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Task-Based Language Teaching in Foreign Language Contexts
Task-Based Language Teaching:
Issues, Research and Practice (TBLT)
Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) is an educational framework for
the theory and practice of teaching second or foreign languages. The TBLT
book series is devoted to the dissemination of TBLT issues and practices,
and to fostering improved understanding and communication across the
various clines of TBLT work.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
http://benjamins.com/catalog/tblt

Editors
Martin Bygate John M. Norris Kris Van den Branden
University of Lancaster University of Hawaii at Manoa KU Leuven

Volume 4
Task-Based Language Teaching in Foreign Language Contexts.
Research and implementation
Edited by Ali Shehadeh and Christine A. Coombe
Task-Based Language Teaching
in Foreign Language Contexts
Research and implementation

Edited by

Ali Shehadeh
UAE University

Christine A. Coombe
Dubai Men’s College

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Amsterdam / Philadelphia
 TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8

the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence

of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Task-based language teaching in foreign language contexts : research and implementation

/ edited by Ali Shehadeh, Christine A. Coombe.
p. cm. (Task-Based Language Teaching, issn 1877-346X ; v. 4)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
11. Language and languages--Study and teaching--Methodology. 2. Second language
acquisition--Methodology. 3. Task analysis in education. I. Shehadeh, Ali.
II. Coombe, Christine A. (Christine Anne), 1962-
P53.82.T356 2012
418.0071--dc23 2012020908
isbn 978 90 272 0723 4 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 0724 1 (Pb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 7342 0 (Eb)

© 2012 – John Benjamins B.V.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
We would like to dedicate this work to the memory of Teresa Pica, a
luminary in the TBLT world, who wrote the foreword to the volume,
but sadly passed away before its publication (Teresa Pica 1945–2011).
 Table of contents

Preface xi

Foreword xv
Teresa Pica

chapter 1
Introduction: Broadening the perspective of task-based language teaching
scholarship: The contribution of research in foreign language contexts 1
Ali Shehadeh

section i. Variables affecting task-based language learning and performance

chapter 2
Effects of task complexity and pre-task planning on Japanese
EFL learners’ oral production 23
Shoko Sasayama and Shinichi Izumi

chapter 3
Measuring task complexity: Does EFL proficiency matter? 43
Aleksandra Malicka and Mayya Levkina

chapter 4
Effects of strategic planning on the accuracy of oral and written tasks
in the performance of Turkish EFL learners 67
Zubeyde Sinem Genc

chapter 5
Effects of task instructions on text processing and learning
in a Japanese EFL college nursing setting 89
Yukie Horiba and Keiko Fukaya
 Task-Based Language Teaching in Foreign Language Contexts: Research and implementation

chapter 6
Task structure and patterns of interaction: What can we learn
from observing native speakers performing tasks? 109
James Hobbs

section ii. Implementation of task-based language teaching

chapter 7
Patterns of corrective feedback in a task-based adult
EFL classroom setting in China 137
Noriko Iwashita and Huifang (Lydia) Li

chapter 8
Incidental learner-generated focus on form in a task-based
EFL classroom 163
Paul J. Moore

chapter 9
Qualitative differences in novice teachers’ enactment
of task-based language teaching in Hong Kong primary classrooms 187
Sui Ping (Shirley) Chan

chapter 10
Implementing computer-assisted task-based language teaching
in the Korean secondary EFL context 215
Moonyoung Park

chapter 11
Task-based language teaching through film-oriented activities
in a teacher education program in Venezuela 241
Carmen Teresa Chacón

chapter 12
Task-based language teacher education in an undergraduate
program in Japan 267
Daniel O. Jackson

chapter 13
Incorporating a formative assessment cycle into task-based
language teaching in a university setting in Japan 287
Christopher Weaver
 Table of contents 

chapter 14
Language teachers’ perceptions of a task-based learning programme
in a French University 313
Julie McAllister, Marie-Françoise Narcy-Combes,
and Rebecca Starkey-Perret

epilogue. What is next for task-based language teaching?

chapter 15
TBLT in EFL settings: Looking back and moving forward 345
David Carless

About the contributors 359

Index 363
 Preface

We are very pleased to welcome Task-based language teaching in foreign language con-
texts: Research and implementation, edited by Ali Shehadeh and Christine Coombe, as
the fourth volume in this series on task-based language teaching. As the volume edi-
tors note in their introduction, the common thread that provides coherence to this
collection of studies is a focus on how tasks are being researched or used in a wide
variety of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) educational settings in order to un-
ravel the complexities and peculiarities of researching and implementing TBLT in
these contexts. As such, the volume adds a range of new studies to the steadily growing
research base on the implementation of TBLT in the language classroom. This the
volume accomplishes not only in quantitative terms, but also in terms of scope: While
historically, many of the available studies into the use of tasks in intact classrooms were
carried out in contexts of second language teaching and learning, this volume focuses
exclusively on the use of tasks in the teaching of English as a foreign language.
The theoretical framework on language learning underpinning the rationale be-
hind TBLT has tended to emphasize that processes of second language (SL) learning
and foreign language (FL) learning have a lot in common. For both SL and FL learn-
ing, social interaction embedded in holistic, goal-directed activity is centrally seen as
the means for deep-level language learning. The importance of comprehensible and
rich input, focus on form, speaking opportunities, and feedback are stressed in both
contexts. As a result, in many publications on task-based language learning, the term
“second language learning” is used by authors as an umbrella term covering both for-
eign and second language learning processes. However, one of the interesting ques-
tions this volume raises is whether SL and FL teaching through tasks have as much in
common. From a TBLT perspective, foreign language teaching may differ from second
language teaching contexts in a number of ways. For example, in a FL context, and
contrary to a SL context, students may lack opportunities and/or pressure to put what
they learnt in the classroom to proper use in the outside world. Secondly, foreign lan-
guage teachers may find it much harder than second language teachers to introduce
authentic material and texts in the classroom, to point out the usefulness of certain
tasks, to motivate their learners to use the target language in the classroom, and to
encourage them to put effort in acquiring and studying it. Thirdly, teaching languages
as a subject (as is typically done in the case of foreign language teaching) may add to
both learners’ and teachers’ view of the target language as an object of study, rather
than as a useful means for functional communication or as something with direct
relevance to learners’ needs. As a result, practitioners in the field of foreign language
 Task-Based Language Teaching in Foreign Language Contexts: Research and implementation

teaching might be expected to be (even) more hesitant than second language teachers
to use tasks in the classroom, and to be more inclined to stick to the use of more tradi-
tional, grammar-based methods of teaching and testing. Fourthly, in most FL contexts,
most or all of the students generally share the same L1, so that in the classroom the
target language is not a lingua franca but an additional and often unnecessary alterna-
tive medium.
Indeed, the various articles in this volume empirically substantiate the wide range
of factors that complicate the introduction and implementation of TBLT in EFL class-
rooms. In their introduction, the volume editors group these factors into three types:
institutional factors (comprising, amongst others, issues like class size, official exam
pressure, available materials, and mixed-proficiency classes), teacher factors (e.g.,
teachers’ beliefs and subjective theories on language teaching, their need to control
what goes on in the classroom, their interactive skills), and student factors (e.g., their
beliefs about effective language learning, their preferences for certain methodological
formats, their level of assertiveness). Many of these factors have been mentioned in
previous publications on the implementation of TBLT as considerably complexifying
the use of tasks in authentic classrooms: the combined presence of large/huge class
sizes, grammar-based exams, forms-focused teacher and student beliefs, lockstep-type
curriculum, and teacher-dominated traditions of teaching have been reported to turn
the introduction of TBLT into a real ‘challenge’ (and we probably should take that as
an understatement). This has been particularly, though not exclusively, the case in
publications on the implementation of TBLT in Asian contexts. In this respect, it is
fascinating to see that this volume reports on studies that were carried out in different
countries around the world: in addition to numerous studies from Asian countries,
European and American settings are also represented, which allows the reader to draw
a wide range of interesting comparisons.
In fact, some of the above-mentioned factors hindering the introduction of tasks
in authentic classrooms do again turn up in a number of chapters in this volume, but
at the same time they do not in other chapters, or they play a surprising and unantici-
pated role. Indeed, some of the chapters in this volume report on success stories with
the use of tasks. Strikingly, the accounts of successful implementation of TBLT do not
appear to be geographically bound: they are reported in Asian, Venezuelan, and French
EFL classrooms. It is also worth highlighting that in most of these success stories the
teacher played a crucial role. This pattern lends support to the insight that the actual
impact of potentially complexifying factors tends to be mediated by the teachers and
the students in the first place, and by other change agents (such as syllabus and exam
developers, and teacher trainers and coaches) in the second place. This corroborates
the basic insight that when it comes to promoting the use of tasks in the foreign lan-
guage classroom, the teacher is a key figure. Structural and institutional measures, like
reducing class sizes and making available new syllabuses, may help to pave the way, but
if teachers lack the skills and the motivation to work with tasks (and the basic belief
that task-based interaction fosters language learning), no real change will take place.
 Preface 

So, in many, perhaps all, foreign language teaching contexts, the implementation of
TBLT will need to include a strategic policy plan on teacher training and support.
Clearly, this volume does not answer all questions on the implementation of TBLT
in EFL contexts. In fact, it raises new questions, as a good book will. As a collection of
a wide variety of studies carried out in different parts of the globe where English lan-
guage learning persists as an important educational target for diverse types of learners,
it illustrates both (a) the possibilities for language educational innovation, in particu-
lar at the classroom, teacher, and learner levels; and (b) the kind of methodologies that
might be used when further pursuing this research path and the kinds of more nu-
anced questions in need of answers. At the same time, the volume provides another
colorful illustration that in different continents, and in different educational settings
(from primary schools to higher education), practitioners are experimenting with
tasks in ever-more sophisticated ways, in the effort to make their language teaching
more functional, more usage-based, and more powerful. Ultimately, it is what happens
in a range of distinctive contexts that provides a measure for the generalizability of the
approach, as well as providing the variety of real world challenges that an approach like
TBLT needs to enable its full development.
 Foreword

Teresa Pica
University of Pennsylvania, USA

Task-based language teaching in foreign language contexts: Research and implementa-

tion – from its title to its table of contents and authors, and across its chapters, this
important volume builds on, and enhances task-based teaching and research in con-
texts where English is not readily available beyond the classroom (e.g., Turkey,
Thailand) or is available in the wider community, but is seldom learned as an L1 there-
in (e.g., Hong Kong). The volume includes contributions from countries such as Japan
and Spain, where publications on task-based language teaching (TBLT) have long been
widely disseminated, and from countries such as Venezuela, whose work on TBLT
might have been unfamiliar to readers prior to this volume. The chapter entries cover
topics and concerns that are characteristic of TBLT across ESL contexts, including the
role of planning in task implementation or task outcomes in fluency and accuracy, as
well as those that are shared between ESL and EFL contexts, such as task-based assess-
ment within a national English curriculum.
“Foreign” languages typically originate in classroom contexts, where they are pur-
sued as an academic endeavor or in compliance with education policy. However, many
foreign language learners go on to use learned languages for academic, business, or
scientific communication beyond their original site of learning. Editors Shehadeh and
Coombe have selected topics and authors that focus on English as an example of such
a foreign language, and on the issues that surround its teaching and research in FL
contexts. In so doing, their collection builds on the substantial body of work by Doughty
and Long on critical “foreign” languages such as Korean, Chinese, and Arabic, and by
Gass and Van Patten on Spanish learning in US university classrooms (see, e.g., Doughty
& Long, 2003; Gass & Alvarez-Torres, 2005; Van Patten, 2002). The success of these
research-based projects, accomplished primarily in controlled settings, has activated a
great deal of thinking about the ways in which tasks can be used to address the scope
and scale of EFL teaching and research in broader contexts, and to do so through a
classroom focus and a longitudinal approach. As it builds on this foundation, the cur-
rent volume pioneers explorations into territories of FL teaching which have so far
been neglected in much of TBLT research.
 Teresa Pica

