen to be judged in terms of whether or not these tasks
are performed’ (1979: 200). The development of this insight led on
the one hand to the design of relevant syllabuses, and on the other
to researching the impact of tasks on learners.
First, tasks were seen as being of interest by those working to
develop language-teaching methodology, who saw them as a key
tool for promoting a particular approach to language learning and
teaching. That is, the selection of appropriate and relevant tasks
was viewed as central to the design and implementation of specific
types of syllabus or approach (e.g. Harper, editor, 1986, a
 Introduction 187

publication consisting of papers originally written between

1983–84; Candlin and Murphy, 1987; Prabhu, 1987; Hutchinson and
Waters, 1987; Breen, 1989; Swales, 1990; Legutke and Thomas, 1991;
Long and Crookes, 1993; Willis, 1996). Much of this work was
developed by senior teachers working in classrooms, often at
tertiary level, and was largely inspired by a functional view of
language. On the whole, these syllabus-driven developments were
less informed by theories of learning (for example Brumfit’s 1988
summary of the main principles of communicative language
teaching made only minimal reference to learning theory), and, at
least in the early years, were not proposed in the light of systematic
evaluative research.
At the same time, a second major approach to pedagogic tasks
was concerned with evaluating them as contexts for the activation
of key processes of second language learning and use (e.g. Long et
al., 1976, 1981; Brown and Yule, 1983; Doughty and Pica, 1986;
Crookes and Gass, 1993a, b; Robinson, 1995; Skehan and Foster,
1997; Yule, 1997; Bygate, 1999; Ellis and He, 1999; Skehan and
Foster, 1999; Robinson, 2000a). This approach has sometimes
extended into the study of language processing, and has been
linked explicitly with approaches to syllabus development (e.g.
Skehan, 1998; Robinson, 2000b). This tradition adopted a more
empirically based approach, being principally motivated to explore
the impact of tasks on learning. In contrast, it has tended to be less
concerned to investigate the potential of tasks to develop a
complex range of language abilities.
As this brief summary shows, tasks can provide a focus and
context for the study of a number of issues, such as how tasks can
engage learners’ cognitive processes, their discourse, their
attention, their interaction around problem areas of language, and
how tasks can be used in syllabus development. From this
perspective, tasks can be usefully seen as multidimensional,
enabling the study of learners’ language use and development as
a complex (i.e. socially contextualized, functional and
hierarchically structured language) system (Larsen-Freeman,
1997). At the same time, within a post-method perspective, it is
also the case that tasks need not be associated with a single
approach to teaching or learning. Explicit and implicit formal
practice of all kinds is perfectly feasible. As Swales puts it:
188 Introduction

A task-driven methodology thus keeps an appropriate focus on rhetorical

action and communicative effectiveness, however much the means to those
communicative ends may involve, in various ways and to variable extents, the
analysis and discussion of texts and situation, and the teaching and practice of
form.
(1990: 72)

It is worth noting that this early interest in using tasks as a

context for combining a focus on form and a focus on meaning has
strengthened (e.g. Long, 1991; Skehan, 1998; Bygate, 1999;
Robinson, 2000a; Samuda, 2000), and is spreading more generally
throughout the study of language pedagogy (see for instance
Lightbown, 2000). The interest in tasks, however, has since
broadened beyond their role in providing learners with experience
of language use. For instance, researchers have begun to explore
how tasks can be exploited by teachers for purposes of
consciousness-raising (Samuda, 2000), how they might be used to
help raise metalingual awareness (Fotos and Ellis, 1991; Swain and
Lapkin, 2000), to enable mediation of new L2 knowledge through
the use of the L1 (Swain and Lapkin, this issue); as well as for
teacher development (Cameron, 1997).
Viewed from this broadening perspective, then, tasks are
simply a context for learners to experience language in a range of
ways, for teachers and learners to evaluate process and product,
and for teachers to select from, exploit and develop. In other words,
a concern with tasks does not entail an exclusive focus on
commonly occurring non-classroom tasks (as outlined for instance
by Long and Crookes, 1993). Other kinds of tasks, such as
picture-story tasks, picture-differences tasks or dictogloss tasks (see
Swain and Lapkin, this issue) are also of interest. Nor by implication
does it entail a commitment to any single approach to their use
(such as that implied by a task-based syllabus – that is, a
syllabus consisting only of non-classroom tasks, as advocated for
instance by Long and Crookes). Critics of task-based learning, such
as Seedhouse (1999), point to the need for classroom-based
research to justify the implementation of task-based approaches
to language teaching. However, this call needs to be extended
beyond the evaluation of particular teaching approaches to the use
of all task types in language pedagogy, irrespective of teaching
approach.
 Introduction 189