Over the past several decades, tasks have generated increasing interest among
educators and researchers, and provided them with an opportunity to respond to the
challenges of their fields in complementary and productive ways. The vitality and
versatility of the task as an instructional tool, a research instrument, and a learning
activity becomes especially evident when viewed with respect to the pedagogic, socio-
cultural, linguistic, and cognitive processes that contribute to successful language
learning. Since their formalized inception in the early work of Long and Prabhu
(see, e.g., Long, 1985; Prabhu, 1987), tasks have brought forth a focus on design fea-
tures that have made them suitable as course syllabus units (Willis, 1996), classroom
activities (Nunan, 1989), enhancements to the language curriculum (Crookes & Gass,
1993), and as tools for assessment (e.g., Norris, Brown, Hudson, & Yoshioka, 1998).
These pedagogic features have also made tasks effective treatments for encourag-
ing learners to engage in goal-oriented social interaction during which they exchange
information and negotiate to achieve its comprehensibility. As they do so, they modify
their messages and signal their difficulties. These interaction moves enable learners
(and teachers) to provide each other with modified, comprehensible input and correc-
tive feedback, and to respond to each other with their own modified output. These
linguistic manipulations shed light on cognitive processes such as noticing, attention,
and awareness. Together, the modifications and processes serve as a source of data
for researchers as they study language development and outcomes (Iwashita, 2003;
Mackey, 1999).
The versatility of tasks is further revealed as they are implemented by teachers and
researchers for independent or joint purposes. A problem-solving task, for example,
can originate in a student textbook or professional resource guide. A teacher might
assign the task to a group of students, making sure the information needed to solve the
problem is distributed evenly, so that each student can engage in collaborative plan-
ning and practice. The same task might be adopted by the researcher, and used with
the same student group, in order to study the linguistic features of their planning and
practice and the ways in which they provide modified, comprehensible input and out-
put in their exchange of information. An interview task, used as a classroom activity
for students to access information for writing a report or planning a project, can also
provide data on linguistic forms and manipulations required for question formation
(Mackey, 1999) and on students’ ability to encode and respond to each other’s conver-
sational adjustments (Pica, Kang, & Sauro, 2006). A comparison task applied to deci-
sion-making projects, pictures, and texts can promote turn-taking and classroom
communication, as it provides data for the researcher to study learners’ development
of English morphemes, such as – er and – est (Loschky & Bley-Vroman, 1993).
In addition to their versatility and appeal to teachers and researchers, tasks have
played an important role in responding to theoretical and practical challenges posed
by approaches to learning and instruction, curriculum design, classroom language
study, and assessment of language skills. As such, tasks are helping to address the long-
standing debate over the effectiveness of direct and indirect instructional approaches
 Foreword 

in meeting learners’ linguistic needs. It is widely held that direct approaches are effec-
tive when forms are simple and when criteria for their learning can be transparently
defined in terms of explicit knowledge and assessed by discrete-point testing. For dif-
ficult and complex forms to be internalized and used automatically, however, implicit
and incidental approaches, albeit much slower in their impact on learning, are be-
lieved to be required. Even here, tasks which indirectly engage the strategic use of
target features are seen as offering an essential dimension of learning. As research by
Pica et al. (2006) has revealed, difficult forms can be readily incorporated into text-
based tasks, and both direct and indirect approaches can be applied to their implemen-
tation. Comparison studies are underway to resolve this debate (see, e.g., Ellis, 2003;
Pica, et al., 2006).
Tasks have also been used to address issues that surround the design of the lan-
guage curriculum (see, for example, Pica, 2009). One of the foremost criticisms of
task-based instruction has been that its approach to task specification and selection
does not explicitly address the forms, sequences, and processes of language learning.
Of course, this standard has not been applied to other instructional approaches, per-
haps because their ordered arrangement of linguistic units gives the appearance that
they reflect these characteristics of language and learning. Nonetheless, it is well docu-
mented that language acquisition is a multidimensional process, does not often follow
a stage-wise path, and occurs most efficiently in meaningful contexts, rich in compre-
hensible input, with opportunities for feedback and production of modified output.
These are the very attributes that task-based instruction has to offer, and the chapters
of this volume provide a springboard for further research on the design of an effective,
task-based curriculum.
As Shehadeh (this volume) and others (e.g., Ellis, 2009; Van den Branden, 2006)
point out, it is unfortunate that most of the tasks used in research have been imple-
mented under controlled (i.e., laboratory-like) conditions rather than in authentic
classroom settings. Some studies in this volume as well as in the broader literature have
begun to gather data by implementing tasks in authentic classrooms, but as extra-
curricular activities, added on to the regular classroom agenda. Such researcher-dom-
inated practices have been shown to generate concerns among learners that they are
subjects in a study rather than students in a classroom (see, e.g., Pica, et al., 2006).
These learner perceptions raise questions about the simultaneous validity of tasks as
both attractive classroom activities but also research tools. Whereas considerable
strides have been made in the design of tasks, there remains a need for approaches
where task designs meet the twin demands of being genuine learning activities as well
as effective research tools within authentic classroom settings.
Research to date has revealed the ways in which tasks can be designed to activate
linguistic and cognitive processes that are needed for successful language learning.
However, achieving learning outcomes is ultimately what students, teachers, and re-
searchers want and deserve. Longitudinal studies of sustained task-based coursework
can reveal the extent to which successful outcomes are possible in the foreign language
 Teresa Pica

classroom, and whether tasks can play a defining role. This type of work can also pro-
vide answers to questions that arise after more typical, one or two week studies, as to
why students all too often fail to retain the very features they had been able to use dur-
ing the studies. Was a task-based intervention withdrawn too early? Had it been poor-
ly designed? Were the students simply not ready to internalize the task form or feature?
What was the teacher’s apparent role in implementation and outcomes? Such ques-
tions require close, long-term observation by the researcher and sustained interest
among the researcher, the teachers, and their students. As this volume includes studies
in classrooms where students might remain for lengthy periods, its chapters provide a
promising basis for addressing these questions.
One final concern about tasks relates to education and language policy and the
restrictions it often places on classroom practice. Many teachers and their students are
eager to join researchers in using tasks, but their involvement is limited by a curricu-
lum that is pre-set by policy and tradition (and often by external assessments as well).
As teachers and researchers become more informed, more professionalized, and more
visible and relevant to each other, so too will opportunities arise for their greater
collaboration and dialogue. As long as teachers and researchers find ways to work to-
gether in the classroom, and remain committed to long-term relationships with lan-
guage learners and with each other, tasks provide principled and informed direction
and guidance. In identifying the opportunities for the study of task-based instruction
in EFL contexts, the editors and chapter authors of Task-based language teaching in
foreign language contexts: Research and implementation serve as a source of motivation
for advancing the importance of tasks and their current and potential contributions to
the field of language studies.

References

Crookes, G., & Gass, S. (Eds.). (1993). Tasks and language learning: Integrating theory and prac-
tice. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Doughty, C., & Long, M. (2003). Optimal psycholinguistic environments for distance foreign
language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 23, 35–73.
Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ellis, R. (2009). The differential effects of three types of tasks planning in the fluency, complex-
ity and accuracy in L2 oral production. Applied Linguistics, 30(4), 474–509.
Gass, S., & Alvarez Torres, M. (2005). Attention when? An investigation of the ordering effect of
input and interaction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 1–31.
Iwashita, N. (2003). Negative feedback and positive evidence in task-based interaction: Differ-
ential effects on L2 development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25,1–36.
Long, M. H. (1985). A role for instruction in second language acquisition: Task-based language
teaching. In K. Hyltenstam, & M. Pienemann (Eds.), Modeling and assessing second lan-
guage development (pp. 77–99). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
 Foreword 

Loschky, L., & Bley-Vroman, R. (1993). Grammar and task-based methodology. In G. Crookes
& S. Gass (Eds.), Tasks and language learning, Vol. 1 (pp. 123–167), Clevedon, UK: Multi-
lingual Matters
Mackey, A. (1999). Input, interaction, and second language development. Studies in Second Lan-
guage Acquisition, 21, 557–588.
Norris, J. M., Brown, J. D., Hudson, T., & Yoshioka, J. (1998). Designing second language perfor-
mance assessment. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center.
Nunan, D. (1989). Designing tasks for the communicative classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Pica, T. (2009). Integrating content-based and task-based approaches for teaching, learning, and
research. In L. Wei & V. Cook (Eds.), Continuum contemporary applied linguistics, Volume 1.
London: Continuum.
Pica, T., Kang, H., & Sauro, S. (2006). Information gap tasks: Their multiple roles and contribu-
tions to interaction research methodology. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28,
301–338.
Prabhu, N. S. (1987). Second language pedagogy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van den Branden, K. (Ed.). (2006). Task-based language education: From theory to practice.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Van Patten, B. (2002). Processing instruction: An update. Language Learning, 52, 755–803.
Willis, J. (1996). A Framework for task-based learning. Harlow, UK: Longman.
 chapter 1

Introduction
Broadening the perspective of task-based
language teaching scholarship: The contribution
of research in foreign language contexts

Ali Shehadeh
UAE University, United Arab Emirates

This chapter introduces the collection of papers and situates it against previous
and current research on task-based language teaching (TBLT). The chapter
first contextualizes the theme of the volume within the field of TBLT, arguing
that there is a need to broaden the perspective of TBLT scholarship to include
the contribution of research in foreign language (FL) contexts. First, it will be
argued, as attested by several contributions to this volume, that the manner in
which TBLT is researched, implemented, and used in FL contexts depends on
conditions and social practices that do not necessarily coincide with those in
second language (SL) contexts. Next, a brief description of what constitutes a
FL, or English as a foreign language (EFL), context will follow as a prelude to the
discussion of the factors and problems that characterize educational settings in
FL contexts. After that, an overview is provided of the chapters that make up this
collection, showing how each chapter contributes to the theme of the volume,
and signaling how it relates to other chapters. The chapter concludes with a few,
but important remarks, on the scope and significance of the volume, calling for
more rigorous research in other EFL settings in the world, which thus far are
underrepresented within TBLT research.

Introduction

In 2009, Kris Van den Branden, Martin Bygate, and John Norris inaugurated a new
book series entitled Task-Based Language Teaching: Issues, Research and Practice with
a volume entitled Task-Based Language Teaching: A Reader. In their introduction to
the volume, Van den Branden, Bygate, and Norris stated:
... there is widespread agreement that tasks, potentially at least, offer a uniquely
powerful resource both for teaching and testing of language. In particular, they
 Ali Shehadeh

provide a locus for bringing together the various dimensions of language, social
context, and the mental processes of individual learners that are key to learning.
There are theoretical grounds, and empirical evidence, for believing that tasks
might be able to offer all the affordances needed for successful instructed language
development, whoever the learners might be, and whatever the context. (p. 11)

The authors based these statements on the extensive and varied literature on task-
based language teaching (TBLT) that has appeared across many journals, edited
volumes, monographs, and special issues in refereed journals like Language Teaching
Research, Language Testing, and International Review of Applied Linguistics, which
speaks of the potential of TBLT as an approach to second/foreign language (L2) learn-
ing and teaching and as a teaching methodology in which classroom tasks constitute
the main focus of instruction and assessment (see Van den Branden et al., 2009, p. 1).
At the same time, research on TBLT has acquired a special value in light of the
shift of focus in research in the last few years from controlled, laboratory conditions to
authentic, naturalistic or classroom contexts (e.g., Ellis, 2009; Van den Branden,
2006b). For instance, Van den Branden (2006b) suggested that “much of the research
concerning TBLT has been conducted in laboratory conditions or in tightly controlled
settings.... Far less empirical research has been carried out where tasks have been used
as the basic units for the organization of educational activities in intact language class-
rooms” (p. 1). However, Van den Branden also points to the expanding research base
that is being developed in intact classrooms or authentic educational contexts, and
indeed combines “a discussion of task-based pedagogical principles with descriptions
of actual applications of task-based language teaching in response to language educa-
tion problems” (p. 13).
This shift illuminates a number of crucial questions such as whether TBLT works
for teachers and learners in the classroom, whether it inspires language teachers when
they prepare their lessons, whether it is compatible with prevailing classroom prac-
tices, how TBLT can be implemented in classes with a wide range of cultural back-
grounds and different levels of proficiency, and how one writes a task-based syllabus
that may need to cover multiple levels of schooling (Van den Branden, 2006b). There
is no wonder, therefore, that Van den Branden et al. (2009) rightly point to the sub-
stantial challenges associated with the belief that “tasks might be able to offer all the
affordances needed for successful instructed language development, whoever the
learners might be, and whatever the context” because “the institutional, cultural, pro-
fessional, and research challenges involved in establishing whether, or how far, this is
the case are substantial” (p. 11).
One of these challenges is providing sufficient empirical knowledge about TBLT
issues, research, and application in varied and authentic foreign language (FL) educa-
tional settings. In 2009, the Asian Journal of English Language Teaching (AJELT) de-
voted a special issue (Volume 19) to the topic titled Task-based Language Teaching in
Asia: Innovation in Research and Practice. Although the AJELT special-issue was a step
 Chapter 1. Introduction 

in that direction, the issue was limited to the Asian context only, and mainly to the
challenges involved in implementing TBLT. For instance, the issue’s guest editors,
Jonathan Newton and Rebecca Adams (2009), stated that “The purpose of this special
issue is to present recent research which further investigates what challenges are in-
volved in implementing TBLT in Asia, how these challenges are experienced by
teachers and students, and how the challenges are responded to” (p. 11).
Some edited collections have focused on relevant phenomena, of course. For ex-
ample, the volume by Leaver and Willis (2004) focused on TBLT implementation in FL
contexts; and the volume by Van den Branden, Van Gorp, and Verhelst (2007), based
on papers presented during the first international TBLT conference, was specifically
devoted to studies into the use of tasks in the classroom. Other edited volumes have
also focused on the use of tasks in the language classroom as well as on issues like tasks
for language testing and assessment, and how tasks can be used for specific classroom
activities or whole courses (e.g., Bygate, Skehan, & Swain, 2001; Edwards & Willis,
2005; Garcia Mayo, 2007; Shehadeh & Coombe, 2010; Van den Branden, 2006a).
Other authored books have focused on other TBLT-related issues like the relation-
ship between research, teaching, and tasks (Ellis, 2003), the effect of planning on task
performance (Ellis, 2005), or tasks within a broad educational and social perspective
(Samuda & Bygate, 2008). On the other hand, a lot of the early work on TBLT was car-
ried out in second language (SL) contexts like Ellis (1987), Lyster and Ranta (1997),
Pica (1987), Pica and Doughty (1985a, 1985b), Van den Branden (1997), and many of
the studies in Bygate, Skehan, and Swain (2001). However, no volume or journal spe-
cial-issue was specifically devoted to providing empirical accounts of TBLT research
and practice in varied and authentic FL, particularly English as a Foreign Language
(EFL), contexts (see also Carless, this volume, for other differences between this vol-
ume and others like Edwards and Willis, 2005, and Shehadeh and Coombe, 2010,
which have also in part explored TBLT in EFL settings).
The concern in the current research on TBLT is that knowledge about TBLT in SL
contexts gets naturalized inadvertently as being about TBLT in general, with the impli-
cation that it is universally valid and easily generalizable across other contexts, includ-
ing FL contexts (see also Manchón, 2009a, 2009b; Ortega, 2009, for similar arguments
in relation to L2 writing in FL vs. SL contexts). For instance, in her introductory
chapter to a recent volume (Manchón, 2009a) that is devoted to theory, research, and
pedagogy on L2 writing in FL contexts, Manchón (2009b) argues that “...mainstream
pedagogical discussions have rarely debated whether or not instructional recommen-
dations for SL contexts apply to FL settings” (p. 2). She also pointed out that “the SL
bias of scholarly work in the field [...] means that the bounds of claims of official dis-
course have not been sufficiently tested across diverse contexts (much less across wide-
ly varying EFL contexts)” (pp. 16–17).
Along the same lines, it is possible to make similar arguments about TBLT re-
search. As will be discussed below, and attested by several contributions to this vol-
ume, the manner in which TBLT is researched, implemented, and practiced in FL
 Ali Shehadeh

contexts depends on a whole set of conditions and social practices that do not neces-
sarily coincide with those in SL contexts. In the following section, I will provide a brief
description of what constitutes a FL context (features, characteristics) as a prelude to
the discussion of the factors and problems that typically constitute educational settings
in FL contexts.

What is a foreign language context?

A distinction is often made between a foreign language (FL) context and a second
language (SL) context. An FL context describes a setting in which the teaching of a
language other than the native language usually occurs in the student’s own country
and as school subject only. An SL context, on the other hand, describes a setting in
which a target language other than the learners’ native language is the medium of in-
struction. It also describes a native language in a place as learnt by people living there
who have another first language. For instance, English in the UK would be called the
SL of many immigrants.
Richards and Schmidt (2010) describe the difference between a foreign language
and a second language more extensively as follows: A foreign language is “a language
which is not the native language of large numbers of people in a particular country or
region, is not used as a medium of instruction in schools, and is not widely used as a
medium of communication in government, media, etc. Foreign languages are typically
taught as school subjects for the purpose of communicating with foreigners or for
reading printed materials in the language” (pp. 224–225). For example, English is de-
scribed as a foreign language in France, Japan, China, Venezuela, and other regions. A
second language, on the other hand, refers to “a language that plays a major role in a
particular country or region though it may not be the first language of many people
who use it” (ibid, p. 514). A second language is a language that is widely used as a me-
dium of communication (e.g., in education and in government) and which is usually
used alongside another language or languages. For example, English is described as a
second language in countries such as Singapore, Nigeria, India, and the Philippines.
Strictly speaking, the distinction between a FL and a SL applies to any language. In
practice, however, the distinction is most often applied to English language teaching,
because to date English is the most frequently taught second or foreign language in the
world and because there exists significant research about English-as-second-or-for-
eign language in the world too. For instance, Polio and Williams (2009), describing the
state of writing in English-as-a-foreign language, claim that “English is the dominant
foreign language in most settings outside of North America and is certainly the only
one in which there exists significant research on writing” (p. 494). It comes as no sur-
prise, therefore, that most of the scholarship on TBLT, this volume included, comes
from English as a second and/or foreign language contexts. Thus, an English-as-a-for-
eign language (EFL) context, or English non-dominant region, describes settings in
 Chapter 1. Introduction 

which English is taught as a school subject in the students’ home location, which is the
case with the collection of studies comprising this volume. Henceforth, therefore, in
this introduction FL settings will be referred to as EFL settings. (See Howatt and
Widdowson, 2004, for fuller discussion of English as a second language and English as
a foreign language; Fujii and Mackey, 2009, and Moore, this volume, for important
distinctions between foreign and second language contexts in task-based learner-
learner interaction; and Sato, 2011, for a discussion of the use of the terms foreign and
second language contexts in SLA research.)1

Factors and problems associated with educational settings in EFL contexts

In spite of all the potential value of TBLT noted above, and in spite of the policies of a
number of governments and educational authorities worldwide that support curricu-
lar innovations in favor of TBLT, traditional, language-centered, and teacher-centered
instruction still persists in many EFL settings. Adams and Newton (2009), citing evi-
dence from a large body of classroom-based research on current English teaching in
Asia, state that “[r]esearch conducted across East Asian contexts has overwhelmingly
suggested that curricular policies have had limited overall impact on English language
teaching, which remains traditional with an explicit grammar-teaching focus” (p. 2).
Such resistance to curricular changes applies to the adoption of TBLT in particular. For
instance, Adamson and Davison (2003) and Luk (2009) found very minimal adoption
of the task-based Hong Kong Target Oriented Curriculum by teachers and schools
(see also Chan, this volume). Similarly, Zhang (2007), describing the situation in
mainland China, speaks of the “limited, sporadic, unsystematic, and sometimes con-
tradictory dissemination of TBLT by various disseminators, including educational au-
thorities, teacher trainers, university scholars, and textbook writers” (p. 76). Similar
observations have been noted in other EFL contexts such as Taiwan (Chao & Wu, 2008),

1. Some authors, e.g., Harmer (2007, pp. 19–21), suggest that the traditional distinction be-
tween EFL and ESL has become difficult to sustain in recent years. First, English has become a
language for international communication, especially on the internet; as a consequence the so-
called foreign language (English) invades learners’ lives more than the so-called second lan-
guage they are learning (when for instance they are living in a region dominated by a language
other than their mother tongue). Second, in many places around the world, communities have
become truly multilingual making it harder to distinguish second languages from foreign lan-
guages. In Flanders, for example, English has become such a dominant foreign language
(on television, on the internet, in the entertainment industry, in business, etc.) that it can hardly
be called a foreign language anymore. Harmer suggests that ESOL (English to Speakers of Other
Languages) is gaining ground as an umbrella term. However, Harmer admits that although
ESOL reflects a more multilingual global reality, it “ignore(s) the context in which language-
learning takes place” (p. 20).
 Ali Shehadeh

Korea (Shim & Baik, 2000), Japan (Jackson, this volume; Gorush, 2000), and Venezuela
(Chacón, this volume).
A number of factors may be identified as challenges for adopting TBLT in many
EFL settings, including administrative constraints, exam pressures, cultural pressures
and expectations, time pressures, and available materials (e.g., Adams & Newton, 2009;
Iwashita & Li, this volume). Following Adams and Newton (2009), these challenges
may be grouped under three main factors: institutional factors, teacher factors, and
student factors. These are considered and discussed separately below.

Institutional factors

A number of institutional factors are shown to hinder the adoption of TBLT in many
EFL settings like focused exams and assessments, large class sizes, and mixed-profi-
ciency classes. First, studies in several EFL settings including China (Hu, 2002; Zhang,
2007), Hong Kong (Chow & Mok-Cheung, 2004), Korea (Shim & Baik, 2000), and
Japan (Gorush, 2000) have shown that the measurement of success in L2 teaching and
learning is frequently sought through norm-referenced, summative, knowledge-based,
vocabulary-and grammar focused exams. These likely hinder successful adoption of
TBLT in the classroom. For instance, Hu (2002) and Zhang (2007) show that grammar
and vocabulary knowledge-based high stakes national examinations are the main bar-
riers preventing the adoption of TBLT in China, because they do not take into account
or reflect communicative curricular objectives. They rely rather too heavily on multi-
ple-choice testing formats, leading administrators and teachers to revert to traditional,
explicit, and rote-learning approaches for teaching to the test (Carless, 2007; Li, 1998;
Littlewood, 2004).
Similarly, large class sizes and mixed-proficiency classes are also frequently cited
as factors that limit the adoption of TBLT courses in many EFL settings, such as Taiwan
(Chao & Wu, 2008), Korea (e.g., Jeon, 2006; Li, 1998), Hong Kong (Carless, 2002),
China (Zhang, 2007), and Venezuela (Chacón, this volume). For instance, Li (1998)
and Littlewood (2007) argue that it is difficult to implement TBLT in large classes be-
cause it requires a range of participatory structures including whole class work, group
work, and pair work which interfere with local notions of good classroom manage-
ment, which is usually defined in these contexts as students working individually and
quietly and not causing any disruption (Cortazzi & Jin, 1996). Likewise, Chao and Wu
(2008) pointed out that many teachers find it difficult to select appropriate tasks for use
in public schools in Taiwan because their students are often streamed by age and not
by level of proficiency. Along the same lines, Chacón (this volume) states that “EFL in
Venezuela [...] is taught in formal classroom situations. In these settings, learners do
not have sufficient opportunities to interact in English in the classroom in part due to
large class sizes” (p. 255).
 Chapter 1. Introduction 

Teacher factors

A number of teacher factors have been found to challenge the adoption of TBLT in
several EFL contexts. First, many teachers struggle to make sense of new approaches to
language learning and teaching because of uncertainty about the nature of tasks,
doubts about the effectiveness of TBLT itself for their traditional notions of what con-
stitutes language learning, beliefs that tasks are no more than another face of the tradi-
tional exercises and drills, or else they simply do not know how to implement TBLT in
their teaching practices (e.g., Adamson & Davison, 2003; Carless, 2009; Chacón, this
volume; Chan, this volume; Jeon, 2006; Zhang, 2007). Second, many teachers feel more
secure and in control in traditional, teacher-fronted, teacher-centred instruction.
These teachers feel uncomfortable with the shifts in teaching styles and classroom dy-
namics required by TBLT because they feel that these reduce their ‘authority’ from the
role of instructor to that of a facilitator or counsellor (e.g., Carless, 2004, 2007;
McAllister, Narcy-Combes, & Starkey-Perret, this volume). Third, teachers in many
EFL settings consider TBLT an alien concept not applicable to their specific teaching
context or educational setting because it is incompatible with their own experiences of
language learning and teaching. For instance, Cortazzi and Jin (1996) pointed out that
many TBLT principles are incompatible with the Confucian heritage for language edu-
cation in China that advocates the authoritative role of the teacher, memorization, and
rote learning. Many of these teachers consider traditional methods of teaching more
appropriate than TBLT (see also Iwashita & Li, this volume).2

Student factors

Research exploring EFL students’ views and beliefs has also suggested that many stu-
dents express doubts about the effectiveness of TBLT, which both matches their teach-
ers’ views and echoes their conservative parental beliefs about education. In particular,
many students in these settings have expressed a preference for traditional methods of
teaching that promote accuracy over fluency, individual or independent work over
pair- and group work, and reliance on the teacher as an authority figure over taking
risks through speaking, as favored by TBLT courses (e.g., Adamson & Davison, 2003
in Hong Kong; Lee, 2005; Zhang, 2007 in China; Li, 1998 in Korea; Eguchi & Eguchi,
2006 in Japan). For instance, many students in the studies by Eguchi and Eguchi (2006)
and Lee (2005) were reluctant to take risks or make mistakes in English in order to save
face, which undercuts the value of interactive and production tasks necessary for lan-
guage development.

2. It has to be acknowledged that pretty much the same applies in Europe – traditional meth-
ods die-hards can still be found in places like the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Hungary,
amongst others.
 Ali Shehadeh

Overall, and in spite of perceived value of TBLT and the increasing interest in
TBLT research that is being built up in EFL contexts (such as Ellis, Tanaka, & Yamazaki,
1995; Nobuyoshi & Ellis, 1993; Skehan & Foster, 1997), and by a number of studies in
recent edited collections (e.g., Edwards & Willis, 2005; Garcia Mayo, 2007; Leaver &
Willis, 2004; Shehadeh & Coombe, 2010; Van den Branden, 2006a; Van den Branden
et al., 2007), TBLT research and implementation in many EFL settings still face a
number of challenges. It must be pointed out, however, that these challenges are NOT
problems for/of TBLT itself. Rather they are problems for ANY successful language
teaching in these settings, due to the fact that many of the schooling-related policies
and practices are NOT aligned with notions of effective language pedagogy. For ex-
ample, very large numbers of Confucian-educated international students attempting
to enter the US higher education systems incapable of functional use of English would
suggest that there are real problems with the ‘appropriate’ traditional approaches.
On the other hand, while acknowledging that the tasks of researching and doing
TBLT in some EFL settings are challenging as shown above, it must be mentioned that
there are numerous cases, experiences, and studies which demonstrate success stories
of TBLT research and implementation in these same settings, including McDonough’s
research in Thailand (e.g., McDonough, 2004; McDonough & Chaikitmongkol,
2007, 2010), Robinson’s work in Japan (e.g., Robinson, 2007; Robinson, Cadierno, &
Shirai 2009; Cadierno & Robinson, 2009), and Gilabert’s work on EFL in Spain
(e.g., Gilabert, 2007; Gilabert, Baron, & Llanes, 2009). Against this backdrop, and in
pursuit of encouraging effective language learning, this volume puts together a series
of new studies that explores a range of TBLT research and implementation possibili-
ties, and strengthens and widens the range of EFL contexts represented in research on
TBLT. The volume presents recent research that reports on how TBLT ideas are being
investigated by researchers and language professionals and being successfully put into
practice by teachers and learners in these educational settings.