For some (e.g. Cook, 2000), tasks may be viewed as a context for
nothing more than what they see as dreary, real-life ‘work’;
however, for many (see notably Legutke and Thomas, 1991, but also
perhaps several of the papers in this issue), tasks simply provide a
means of enabling learners to experience and explore the widest
range of types and functions of language possible within the
classroom, and to relate classroom activities to non-classroom
contexts. For the development of language teaching, then, it is
sensible to study the potential of such a central element of the
teacher’s professional activity.
This special issue of Language Teaching Research contributes to
the sense of diversity suggested by the foregoing. It brings together
five papers that reflect sharply contrasting approaches to the study
of pedagogic tasks, all of them of interest. The paper by Ellis
provides a perspective on research into pedagogic tasks, concluding
with a call to explore more fully the overall pedagogic use of tasks,
particularly from the two theoretical and practical perspectives of
planning and improvisation. Lynch and Maclean report the use of
a task which is structured so that the students naturally recycle the
same material through a series of interactions with their fellow
students. The authors study the ways in which the oral L2
performance of two of their adult language students changes in the
course of the activity. The paper also suggests the potential value
of building survey studies on analyses of data which examine each
participant’s language output in its own terms. Swain and Lapkin
show how French immersion students’ use of L1 on two tasks can
help task performance, particularly for weaker students, and how it
can relate to the quality of students’ written output. One question
emerging here is whether the use of the L1 by low achieving
students can itself be exploited to enable them to manage without
it, or whether supporting tools are needed. Dörnyei and Kormos’s
paper contributes to the study of the relatively neglected issue of
how task performance relates to socio-affective attributes of
individual learners, and in doing so casts a keen light on some of
the issues in classroom-based research into tasks. The findings
reported raise the question of the source of task motivation (how
far does this derive from the task itself, and how much from the
legitimacy it is perceived to have by being included in the official
course book?) and suggest a number of interesting dynamics
190 Introduction

underlying task performance. Finally, Johnson’s paper opens an

unusual perspective on our understanding of tasks, through an
account of an empirical study of the processes of task design
employed by specialist and non-specialist designers. This paper uses
teachers’ and materials writers’ insights in an original way to shed
light on the nature of tasks. It also raises questions about the
conceptual framework of experienced teachers and materials
writers, about the nature of design expertise, and suggests
potentially rich links between the cognitive processes of materials
production and the empirical study of tasks in use.
The development of such studies is to be welcomed. They help
shed fresh light on the principles by which tasks can be developed
and used in language classrooms. In developing tasks, we are
concerned with extending the resources – and our understanding
of them – for teaching and learning. For this two things of course
are crucial. One is the richness of the underlying rationale for
the design and use of tasks. The other is the need for empirical
study to understand the implications for learning and teaching of
professional decisions underlying their use. The one needs to
inform the other. We believe the papers in this issue contribute to
this aim.

Breen, M. 1989: The evaluation cycle for language learning tasks. In

Johnson, R.K., editor, The second language curriculum. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 187–206.
Brown, G. and Yule, G., 1983: Teaching the spoken language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Brumfit, C.J. 1988: Introduction. In Brumfit, C.J., editor, Communicative
language teaching. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. Vol. 8 –
1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bygate, M. 1999: Task as context for the framing, reframing and unframing
of language. System 27: 33–48.
Bygate, M., Skehan, P. and Swain, M., editors, in press: Researching
pedagogic tasks: second language learning, teaching and testing.
Harlow, Essex: Longman.
Cameron, L.J. 1997: The task as a unit for teacher development. ELT
Journal 51: 345–51.
Candlin, C. and Murphy, D., editors, 1987: Language learning tasks.
Lancaster Practical Papers in English Language Education, Vol. 7.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall International & Lancaster:
Lancaster University.
 Introduction 191