An overview of the book

It is worth restating that the common thread that provides coherence to this collection
of studies is how tasks are being researched or used in authentic and a wide variety of
EFL settings in order to unravel the complexities of researching and implementing
TBLT in these contexts. All contributions to the book: (a) are focused on task-based
language teaching or task-supported language teaching (Samuda & Bygate, 2008);
(b) are conducted in educational contexts, motivated by local relevance, or have local
implications for TBLT research and practice; (c) are based on actual research studies
that are grounded in the relevant literature, research, and theory; and (d) are moti-
vated by evidence-driven practice. Yet, the book emphasizes the rich range of possi-
bilities, avenues, and issues that this collection of studies opens up in undertaking such
an activity. It describes some of the challenges and illustrates some of the successes in
 Chapter 1. Introduction 

researching, implementing, and utilizing TBLT in EFL settings, with an aim of making
a fresh and enriching contribution to our knowledge about TBLT research and imple-
mentation in these settings.
The thirteen studies that make up this volume fall into two main sections. Section I
consists of five studies that have investigated how different variables affect learners’
interaction and performance within a TBLT framework, serving as a lead-in to the
study of a number of contextual adaptations of TBLT for implementation, which con-
stitute the focus of Section II. Some variables explored in Section I include the effects
of task complexity and pre-task planning on EFL learners’ oral production, whether
language proficiency mediates the perception of task difficulty, whether intended task
complexity differences are reflected in the language production (i.e., fluency, accuracy,
and complexity) of learners of different proficiency levels, effects of strategic planning
on the accuracy of learners’ performance on spoken and written narrative tasks, effects
of task instructions on text processing and L2 learning, how task structure influences
native speaker interaction, and how EFL learners might benefit from exposure to such
interaction.
Following this introduction, Sasayama and Izumi (Chapter 2) test Skehan’s
(1996, 1998) limited capacity hypothesis and Robinson’s (1995, 2003) cognition hy-
pothesis by investigating the effects of task complexity and pre-task planning on EFL
learners’ oral production in a Japanese educational setting. They collected data from a
population underrepresented in previous studies despite its obvious importance for
both research and teaching, namely, EFL high school students who have limited oral
L2 proficiency. Sasayama and Izumi found that increased task complexity positively
affected the specific measure of syntactic complexity, but negatively affected global ac-
curacy and fluency; whereas planning time positively affected global syntactic com-
plexity, but like task complexity, negatively affected fluency. These findings partially
support and partially disconfirm both Robinson’s and Skehan’s hypotheses, posing
questions about the value of making blanket universal generalizations on the linguistic
consequences of task manipulation. Findings of the Sasayama and Izumi study suggest
the importance of employing task-discourse sensitive measures in investigating the
effect of task complexity on EFL learners’ language use.
Also testing Robinson’s cognition hypothesis and Skehan’s trade-off hypothesis,
Malicka and Levkina (Chapter 3) investigate whether language proficiency mediates
the perception of task difficulty and whether intended task complexity differences are
reflected in the language production (i.e., fluency, accuracy, and complexity) of learn-
ers of different proficiency levels in English. The researchers collected data from
37 participants (20 advanced and 17 pre-intermediate learners of English) who were
undergraduate students at a Spanish university. The participants were provided with
two tasks differing in cognitive complexity levels and manipulated along ± few ele-
ments and ± reasoning dimensions. Two kinds of instruments were used to measure
participants’ perceptions of task difficulty: self-reported difficulty ratings and time es-
timation of task completion. Complexity, accuracy, and fluency measures were used to
 Ali Shehadeh

analyze participants’ speech production on the two tasks. With respect to the partici-
pants’ perception of complexity, the researchers found no significant differences be-
tween the high and low proficiency groups. Regarding performance measures, the
complex task triggered greater lexical and structural complexity and accuracy in the
high proficiency group, but adversely affected fluency. In the low proficiency group,
fluency was boosted on the complex task, while the other areas remained intact irre-
spective of cognitive task complexity. As the researchers state, the main conclusion to
be drawn from this study is that the proficiency level plays a key role in attention al-
location, whereby trade-off effects between fluency, accuracy, and complexity are more
pertinent to lower L2 proficiency learners, which become less marked, if not disappear
altogether, as proficiency increases.
In part like Chapters 2 and 3, Genc (Chapter 4), focusing on the issue of planning,
investigates the effects of strategic planning on the accuracy of learners’ performance
on spoken and written narrative tasks in a Turkish EFL university setting. Most of
Genc’s findings provide further support for research conducted in other, primarily
ESL, settings. Most notably, she found that in unplanned conditions, EFL students
were more accurate on the written tasks than on oral tasks; in contrast, in planned
conditions the effect of modality (oral, written) on accuracy was not influential; stra-
tegic planning did not have a significant effect on accuracy for the oral task while it
appeared to have had an adverse effect on accuracy for the written task; and learners
spent more attention and time on vocabulary and organization than grammar during
the planning time before and during the task performance phases. The main contribu-
tion of Genc’s study is that it extends the study of a number of task-design and perfor-
mance issues, including planning time, accuracy, and oral and written modalities, into
an EFL setting.
Remaining within the territory of task conditions and how they might influence
students’ processing capacity and subsequent learning, Horiba and Fukaya (Chapter 5),
report on a study that investigated the effects of task instructions on text processing
and L2 learning. They collected data from 70 limited L2 proficiency college nursing
students in a Japanese EFL context. The participants processed texts about a health-
care case under three different task conditions. Some students were informed of a re-
call task in one language and later recalled in the same language (the L1-only and the
L2-only conditions), while others recalled in a different language (the L1-L2 condi-
tion). After recall, the participants took a vocabulary test on unfamiliar words contained
in the text. The investigators found that the L1-only condition facilitated content recall
whereas the L2-only condition led to increased incidental vocabulary acquisition.
Horiba and Fukaya argue that these findings imply that there may be a trade-off be-
tween content learning and language learning for limited L2 proficiency students
(i.e., those often the students in EFL contexts). The main contribution of Horiba and
Fukaya’s study to this volume is that it addresses two essential questions on TBLT re-
search in EFL settings: Can limited L2 proficiency students learn both content and
 Chapter 1. Introduction 

language simultaneously in the L2? and How can task conditions influence students’
text processing capacity and subsequent learning?
In the final contribution to Section I (Chapter 6), Hobbs expands the TBLT re-
search base into a largely unexplored area, namely, how task structure influences na-
tive speaker (NS) interaction, and how EFL learners might benefit from exposure to
such interaction. Hobbs examined NS task performance over a range of nine tasks,
focusing on the ways in which patterns of interaction are influenced by task design,
and showing how recordings of NS task interaction can be used to better equip learn-
ers to perform similar tasks without recourse to L1. The study sought to identify fea-
tures that might offer a basis for predicting performance by other NSs on similar tasks,
and that learners could be expected to benefit from exposure to. For instance, even
when students are accustomed to a particular task type, activities using NS transcripts
can encourage them to experiment with alternative expressions. Findings of Hobbs’
study show that valuable insights can be obtained by analyzing NS task performance,
enabling L2 researchers to gain a deeper understanding of how task design and task
selection can influence interaction. And this, consequently, enables them to make rea-
soned pedagogical recommendations for the implementation and practice of TBLT in
the classroom, including task selection and design, sequencing of tasks, task complex-
ity, and task demands.
Section II consists of eight studies that focus on TBLT contextual adaptation, im-
plementation, or related issues in EFL educational contexts. The studies explore themes
such as patterns of teacher – student and student-student interaction in a TBLT class-
room, effectiveness of learner-generated focus on form in oral task-based interaction,
differences in teachers’ enactment of TBLT, designing and implementing computer-
assisted TBLT lessons, enactment of TBLT in teacher education programs, task-based
language assessment, and teacher perceptions of task-based language teaching.
Following on the issue of interaction raised in Chapter 6 by Hobbs, but this time
from a purely classroom interaction perspective, Iwashita and Li (Chapter 7) investi-
gate patterns of teacher-student and student-student interaction in a task-based oral
EFL classroom in a university setting in China. Eight hours of classroom interaction
data were analyzed for various types of feedback and uptake. The study was conducted
against the backdrop of classroom-based TBLT research in Asian counties in general,
and in China in particular, that has focused to date mainly on the factors that ostensi-
bly hinder the implementation of communicative, TBLT methodologies in these con-
texts. By contrast, these investigators found strong and active student participation in
the classroom, and extensive teacher – student and student-student interaction, de-
spite the large class size and the students’ unfamiliarity with a teaching methodology
that was very different from the traditional Chinese way of learning and teaching. The
main implication and contribution of Iwashita and Li’s findings is that the apparent
successful implementation of TBLT in this study was not only due to the classroom
teacher’s familiarity with TBLT, her strong belief in it, and her good relationship with
her students, but also to the willingness of these students to accept new methodologies
 Ali Shehadeh

and modes of learning which are so different from their past learning experiences,
their old beliefs about learning, and from the traditional methodologies they were ac-
customed to.
In a longitudinal study, Moore (Chapter 8) investigates oral task-based interac-
tion in an undergraduate EFL classroom in a Japanese university context. He analyzed
data obtained through language-related episodes (LREs) from four focal learners and
their partners (N = 8) in two oral presentation tasks for the effectiveness of learner-
generated focus on form (FONF). He also conducted a qualitative microanalysis of
one learner’s interaction with partners of similar proficiency on two similar tasks,
separated by a period of seven months, to investigate the influence of context. Provid-
ing further support for previous studies, Moore found that there was little focus on
form in interaction and there was much variability across dyads. Qualitative analysis
revealed that the effectiveness of FONF in interaction and performance may have
been influenced by the learners’ shared background (including L1 use), individual dif-
ferences in terms of engagement in LREs, learners’ perceptions of each other’s lan-
guage proficiency, and other interpersonally negotiated features of the interaction.
Pedagogically, Moore’s study highlights the potential of attempting to refine learners’
FONF to encourage more on-task negotiation, including forms which may be essen-
tial to task performance.
Chan (Chapter 9) also considers patterns of interaction (who spoke about what, in
response to what, and with what effect) as part of her investigation of how TBLT is
enacted in primary ESL classrooms in Hong Kong. Framed within a qualitative re-
search framework, Chan’s study collected data from 20 lessons taught by four teachers
on the same topic (the weather) from individual lesson plans, teaching materials, in-
terviews with these teachers, and tasks completed by the students. The researcher
found that teachers differed in enacting TBLT in their classrooms along six dimen-
sions: (1) strategic use of visual support to manage task demands; (2) contextualizing
input to make connections between old and new knowledge; (3) simultaneous atten-
tion to task demands for progression in complexity; (4) provision of scaffolding
through task sequencing and adjustment of task variables; (5) creating conditions in
noticing form and salient features; and (6) creating conditions for restructuring to oc-
cur. Chan argues that these findings imply that what is most important in shaping
learning in an authentic TBLT classroom is not the task per se, but rather the inter-
weaving of pedagogic strategies (e.g., scaffolding) at various levels of complexity as
teachers respond to students’ needs in the immediacy of the classroom environment.
An additional, but important, contribution of Chan’s investigation is that it focuses on
pupils (aged between 7–9 years) at lower primary levels, an age group not often studied
in research into TBLT practice or in TBLT theory.
It should be noted here that the decision to include a contribution from Hong
Kong, in which the status of English language teaching might be considered to be ESL
rather than EFL, was based on an important consideration; namely, the educational
setting in Hong Kong includes most of the challenges observed in other EFL settings
 Chapter 1. Introduction 

for adopting and implementing TBLT principles or framework (see pp. 6 ff above;
Carless, this volume). Indeed, Chan enumerates some of these challenges in the intro-
duction to her chapter and also in her Conclusions and Implications section. For in-
stance, in her concluding section, Chan states: “Local studies and my personal interac-
tion with in-service teachers [in Hong Kong] seem to suggest that teachers find the
concept of TBLT difficult to grasp” (p. 206).
In a research area that has received comparatively little attention, Park (Chapter 10)
illustrates how computer-assisted TBLT lessons can be designed and implemented in a
conventional English classroom in a Korean school setting. He also investigates stu-
dents’ L2 development in writing as well as their perceptions of TBLT. A total of 61
Grade 7 students at a Korean middle school participated in the study. The participants
were divided into an experimental group (N = 30) that was taught with the TBLT les-
son plans, and a control group (N = 31) that was taught in a conventional teacher-
centered and forms-focused approach. For each unit, two task-based writing tests
(pre/post-test) and a conventional unit test on grammar and reading comprehension
were administered. A paired sample t-test of the two groups revealed that the mean
scores of the experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control
group. The experimental group also exceeded the control group in the conventional
unit tests. The main finding of the study is that TBLT can be effective in improving
students’ communicative competence while not hindering form-focused L2 learning.
On the other hand, students and teachers both found the TBLT lessons effective and
motivating. Park discusses a number of implications of the study for EFL teachers as
well as for administrators, curriculum designers, and materials writers.
Like Chan’s and Park’s studies, Chacón’s contribution (Chapter 11), framed within
a qualitative research framework, reports on the successful enactment of TBLT in a
teacher education program in Venezuela. The investigator explored ways of enhancing
EFL students’ oral skills using TBLT through film-oriented activities. She collected
data from 50 third year students enrolled in the program over a ten-week period. Her
data sources included student diaries, student recordings, and focus group interviews.
The investigator found that implementing TBLT through a cooperative learning proj-
ect using films was successful and beneficial for L2 learning in multiple ways, includ-
ing improvements in the students’ fluency and intelligibility in L2, their listening
comprehension, and their vocabulary building skills. Most of the participants in the
study expressed positive attitudes towards the TBLT-based cooperative learning proj-
ect they took part in. At the same time, the project was successful because it fostered
collaboration between learners and facilitated language learning through the use of
authentic input, interaction, and communication tasks in the classroom. In line with
the recent EFL teaching curriculum reforms in Venezuela, which recommend the
adoption of TBLT in teacher education programs in the country, the main implication
of Chacón’s study is that TBLT enabled these would-be teachers to develop their Eng-
lish competence as learners, and at the same time gave them firsthand knowledge
about TBLT methodology and practice in order to utilize it successfully in their future
 Ali Shehadeh

teaching situations. Chacón argues that these findings and implications are quite ma-
jor for the EFL setting of Venezuela -and perhaps for other EFL settings like the ones
explored in this volume- where English is usually taught following a traditional, linear
curriculum in formal classrooms, where there is hardly any time or opportunity for
interaction or negotiation of meaning, and where teachers face numerous constraints
such as lack of materials and school facilities, tight schedules, and large classes
(as documented in Chacón, 2005).
Also focusing on teacher education programs, Jackson (Chapter 12) investigated
aspects of novice teacher cognition among 15 participants in a one-semester, task-
based, undergraduate seminar on language teaching methods in a university setting in
Japan. Jackson collected data from retrospective comments, classroom discourse, and
survey results on the effectiveness of this task-based teacher education approach. He
found that the participants both gained and shared knowledge related to teaching prac-
tice through classroom tasks. In addition, the participants expressed very positive at-
titudes towards the TBLT instructional practices (see also the contribution by Chacón,
this volume). The chapter discusses the potential of task-based teacher training to sup-
port curricular innovation initiatives, like TBLT, which are designed to enhance lan-
guage education in Japan. Jackson concludes that “task-based second language teacher
education offers opportunities for novice teachers to explore roles and responsibilities,
develop a collaborative culture around language teaching, and plan and implement
communicative teaching practices designed for school-based learners” (p. 282).
The study by Weaver (Chapter 13) focuses on assessment and testing in EFL con-
texts utilizing TBLT principles. It is worth noting that within the framework of TBLT
methodology, the main goal of task-based language assessment (TBLA) is measured
against the extent to which assessment can successfully achieve a close link between
the testee’s performance during the test and his/her performance in the real world
(e.g., Ellis, 2003; Long & Norris, 2000; Shehadeh, 2012; Weaver, this volume). For in-
stance, Weaver reminds us at the outset of his chapter that:
At its core, task-based language assessment (TBLA) involves evaluating the degree
to which language learners can use their L2 to accomplish given tasks. A well-
designed and implemented assessment can also provide teachers and language
learners with a detailed account of task performance that can inform future task-
based instruction and L2 development. (p. 287)

Along these lines, Weaver proposes a formative assessment cycle that can inform the
development, implementation and evaluation of assessment tasks in a task-based syl-
labus. He reports the results of a study in which he examined 46 Japanese university
business students’ competence to deliver a PowerPoint presentation in English. He il-
lustrates how a many-faceted analysis of student ratings of their PowerPoint presenta-
tions combined with a discourse analysis of the presentations revealed a significant gap
between the students’ PowerPoint and their English presentation skills, which then
provides focal points for informing future learning and teaching. He also shows how a
 Chapter 1. Introduction 

significant gap existed between these students’ descriptive and explanatory skills, and
how this too can be a focal point for future learning and teaching. By way of exemplify-
ing this successful formative assessment cycle that is informative, refined, and reliable,
Weaver provides a detailed and compelling account of one participating student’s
competence to deliver a PowerPoint presentation in relation to the different task re-
quirements and multiple assessment criteria. The main implication of Weaver’s study,
in his own words, is that “A formative assessment cycle can help teachers establish a
framework for systematically implementing TBLT in their classrooms” (p. 307).
In the final contribution to Section II, Julie McAllister and her team (Chapter 14)
examine, as part of a large-scale research project, teachers’ self-perceptions and atti-
tudes to learning and teaching after shifting from face-to-face teacher-centered ap-
proaches to computer-mediated and task-based teaching. Their findings are based on
interviews with 14 teachers involved in a task-based blended learning program for
first-year Business English undergraduate university students in Northwest France.
The researchers found that most of the teachers accept and are adapting to the new,
multifaceted role of the teacher implied in the TBLT program. However, some teachers
voiced some concerns and reservations about successful implementation of TBLT, in-
cluding the increased workload associated with the provision of more personalized
support for students, the shift away from a transmission-based approach to teaching,
and some institutional and cultural constraints. The main contribution of the chapter
by McAllister and her team is that it focuses on one of the key factors for successfully
implementing TBLT in EFL settings, namely, the teacher’s role (see Factors and Prob-
lems Associated with Educational Settings in EFL Contexts above). Indeed, the study
is of particular value given that teachers play a key role in the successful implementa-
tion of any TBLT program.
An important theme that runs explicitly or implicitly through all eight contribu-
tions to Section II, in particular those by Chacón (Chapter 11), Jackson (Chapter 12),
and McAllister et al. (Chapter 14) is that successful task-based teacher training/educa-
tion programs are necessary to support curricular innovation initiatives like TBLT,
which are designed to enhance language education in these EFL settings. Such pro-
grams have strong implications for the teacher trainees’ own language learning, for
their self-perceptions and their attitudes to TBLT, and for their language teaching ca-
pabilities, as many of them will become EFL teachers in the future (see Carless, this
volume, for a detailed discussion of the issue).
In the closing chapter, Carless (Chapter 15) contextualizes the volume’s contribu-
tion to TBLT in EFL contexts in particular, and in the wider contexts of TBLT and re-
search in general. Specifically, he identifies and discusses five main themes arising in
the collection: research methodologies used, contextual adaptations to TBLT, TBLT in
Chinese contexts, assessment and TBLT, and teacher education and TBLT. He con-
cludes his chapter and the volume by outlining some issues in task-based language
teaching in need of further exploration.
 Ali Shehadeh

Concluding remarks

It is worth concluding this introductory chapter with a number of remarks: First, as

one might have noticed, the geographical spread of the contributions to this collection
is worth some comment (see also Carless’s chapter, this volume). As can be seen from
the Table of Contents, the majority of the chapters come from Asian settings, with the
remaining including one from Latin America (Venezuela), one from Eastern Europe
(Turkey), and two from Western Europe (Spain and France). Six of the Asian contribu-
tions come from Japan alone. As Carless says in his chapter, this spread may partly
reflect editorial orientation; yet, arguably it could also reflect developmental trends
across Asia in general and Japan in particular. That is, it might simply reflect the likeli-
hood that any worldwide dissemination of TBLT or any other trend is likely to proceed
asymmetrically, spread occurring more easily and quickly in some areas than others
for contextual and chance historical reasons – and that this applies both in terms of
education and research. With the increase in global communications, however, such
dissemination is likely to become more even in the future. Publications such as this
one are intended to promote further spread and dissemination of TBLT. Viewed from
this perspective, this volume of studies adds to the large amount of work addressing
TBLT in EFL learning in Europe in places like Spain, France, Holland, and Germany;
and at the same time encourages exploration of how TBLT is being researched and
practiced in other – largely underrepresented – EFL parts of the world like the Middle
East and the Gulf, Africa, and other Latin American and Eastern European counties.
Second, in spirit with the mission statement of the International Consortium on
Task-Based Language Teaching (ICTBLT), formed in 2005, which states that “The ba-
sic mission of the ICTBLT is to foster excellence in TBLT work – from theoretical,
empirical, and practical perspectives – across the diverse contexts of language educa-
tion worldwide,” this collection of studies reflects the increasing amount of scholarship
underway in exploring and using TBLT in EFL contexts. With its focus on how TBLT
ideas are investigated and being put into practice beyond the contexts represented in
the majority of the literature, the book extends research on TBLT to new boundaries
and accesses new research findings. With this remark in mind, the ultimate aim of this
collection of studies was to explore the potential of TBLT for language learning in
general, and in EFL contexts in particular, and to promote further studies. The volume
provides strong indications that the research and implementation of TBLT in EFL set-
tings is of a different kind because it takes into account different contextual variables
from those found in ESL settings. It is thus a step towards acknowledging the contribu-
tions of TBLT research in EFL settings and the right of such research to question or
resist pedagogies developed for ESL settings. The book puts TBLT research in EFL
contexts on the scene.
Finally, as stated earlier, the collection provides firsthand knowledge about how
TBLT is being researched, implemented, and practiced in EFL contexts. It thus adds to
the ongoing debate on the subject given the “considerable diversity in the theoretical
 Chapter 1. Introduction 

scope, research, and applied practice that corresponds with the TBLT name” (Van den
Branden et al., 2009, p. x). I therefore believe that the collection will appeal to SLA
researchers and research students in applied linguistics. Likewise, because a number of
the contributions explore the various ways in which TBLT principles may be incorpo-
rated in the curriculum or utilized by the classroom teacher, I believe that the book
will be of value too to course designers and language teachers who come from a broad
range of formal and informal educational settings encompassing a wide range of ages
and types of language learners.

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section i

Variables affecting task-based language

learning and performance
 chapter 2

Effects of task complexity and pre-task

planning on Japanese EFL learners’ oral
production

Shoko Sasayama and Shinichi Izumi

University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, USA and Sophia University, Japan

This study sought to test Skehan’s (1996, 1998) limited capacity hypothesis and
Robinson’s (1995, 2003) cognition hypothesis by investigating the effects of task
complexity and pre-task planning on EFL learners’ oral production (see also
Genc, this volume). Twenty three Japanese-L1 high school students were given
two sets of picture-based narrative tasks: a simple task with fewer characters and
a complex task with more characters appearing in cartoon-based stories. Ten of
these participants were given pre-task planning time, whereas thirteen were not.
The results indicate that (a) the increased task complexity positively affects the
specific measure of syntactic complexity, but negatively affects global accuracy
and fluency; and (b) planning time positively affects global syntactic complexity,
but negatively affects fluency. These findings partially support and partially
disconfirm both Robinson’s and Skehan’s hypotheses, posing questions about
making blanket predictions on the linguistic consequences of task manipulation.
The findings also show the importance of employing task-discourse sensitive
measures in investigating the effect of task complexity on learners’ language use.
The main value of the findings of the study comes from its focus on Japanese
EFL high school students who have limited oral L2 proficiency, a population
underrepresented in previous studies, despite their obvious importance for both
research and teaching.

Introduction

The use of tasks in second language (L2) classrooms has recently been gaining enor-
mous popularity. Unlike traditional exercises which focus exclusively on the manipu-
lation of language forms, tasks are designed to encourage learners to pay primary
attention to meaning and simultaneously attend to the form that is necessary to convey
meaning. Tasks, therefore, are believed to be useful tools to promote the development
of the form-meaning connections that are crucial for L2 learning. However, it is still an
 Shoko Sasayama and Shinichi Izumi

open question as to what kinds of tasks can effectively trigger such learning processes
and under which conditions. Many SLA researchers (e.g., Bygate, Skehan, & Swain,
2001; Ellis, 2003, 2005; Ortega, 1999, 2007; Robinson, 2001a, 2001b, 2005; Skehan,
1998) acknowledge that various factors mediate the learning processes. One such fac-
tor that has received considerable attention in SLA research is the role of pre-task plan-
ning. The question of interest is whether and how giving learners time to plan their
utterances before engaging in the task affects their language use in terms of complex-
ity, accuracy, and fluency. Another factor that is hypothesized to mediate the effects of
task lies within the task itself, that is, the question of how the complexity inherent to
the task itself affects the learners’ language use. The current study focuses on these two
factors in an effort to further our understanding of the processes involved in task-
based L2 use and learning. Specifically, it manipulates two independent variables, ±few
elements and ±planning time, in order to examine their respective, as well as their
combined, effects on the production of oral narratives by Japanese EFL learners.