Cook, G. 2000: Language play, language learning. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.
Crookes, G. and Gass, S.M., editors, 1993a: Tasks and language learning.
Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.
–––– 1993b: Tasks in a pedagogical context. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual
Matters.
Doughty, C. and Pica, T. 1986: ‘Information gap’ tasks: do they facilitate
second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly 10(2): 305–25.
Ellis, R. 2000: Non-reciprocal tasks: comprehension and second language
acquisition. In Bygate, M., Skehan, P. and Swain, M., editors, (in
press).
Ellis, R. and He, X. 1999: The roles of modified input and output in the
incidental acquisition of word meanings. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition 21(2): 285–302.
Fotos, S. and Ellis, R. 1991: Communicating about grammar: a task-based
approach. TESOL Quarterly 25(2): 605–28.
Harper, D., editor, 1986: ESP for the university. ELT Docs. 123. Oxford:
Pergamon Press in association with the British Council.
Hutchinson, T. and Waters, A. 1987: English for specific purposes. A
learning-centred approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, K. 1979: Communicative approaches and communicative
processes. In Brumfit, C.J. and Johnson, K., editors, The com-
municative approach to language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 192–205.
Kumaravadivelu, B. 1994: The postmethod condition: merging strategies
for second/foreign language teaching. TESOL Quarterly 28: 27–48.
Larsen-Freeman, D. 1997: Chaos/complexity science and second language
acquisition. Applied Linguistics 18: 141–65.
Legutke, M. and Thomas, H. 1991: Process and experience in the language
classroom. London: Longman.
Lightbown, P.L. 2000: Classroom SLA research and second language
teaching. Applied Linguistics 21(4) (in press).
Long, M.H. 1981: Input, interaction and second language acquisition.
Annals of New York Academy of Sciences 259–78.
–––– 1989: Task, group, and task-group interactions. University of Hawai’i
Working Papers in ESL 8: 1–26.
–––– 1991: Focus on form: a design feature in language teaching
methodology. In De Bot, K., Ginsberg, R. and Kramsch, C., editors,
Foreign language research in cross-linguistic perspective. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins, 39–52.
Long, M., Adams, L., McLean, M. and Castanos, F. 1976: Doing things
with words: verbal interaction in lockstep and small group classroom
situations. In Fanselow, J. and Crymes, R. editors, On TESOL ’76.
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192 Introduction

Long, M.H. and Crookes, G. 1993: Units of analysis in syllabus design:

the case for task. In Crookes, G. and Gass, S.M., 1993b, 9–54.
Mitchell, R., Parkinson, B. and Johnstone, R. 1981: The foreign language
classroom: an observational study. Stirling Educational Monographs
no. 9. Department of Education, University of Stirling.
Pica, T., Kanagy, R. and Falodun, J. 1993: Choosing and using
communication tasks for second language instruction. In Crookes, G.
and Gass, S.M., editors, 1993a, 9–34.
Prabhu, N.S. 1987: Second language pedagogy. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Robinson, P. 1995: Task complexity and second language narrative
discourse. Language Learning 45: 99–140.
–––– 2000a: Task complexity, task difficulty and task production:
exploring interactions in a componential framework. To appear in
Applied Linguistics.
–––– 2000b: Task complexity, cognitive resources, and second language
syllabus design: a triadic framework for examining task influences on
SLA. In Robinson, P., editor, Cognition and second language
instruction. New York: Cambridge University Press (in press).
Samuda, V. 2000: Guiding relationships between form and meaning during
task performance: the role of the teacher. In Bygate, M., Skehan, P.
and Swain, M., editors (in press).
Seedhouse, P. 1999. Task-based interaction. ELT Journal 53: 149–56.
Skehan, P. 1998: A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Skehan, P. and Foster, P. 1997: Task type and task processing conditions
as influences on foreign language performance. Language Teaching
Research 1(3): 185–211.
–––– 1999: The influence of task structure and processing conditions on
narrative retellings. Language Learning 49: 93–120.
Swain, M. and Lapkin, S. 2000: Focus on form through collaborative
dialogue: exploring task effects. In Bygate, M., Skehan, P. and Swain,
M., editors (in press).
Swales, J. 1990. Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Willis, J. 1996: A framework for task-based learning. London: Longman.
Yule, G. 1997: Referential communication tasks. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.