Task complexity and L2 task performance

Task performance and attentional capacity

In the current SLA literature, two major competing claims exist regarding how task-
related variables affect learners’ performance. On the one hand, Skehan (1996, 1998)
assumes a single-resource model of attention and claims that learners are not capable
of paying simultaneous attention to the three main aspects of language use: complex-
ity, accuracy, and fluency. He argues that attention to one aspect is likely to compro-
mise attention to the others. Thus, attention to complexity, for instance, likely results
in decreased accuracy, and vice versa. This is known as the ‘limited capacity’ hypoth-
esis (also referred to as the ‘trade-off ’ hypothesis). Robinson (1995, 2001a, 2001b,
2003, 2005, 2007), on the other hand, assumes a multiple-resource model of attention
and argues that learners are capable of attending to different aspects of language per-
formance as needs arise in the task. He views structural complexity and accuracy as
arising from functional complexity in discourse and, hence, increased functional de-
mands imposed by the task should have detectable linguistic consequences. In this
model, known as the cognition hypothesis, concurrent attention to different aspects of
L2 use is considered not just possible, but natural.
These two opposing positions held by Robinson and Skehan derive from the differ-
ent theoretical frameworks adopted in the conception of task complexity. In his Tri-
adic Componential Framework for task design, Robinson (2005) makes distinctions
between three categories of factors: task complexity, which concerns inherent task
characteristics relating to cognitive demands posed to the participants; task difficulty,
which relates to learner factors as reflected in learners’ perceptions of how difficult
tasks are; and task conditions, which concerns interactive demands of the task. Task
 Chapter 2. Effects of task complexity and planning on oral production 

complexity is further divided into two categories: resource-directing and resource-­

depleting dimensions. Resource-directing dimensions are those in which particular
features of the task direct learners’ attention to specific aspects of the language; for ex-
ample, whether the event to be described focuses on here-and-now or there-and-then
([±here-and-now]), and whether the task requires elaborating on the reasons for deci-
sion/choice made or not ([±no reasoning demands]).1 Increasing task complexity
along resource-directing dimensions is expected to lead to interlanguage development,
as learners are pushed to produce linguistically more complex and more accurate
speech to meet increased functional demands. In the case of resource-depleting di-
mensions, increasing task complexity along these dimensions disperses, not directs,
learners’ attention over many non-specific areas of the L2 performance; for example,
whether planning time is allowed prior to the engagement in the main task ([±planning]),
and whether the learner has relevant background knowledge to perform the task or not
([±prior knowledge]). Although these factors do not by themselves push learners to
direct their attention to any particular linguistic forms, a decrease in complexity in
these dimensions is hypothesized to bolster the attention-directing effect of the in-
crease in the complexity of the resource-directing dimensions.
Skehan (1996, 1998), on the other hand, argues for analysing the complexity of
tasks based on three principal areas: language, cognition, and performance conditions.
Language is concerned with code complexity, that is, how complex the language is re-
quired to be for completion of the task. Cognition is concerned with cognitive com-
plexity, referring to the intrinsic cognitive demands posed to the participants and to
the amount of task-related knowledge or information the learners possess. Perfor-
mance conditions are concerned with the communicative stress the task places on the
participants during task performance. Skehan contends that all these factors affect
how learners allocate their attention during a task, as well as what L2 performance
results. However, given that L2 learners’ knowledge of the language is still limited and
is under conscious control, which takes up considerable attentional resources, cogni-
tively demanding tasks are likely to draw their attention away from language forms
and encourage them to rely on already developed automatized L2 knowledge. This
may have the consequence of learners achieving the task outcome by sacrificing com-
plexity along with any accompanying potential for IL development (“the safety first
approach” – Skehan & Foster, 2001, p. 189). Conversely, learners may attempt to stretch
their IL capacity to its limit, with the consequence of increasing complexity at the ex-
pense of accuracy (“the accuracy last approach” – Skehan & Foster, 2001, p. 189). To
alleviate these problems, Skehan views pre-task planning as a particularly useful exter-
nally-manipulable performance condition that can regulate cognitive load. The op-
portunity to plan ahead of the task is believed to allow the learners extra processing

1. In all these cases, plus (+) denotes lower task complexity and the minus (-) denotes higher
task complexity.
 Shoko Sasayama and Shinichi Izumi

space so that they can allocate their limited attentional resources strategically to focus
on formal aspects during task performance.
Based on these different models, Robinson and Skehan make contrasting predic-
tions about the effects of cognitive task complexity. Robinson hypothesizes that
increasing task complexity along resource-directing dimensions has the effect of si-
multaneously improving complexity and accuracy, while fluency may be negatively
affected. Where resource-depleting dimensions are concerned, an increase in task
complexity is hypothesized to negatively influence all three aspects of L2 performance.
In contrast, Skehan argues that when cognitive task complexity is high, accuracy and
complexity enter into severe competition for attentional resources and, therefore,
these two aspects cannot be promoted simultaneously. He argues, however, that by
providing pre-task planning time, which can be viewed as decreasing task complexity
along a resource-depleting dimension in Robinson’s terms, learners can allocate their
attention with greater ease, with the consequence of improving some, but not neces-
sarily all, aspects of task performance. When cognitive task complexity is increased by
depriving learners of pre-task planning time, Skehan’s argument coincides with Rob-
inson’s, in that all three aspects of task performance are likely to be negatively
affected.

Previous studies on the effects of planning on L2 performance

A number of studies have examined how planning affects learners’ L2 production

(e.g., Ellis, 1987; 2005; Ellis & Yuan, 2004; Foster & Skehan, 1996; Mehnert, 1998;
Ortega, 1999; Yuan & Ellis, 2003). To take a couple of examples here for illustration,
Foster and Skehan (1996) used different tasks to examine the effects of two planning
conditions – guided and unguided planning conditions – on the learners’ L2 use. The
results showed that planning had a greater effect on accuracy than on complexity or
fluency for the personal information exchange task, whereas it promoted complexity
and fluency in the case of the narrative task. The results of the narrative task obtained
here are also corroborated by most other studies utilizing this type of task. Moreover,
guided planners were found to be more fluent than unguided planners in the narrative
task, but no obvious differences emerged for the other tasks. From these results, Foster
and Skehan argued for the competence-expanding role of pre-task planning, while
admitting that simultaneous improvement of complexity, accuracy and fluency is hard
to attain. Another study was conducted by Ortega (1999), who examined the effects of
pre-task planning on L2 Spanish learners’ linguistic performance in a story-retelling
task. She found that syntactic complexity and fluency were positively influenced by
planning, but lexical complexity was not. The results for accuracy were mixed, with
significant effects found for noun-modifier agreement, but not for articles. Ortega also
investigated the process of planning by administering retrospective interviews with
the participants and found quite a bit of individual variability in the extent to which
learners attended to form or meaning during pre-task planning. It appears that learners’
 Chapter 2. Effects of task complexity and planning on oral production 

interpretations of the task requirements, as well as their general orientation to the task
and their L2 proficiency, mediate what they do during planning time.
In general, three robust findings emerge from the results of previous studies on
planning: (a) pre-task planning typically promotes fluency and syntactic complexity of
the learners’ L2 performance; (b) results for accuracy are inconsistent, as some studies
show greater accuracy in the planning condition for some forms or measures, but not
others, and other studies show no detectable effects of planning on accuracy; and
(c) all three aspects of complexity, accuracy, and fluency may not be improved simul-
taneously by pre-task planning. In spite of these findings, there is still uncertainty re-
garding what inherent task characteristics interact with pre-task planning to affect the
learners’ L2 performance (see also, Genc, this volume).2

Previous studies on the effects of inherent task characteristics on L2 performance

Other researchers have focused on the effects of inherent task characteristics

(i.e., resource-directing dimensions of task complexity) on learners’ performance
(e.g., Gilabert, 2007; Ishikawa, 2007; Kuiken & Vedder, 2007; Robinson, 1995, 2001b,
2007). Robinson (1995), for example, used monologic narrative tasks and manipulated
task complexity along the ±here-and-now dimension. The results indicated that the
complex task significantly promoted lexical complexity, with a trend for greater accu-
racy and greater dysfluency as well. No statistically significant differences were ob-
served for syntactic complexity, however. In a more recent study, Robinson (2007)
used an interactive narrative task and manipulated task complexity along the ±reason-
ing demands dimension. The results indicated no statistically significant differences
among the different tasks in accuracy, syntactic complexity or fluency, while signifi-
cant effects on lexical complexity were found for simpler tasks. These results are in
contradiction to the cognition hypothesis. Robinson attributed these results to his fail-
ure to control for the resource-depleting dimensions adequately. In addition to using
general measures, Robinson also used in this study theoretically-motivated specific
measures of lexical and syntactic complexity. Based on findings in L1 acquisition re-
search, Robinson hypothesised that increasing conceptual demands of reasoning
would lead learners to use more cognitive state terms (e.g., “think,” “know”) and com-
plex syntactic complementations (e.g., “he thinks that he is ...”). The analysis using
these specific measures indeed showed this to be the case.
Another recent study was conducted by Ishikawa (2007), who used a story-writing
task and examined the effects of manipulating task complexity along a resource-­
directing dimension of ±here-and-now. All participants were given five minutes to

2. Learners’ task performance may likely be affected by manipulations of other variables as

well. For instance, task repetition studies (e.g., Bygate, 1996, 2001; Bygate & Samuda, 2005) raise
the possibility that different aspects of complexity, accuracy and fluency could be affected on
different iterations of task performance.
 Shoko Sasayama and Shinichi Izumi

plan and thirty minutes to write a story. The results revealed that syntactic complexity
and accuracy were significantly higher in the complex task condition, with fluency be-
ing negatively affected. Gilabert (2007) used monologic, oral narrative tasks and ma-
nipulated task complexity along the resource-directing dimension of ±here-and-now
and the resource-depleting dimension of ±planning. The results revealed that plan-
ning significantly promoted greater fluency and lexical complexity, but not syntactic
complexity or accuracy. As for the resource-directing dimension, the here-and-now
conditions elicited significantly more fluent speech, whereas the there-and-then con-
ditions promoted significantly greater accuracy. There was also some indication that
the learners’ performance in the there-and-then task was enhanced when given plan-
ning time, albeit non-significantly.
In sum, these previous studies lend only partial support to Robinson’s cognition
hypothesis. It appears that although lexical complexity and accuracy may improve si-
multaneously, syntactic complexity and accuracy may not. The only exception is
Ishikawa (2007), who found a simultaneous increase in syntactic complexity, lexical
complexity and accuracy in the complex task. This may be due to the use of a written
task in his study, in which the processing load may have been eased for learners more
than would have been the case in a speaking task. In continued investigation of the
cognition hypothesis, particularly needed are studies that examine the effects of ma-
nipulation in the resource-directing dimensions and resource-depleting dimensions
concurrently, so that the validity of both Skehan’s and Robinson’s claims can be exam-
ined in a comparable manner. The study reported below constitutes an attempt to do
this by investigating the effects of both pre-task planning and ±few elements in the
same study.

Research aims and hypotheses

Three unique features of the current study should be noted. First, as mentioned earlier,
this study is one of the first attempts to examine the possibly synergistic (mutually
potentiating) effects of manipulating task complexity along both resource-directing
and resource-depleting dimensions on L2 learners’ task performance. Second, in addi-
tion to using global measures, the current study employed theoretically-motivated
specific measures in analysing L2 task performance. Robinson’s cognition hypothesis
predicts that tasks made complex along resource-directing dimensions prompt learn-
ers to pay attention to “task relevant, communicatively non-redundant language”
(Robinson, 2001b, p. 35). If so, it is reasonable to expect that specific measures focus-
ing on task-relevant forms can capture the effects of such manipulation better than can
global measures (see the thematic issue of Applied Linguistics, 2009, 30(4), for exten-
sive discussion on this and other related issues). In our study, we looked at the use of
noun modifiers, as these are the forms most likely to be affected by the manipulation
of ±few elements. Third, in terms of our study participants, we focused on Japanese
EFL high school students who had limited oral L2 proficiency – a population thus far
 Chapter 2. Effects of task complexity and planning on oral production 

not highlighted enough in previous studies, despite their obvious importance for both
research and teaching.
Two main research questions (RQ) guided the study:
Research Question 1. What effects does the manipulation of task complexity along a
resource-directing dimension ([±few elements]) and a resource-depleting dimension
([±planning]) have on L2 learners’ task performance in terms of complexity, accuracy,
and fluency?
Research Question 2. How does analysis using specific selected language measures dif-
fer from analysis using general measures of L2 task performance for complexity and
accuracy?
Based on the predictions made by Robinson and Skehan in their respective theoretical
frameworks as outlined above, the following hypotheses were formulated:
Hypothesis 1: A complex task will elicit more complex and more accurate, though less
fluent, speech than a simple task (RQ1 focusing on the impact of a resource-directing
factor).
Hypothesis 2: Specific measures of complexity and accuracy will provide more eviden-
tial support to Robinson’s cognition hypothesis than will general measures of L2 task
performance (RQ2).
Hypothesis 3: Planners will produce more complex and more fluent speech than will
non-planners, while the effects on accuracy will be restricted (RQ1 focusing on the
impact of a resource-depleting factor).
Hypothesis 4: A decrease in complexity in the resource-depleting dimension
(i.e., [+planning]) will bolster the attention-directing effect of the increase in the re-
source-directing dimension (i.e., [–few elements]) (RQ1 focusing on the interaction
between both resource-directing and resource-depleting factors).

Methodology

Participants

Twenty-three Japanese EFL high school students participated in the study on a volun-
tary basis. They were students in year 11, ranging in age from 16 to 17. There were
seven male and 16 female students. The regular English classes these students took in
the school were streamed, and all participants were enrolled in the highest level class.
However, the class streaming was done based on the students’ knowledge of written
English, as is typically the case with EFL in Japan. Therefore, it turned out that as a
group their oral proficiency was variable and generally limited.
 Shoko Sasayama and Shinichi Izumi

Tasks and procedures

Participants engaged in two monologic narrative tasks of different levels of complexity.

Task complexity was varied along the resource-directing dimension of ±few elements.
A simple task required learners to narrate a sequenced set of pictures with two charac-
ters, which was adapted from the Picture Arrangement subset of the Wechsler Adult
Intelligence Scale-Revised, Japanese version at level 3 (Shinagawa, Kobayashi, Fujita, &
Maekawa, 1990). A complex task required learners to narrate a sequenced set of pic-
tures adopted from Elder and Iwashita (2005). These pictures contained four male
characters, one female, one policeman, two ambulance attendants, and a dog. The par-
ticipants, therefore, had to differentiate between these characters, which made this
task cognitively more complex.
The experiment was conducted on two separate days with six other collaborators
in a one-on-one setting.3 Participants in the experiment were asked to narrate a story
based on the given set of pictures, so that a listener – a collaborator or one of the re-
searchers – could correctly sequence the same set of pictures based on their narration.
The listener, however, did not interact with the speaker except to occasionally encour-
age the speaker to keep on speaking. All participants engaged in both the simple and
complex tasks. The order of the tasks was counterbalanced. At the same time, for both
tasks, half of the participants were assigned to the planning condition (n = 10), and the
other half to the non-planning condition (n = 13). Those in the planning condition
were given five minutes of pre-task planning time for both tasks, and those in the non-
planning condition were given only one minute to familiarize themselves with the
picture stories.4 The instructions given for the planners were as follows (original in
Japanese): “Consider in detail ‘what’ you would like to say, and ‘how’ and ‘in what or-
der’ you would like to say it. You can take a memo, but you will not be allowed to look
at your memo during the task.” No questions or access to a dictionary were allowed
during planning. No time limit was set for the completion of the task.5

3. These collaborators were graduate students majoring in TESOL or applied linguistics. All of
them participated in a thirty-minute training session prior to the data collection.
4. Although Mehnert (1998) found in her monologic task that complexity was promoted only
when participants were given ten-minute planning time, our pilot study showed that ten minutes
was too long especially for a simple task. Since the experimental design of our study necessitated
that the length of the planning time be equivalent for the two tasks, we made a compromise
decision of five minutes as adequate time to be given to both tasks.
5. Planners spent 84.30 seconds on average for the simple task (SD = 31.61) and 155.70 sec-
onds for the complex task (SD = 65.79). Non-planners, on the other hand, spent 50.85 seconds
for the simple task (SD = 16.02) and 110.46 seconds for the complex task (SD = 28.09).
 Another Random Document on
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Olympic games; and when Alexander, the son of Amyntas, king of
Macedon, presented himself to dispute the prize, his competitors,
without any regard to the royal dignity, opposed his reception as a
Macedonian, and consequently a barbarian and a stranger; nor could
the judge be prevailed upon to admit him till he had proved, in due
form, that his family was originally descended from the Argives.
They were made to take an oath, that they would religiously observe
the several laws prescribed in each kind of combat, and do nothing
contrary to the established orders and regulations of the games.
Fraud, artifice, and excessive violence, were absolutely prohibited;
and the maxim so generally received elsewhere, that it is indifferent
whether an enemy is conquered by deceit or valour, was banished
from these combats.
It is time to bring our champions to blows, and to run over the
different kinds of combats in which they exercised themselves.
Wrestling is one of the most ancient exercises of which we have any
knowledge, having been practised in the time of the patriarchs, as
the wrestling of the angel with Jacob proves39.
Wrestling among the Greeks, as well as other nations, was practised
at first with simplicity, little art, and in a natural manner; the weight
of the body, and the strength of the muscles, having more share of
it, than address or skill.
The wrestlers, before they began their combats, were rubbed all
over in a rough manner, and afterwards anointed with oils, which
added to the strength and flexibility of their limbs. But as this
unction, in making the skin too slippery, rendered it difficult for them
to take hold of each other, they remedied that inconvenience,
sometimes by rolling themselves in the dust of the palæstræ,
sometimes by throwing a fine sand upon each other, kept for that
purpose in the porticoes of the gymnasia.
Thus prepared, the wrestlers began their combat. They were
matched two against two, and sometimes several couples contended
at the same time.
Of Boxing, or the Cestus.—The combatants covered their fists with a
kind of offensive arms called cestus, and their heads with a sort of
leather cap, to defend their temples and ears, which were most
exposed to blows, and to deaden their violence. The cestus was a
kind of gauntlet or glove, made of straps of leather, and plated with
brass, lead, or iron, inside. Their use was to strengthen the hands of
the combatants, and to add violence to their blows.
Boxing was one of the rudest and most dangerous of the gymnastic
combats; because, besides the danger of being crippled, the
combatants ran the hazard of losing their lives. They sometimes fell
down dead, or dying, upon the sand; though that seldom happened,
except the vanquished person persisted too long in not
acknowledging his defeat: yet it was common for them to quit the
fight with a countenance so disfigured, that it was not easy to know
them afterwards.
Of the Pancratium.—The Pancratium was so called from two Greek
words40 which signify that the whole force of the body was
necessary for succeeding in it. It united boxing and wrestling in the
same fight, borrowing from one its manner of struggling and
throwing, and from the other, the art of dealing blows, and of
avoiding them with success.
Of the Discus, or quoit.—The discus was a kind of quoit of a round
form, made sometimes of wood, but more frequently of stone, lead,
or other metal, as iron or brass. Those who used this exercise were
called Discoboli; that is, flingers of the discus.
The athletæ, in hurling the discus, put themselves into the best
posture they could, to add force to their cast. He that flung the
discus farthest was the victor.
The most famous painters and sculptors of antiquity, in their
endeavours to represent naturally the attitudes of the discoboli, have
left posterity many masterpieces in their several arts. Quintilian
exceedingly extols a statue of this kind, which had been finished
with infinite care and application by the celebrated Myron41.
Of the Pentathlum.—The Greeks gave this name to an exercise
composed of five others:—wrestling, running, leaping, throwing the
dart, and the discus. It is believed that this sort of combat was
decided in one day, and sometimes the same morning; and that the
prize, which was single, could not be given but to the victor in all
those exercises.
Of Races.—Of all the exercises which the athletæ cultivated with so
much pains and industry, for their appearance in the public games,
running was in the highest estimation, and held the foremost rank.
The place where the athletæ exercised themselves in running, was
generally called the Stadium by the Greeks; as was that wherein
they disputed in earnest for the prize. Under that denomination was
included not only the space in which the athletæ ran, but also that
which contained the spectators of the gymnastic games.
The middle of the Stadium was remarkable only by the circumstance
of having the prizes allotted to the victors set up there. St.
Chrysostom draws a fine comparison from this custom. “As the
judges,” says he, “in the races and other games, expose in the midst
of the Stadium, to the view of the champions, the crowns which they
are to receive; in like manner the Lord, by the mouth of his
prophets, has placed the prizes in the midst of the course, which he
designs for those who have the courage to contend for them.”
There were three kinds of races, the chariot, the horse, and the foot-
race.
1. Of the Foot-race.—The runners, of whatever number they were,
ranged themselves in a line, after having drawn lots for their places.
Whilst they waited the signal to start, they practised, by way of
prelude, various motions to awaken their activity, and to keep their
limbs pliable and in a right temper. They kept themselves breathing
by small leaps, and making little excursions, which were a kind of
trial of their speed and agility. Upon the signal’s being given, they
flew towards the goal, with a rapidity scarcely to be followed by the
eye, which was solely to decide the victory; for the Agnostic laws
prohibited, upon the penalty of infamy, the attaining it by any foul
method.
2. Of the Horse-races.—The race of a single horse with a rider was
less celebrated by the ancients; yet it had its favourers amongst the
most considerable persons, even kings themselves, and was
attended with uncommon glory to the victor.
3. Of the Chariot-races.—This kind of race was the most renowned of
all the exercises used in the games of the ancients, and that from
whence most honour redounded to the victors. It is plain they were
derived from the constant custom of princes, heroes and great men,
of fighting in battle upon chariots. Homer has an infinity of examples
of this kind. All those, who presented themselves in the Olympic
games to dispute the prize in the chariot races, were persons
considerable either for their riches, their birth, their employments, or
great actions. Kings themselves aspired passionately to this glory,
from the belief that the title of victor in these games was scarcely
inferior to that of conqueror, and that the Olympic palm added new
dignity to the splendours of a throne.
The chariots were generally drawn by two or four horses. Sometimes
mules supplied the place of horses. These chariots, upon a signal
given, started together. Their places were regulated by lot, which
was not an indifferent circumstance as to the victory; for being to
turn round a boundary, the chariot on the left was nearer than those
on the right, which in consequence had a greater compass to take.
They ran twelve times round the Stadium. He that came in first the
twelfth round was victor. The chief art consisted in taking the best
ground at the turning of the boundary; for if the charioteer drove
too near it, he was in danger of dashing the chariot to pieces; and if
he kept too wide of it, his nearest antagonist might get foremost.
To avoid such danger, Nestor gave the following directions to his son
Antilochus, who was going to dispute the prize in the chariot races.
“My son,” says he, “drive your horses as near as possible to the
turning; for which reason, always inclining your body over your
chariot, get the left of your competitors; and encouraging the horse
on the right, give him the rein, whilst the near-horse, hard held,
turns the boundary so close to it, that the nave of the wheel seems
to graze upon it; but have a care of running against the stone, lest
you wound your horses, and dash the chariot in pieces.”
It was not required, that those who disputed the victory should enter
the lists, and drive their chariots in person. Their being spectators of
the games, or sending their horses thither, was sufficient.
No one ever carried the ambition of making a great figure in the
public games of Greece so far as Alcibiades, in which he
distinguished himself in the most splendid manner, by the great
number of horses and chariots, which he kept only for the races. It
is not easy to comprehend, how the wealth of a private person
should suffice to so enormous an expense: but Antisthenes, the
scholar of Socrates, who relates what he saw, informs us, that many
cities of the allies, in a kind of emulation with each other, supplied
Alcibiades with all things necessary for the support of such
magnificence. Equipages, horses, tents, sacrifices, the most
exquisite provisions, the most delicate wines; in a word, all that was
necessary to the support of his table or train.
We must not omit, in speaking of the Olympic games, to notice that
ladies were admitted to dispute the prize in them as well as the
men, which many of them obtained. Cynisca, sister of Agesilaus,
king of Sparta, first opened this new path of glory to her sex, and
was proclaimed victrix in the race of chariots with four horses. This
victory, which till then had no example, did not fail of being
celebrated with all possible splendour.—A magnificent monument
was erected in Sparta in honour of Cynisca; and the
Lacedæmonians, though otherwise very little sensible to the charms
of poetry, appointed a poet to transmit this new triumph to posterity,
and to immortalize its memory by an inscription in verse.
Of the honours and rewards granted to the victors.—These honours and
rewards were of several kinds. The spectators’ acclamations in
honour of the victors were only a prelude to the rewards designed
them. These rewards were different wreaths of wild olive, pine,
parsley, or laurel, according to the different places where the games
were celebrated. Those crowns were always attended with branches
of palm, that the victors carried in their right hands. As he might be
victor more than once in the same games, and sometimes on the
same day, he might also receive several crowns and palms.
When the victor had received the crown and palm, a herald,
preceded by a trumpeter, conducted him through the Stadium, and
proclaimed aloud his name and country.
When he returned to his own country, the people came out in a body
to meet him, and conducted him into the city, adorned with all the
marks of his victory, and riding upon a chariot drawn by four horses.
He made his entry not through the gates, but through a breach
purposely made in the walls. Lighted torches were carried before
him, and a numerous train followed, to do honour to the procession.
One of the most honourable privileges granted to the athletic victors,
was the right of taking place at the public games. At Sparta it was a
custom for the king to take them with him in military expeditions, to
fight near his person, and to be his guard; which, with reason, was
judged very honourable. Another privilege, in which the useful
united with the honourable, was that of being maintained for the
rest of their lives at the expense of their country. They were also
exempted from all civil offices and employments.
The praises of the victorious athlete were, amongst the Greeks, one
of the principal subjects of their lyric poetry. We find, that all the
odes of the four books of Pindar turn upon it, each of which takes its
title from the games, in which the combatants signalised themselves,
whose victories those poems celebrate.
Sculpture united with poetry to perpetuate the fame of the
champions. Statues were erected to the victors, in the very place
where they had been crowned, and sometimes in that of their birth
also, which was commonly done at the expense of their country.
Amongst the statues which adorned Olympia, were those of several
children of ten or twelve years old, who had obtained the prize at
that age in the Olympic games. They did not only raise such
monuments to the champions, but to the very horses to whose
swiftness they were indebted for the Agonistic crown: and Pausanias
mentions one, which was erected in honour of a mare, called Aura,
whose history is worth repeating. Phidolas, her rider, having fallen
off in the beginning of the race, the mare continued to run in the
same manner as if he had been upon her back. She outstripped all
the rest, and upon the sound of the trumpets, which was usual
toward the end of the race to animate the competitors, she
redoubled her vigour and courage, turned round the goal, and, as if
she had been sensible of the victory, presented herself before the
judges of the games.
Nor did the entertainments finish here. There was another kind of
competition; and that, too, which does not at all depend upon the
strength, activity, and address of the body, and may be called, with
reason, the combat of the mind; wherein the orators, historians, and
poets, made trial of their capacities, and submitted their productions
to the judgment of the public.
It was a great honour, and, at the same time, a most sensible
pleasure for writers, who are generally fond of fame and applause,
to have known how to reconcile the voices in their favour of so
numerous and select an assembly as that of the Olympic games, in
which were present all the finest geniuses of Greece, and all the best
judges of the excellence of a work. This theatre was equally open to
history, eloquence, and poetry.
Herodotus read his history in the Olympic games to all Greece,
assembled at them, and was heard with such applause, that the
names of the nine Muses were given to the nine books which
compose his work, and the people cried out wherever he passed,
“That is he, who has written our history, and celebrated our glorious
successes against the Barbarians.”
Anciently, Olympia was surrounded by walls; it had two temples,—
one dedicated to Jupiter, and another to Juno; a senate-house, a
theatre, and many other beautiful edifices, and also an innumerable
multitude of statues.
The temple of Jupiter was built with the spoils, taken from certain
states which had revolted; it was of the Doric order; sixty-eight feet
high, two hundred and thirty long, and ninety-five broad. This edifice
was built by an able architect, named Libon; and it was adorned by
two sculptors of equal skill, who enriched the pediments of the
principal front with elaborate and elegant ornaments. The statue of
the god, the work of Phidias, was of gold and ivory, fifty cubits high.
On the one pediment, [Oe]nomaus and Peleus were disputing the
prize of the race in the presence of Jupiter; on the other was the
battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithæ. On the summit of each
pediment was a Victory, of gilt brass; and at each angle a large vase
of the same metal.
This statue was the finest the world ever saw. “Indeed,” says Mr.
Dodwell; and he is borne out by the authorities of all those ancient
writers who have written of it, “it appears to have united all the
beauty of form, and all the splendour of effect, that are produced by
the highest excellence of the statuary and the painter.”
The altar in this temple42 was composed of ashes from the thighs of
the victims, which were carried up and consumed on the top with
wood of the white poplar-tree. The ashes, also, of the Prytanæum,
in which a perpetual fire was kept on a hearth, were removed
annually, on a fixed day, and spread on it, being first mingled with
water from the Alpheus. The people of Elis sacrificed daily, and
private persons as often as they chose.
Olympia43 preserved, much longer than Delphi, and with less
diminution, the sacred property, of which it was a similar repository.
Some images were removed by Tiberius Nero. His successor, Caius
Caligula, who honoured Jupiter with the familiar appellation of
brother, commanded that his image should be transported to Rome;
but the architects declared it was impossible, without destroying the
work.
The god, in the time of Pausanias, retained his original splendour.
The native offerings of crowns and chariots, and of charioteers, and
horses, and oxen, in brass, the precious images of gold, ivory, or
amber, and the curiosities consecrated in the temples, the treasuries,
and other edifices, could not be viewed without astonishment. The
number of statues within the grove, was itself an amazing spectacle.
Many were the works of Myron, Lysippus, and the prime artists of
Greece. Here kings and emperors were assembled; and Jupiter
towered in brass from twelve to thirty feet high! Let the reader
peruse the detail given by Pausanias, and imagine, if he can, the
entertainment which Olympia must then have afforded to the
antiquary, the connoisseur, and historian.
Of all splendour, the temple of Juno alone can be ascertained with
any degree of certainty. The soil, which has been considerably
elevated, covers the greater part of the ruin. The walls of the cella
rise only two feet from the ground. “We employed,” says Mr.
Dodwell, “some Turks to excavate; and we discovered some frusta of
the Doric order, of which the flutings were thirteen inches wide, and
the diameter of the whole column seven feet three inches. We
found, also, part of a small column of Parian marble, which the
intervals of the flutings show to have been of the Ionic or the
Corinthian order. The work of ruin, however, is constantly going on;
and lately the people of Lalla (a town in the neighbourhood) have
even rooted up some of the foundations of this once celebrated
sanctuary, in order to use the materials in the construction of their
houses44”.
 NO. IX.—PUTEOLI.
A maritime city of Campania, between Baiæ and Naples. It was
founded by a colony from Cumæ. It was, in the first instance, called
Dicæarchia, (“Just Power45,”) and afterwards Puteoli, from the great
number of wells that were in the neighbourhood.
It was delightfully situated on a point projecting into the sea, nearly
in the centre of the bay of Puzzuoli. It was the sea-port of the
inhabitants of Cannæ; and a rendezvous for merchants from Greece,
Sicily, and all parts of Italy. The attractions of the town, also, on
account of its hot baths and mineral waters, allured the more
opulent citizens of Rome to its vicinity.
In the square of the town stands a beautiful marble pedestal,
covered with bas-reliefs, representing the fourteen towns of Asia
Minor, destroyed by an earthquake, and rebuilt by Tiberius. It
supported a statue of that emperor, erected by the same cities as a
monument of gratitude. The cathedral stands on the ruins of a
temple, and is built chiefly of ancient materials.
A temple of Serapis offers many subjects of observation. Half of its
buildings, however, are still buried under the earth thrown upon it by
volcanic commotions, or accumulated by the windings of the hill.
The inclosure is square, environed by buildings for priests, and baths
for votaries; in the centre remains a circular platform, with four
flights of steps up to it; vases for fire, a central altar, rings for
victims, and other appendages of sacrifice, entire and not displaced;
but the columns that held its roof have been removed to the new
palace of Caserta. The temple itself was not discovered till a. d.
1750, on the removal of some rubbish and bushes, which had, till
then, partly concealed it from observation.
Behind this place of worship, stand three pillars without capitals,
part of the pronaos of a large temple. These are of Cipoline marble,
and at the middle of their height, are full of holes eaten in them by
the file-fish46.
In the neighbourhood of Puteoli are many relics of ancient grandeur,
of which none deserves more attention than the Campanian Way,
paved with lava, and lined on each side with venerable tombs, the
repositories of the dead, which are richly adorned with stucco in the
inside. This road was made in the most solid, expensive manner, by
order of Domitian, and is frequently the subject of encomium in the
poems of Statius.
One of the most striking monuments of the city is the remains of the
mole that formed the ancient part. Several of its piers still stand
unbroken; they are sunk in the water, and once supported arches (to
the number of twenty-five,) part of which remain above the water.
At the end of this mole began the bridge of Caligula, which extended
across part of the bay to Baiæ, no less than half a mile in length in a
straight line. This structure has long since been swept away.
On the hill behind the town are the remains of an amphitheatre,
called, after that at Rome, the Coliseum. It was of considerable
magnitude. The gates, and a large portion of the vault and under
apartments, remain. One of these apartments, or rather dungeons,
in which St. Januarius, the patron saint of Naples, was confined, is
now turned into a damp and gloomy chapel; the arena is a garden;
vines, fig-trees, and pomegranates, have gradually crept up the
circumference, and now cover the slope, and run over the ruin47.
It is easy to guess what the animation and splendour of Puteoli must
have been, at the time when the riches of the East were poured into
its bosom; and when its climate, wit, and beauty, allured the most
opulent Romans to its vicinity.
Cicero had a marine villa here, called Puteolanum. Pliny relates that
it was on the shore, and adorned with a portico, which seems to
have been remarkable for its beauty. He adds that Cicero erected
here a monument, and that, shortly after his death, a fountain of
warm water, very wholesome for the eyes, burst forth, and gave
occasion to an epigram, which the philosopher quotes with
applause48. The portico is fallen, the groves are withered, the
fountain dried up, and not a vestige of the retreat left behind to
mark its situation. The verses remain, and perpetuate the glory of
the orator, the fame of the fountain, the beauty of the villa, and
what is more honourable than all united, the gratitude of Cicero’s
freed-man, Tullius.
St. Paul landed here in his way from Rhegium to Rome; and found
Christians even in that early age. In the museum of Portici is a
picture presenting a view of ancient Puteoli, supposed to have been
painted before St. Paul landed there. “The picture,” says Mr.
Williams, “is of course very different from the present state of the
city; but still a likeness may be traced, if we keep in view the site of
the various temples, and other objects, the foundations of which are
still visible.”
On the sea shore, near Puzzuoli, are also found seals, coins,
cornelians, and agates; bearing impressions of corn, grapes, and
vine-branches, ants, eagles, and other animals. These are thrown up
by the waves, after violent storms; and commemorate the
magnificence of a city, now forming part of the Mediterranean bed49.
 NO. X.—PALMYRA. (TADMOR.)
“As patience is the greatest of friends to the unfortunate, so is time the
greatest of friends to the lovers of landscape. It resolves the noblest works of
art into the most affecting ornaments of created things. The fall of empires,
with which the death of great characters is so immediately associated,
possesses a prescriptive title, as it were, to all our sympathy; forming at once
a magnificent, yet melancholy spectacle; and awakening in the mind all the
grandeur of solitude. Who would not be delighted to make a pilgrimage to the
East to see the columns of Persepolis, and the still more magnificent ruins of
Palmyra? Where awe springs, as it were, personified from the fragments, and
proclaims instructive lessons from the vicissitudes of fortune. Palmyra, once a
paradise in the centre of inhospitable deserts, the pride of Solomon, the
capital of Zenobia, and the wonder and admiration of all the East, now lies
‘majestic though in ruins!’ Its glory withered, time has cast over it a sacred
grandeur, softened into grace. History, by its silence, mourns its melancholy
destiny; while immense masses and stupendous columns denote the spot,
where once the splendid city of the desert reared her proud and matchless
towers. Ruins are the only legacy the destroyer left to posterity.”—Harmonies
of Nature.

This city was the capital of Palmyrene, a country on the eastern

boundaries of Syria. Its origin is uncertain; but a portion of its
history is exceedingly interesting; and its vast assemblage of ruins
are beheld with astonishment and rapture by the curious, the
learned, and the elegant.
 PALMYRA

It was situated in the midst of a large plain, surrounded on three

sides by a long chain of mountains. It stands in a desert, in the
pachalic of Damascus, about forty-eight leagues from Aleppo, and
about the same distance from Damascus, eighty-five miles west from
the Euphrates, and about one hundred and seventeen from the
shores of the Mediterranean.
History is, for the most part, silent in regard to the early history of
this city. It is said to have been built by Solomon, after he had
conquered the king of Hamathzoba, within whose dominion the
country lay, in which the city was afterwards erected. He called it
Tadmor50, which some have construed as the place of Palms51; and
sometimes “Tadmor in the Wilderness.”
We are assured by Josephus, that this was the city which the Greeks
and Romans afterwards called Palmyra. His words are:—“Now,
Solomon went in the desert above Syria, and possessed himself of it;
and built there a very great city, which was distant two days’ journey
from the upper Syria, and one day’s journey from the Euphrates, and
six long days’ journey from Babylon the great. Now the reason why
this city lay so remote from those parts of Syria, that are inhabited,
is this: that below there is no water to be had; and that it is in that
place only that there are springs and pits of water. When, therefore,
he had built that city, and encompassed it with very strong walls, he
gave it the name of Tadmor; and that is the name it is still called by
at this day among the Syrians52: but the Greeks name it Palmyra.”
That the city was built by Solomon is most probable; but that the
present ruins have any relation to buildings of his erection is very
improbable: indeed we must assume it as certain that they are not;
they being entirely those of the Greek orders. With the exception of
four Ionic half-columns in the Temple of the Sun, and two in one of
the mausoleums, the whole architecture of Palmyra is Corinthian.
Neither history nor even tradition, moreover, speaks of any other
architect than Solomon.
Some have been disposed to give it an earlier existence53. The
Arabic translator of Chronicles makes Palmyra older than Solomon;
John of Antioch, surnamed Melala, says, that he built it on the spot
where David slew Goliah, in memory of that action; and Abul-Farai
mentions in what year, with the particulars. These and other
accounts of the early state of Palmyra, which might be collected
from the Arabic authors, bear such evident marks of fable and wild
conjecture, that we shall pass them over.
Notwithstanding this, we assume the city to have been founded by
the celebrated king to whom the honour is given: who built the
temples is totally unknown.
The motives which tempted Solomon to build a city in a plain, now
altogether a desert, we copy from Mr. Addison’s Travels to
Damascus:—“The astonishment that takes hold of the mind at the
strange position of this magnificent city, at one time the capital of
the East, on the edge of the great desert, and surrounded for
several days’ journey on all sides by naked solitary wilds, is removed
by marking well the peculiarity of its geographical position. The
great caravans coming to Europe, laden with the rich merchandise of
India, would naturally come along the Persian gulf, through the
south of Persia, to the Euphrates, the direct line; their object then
would be to strike across the great Syrian desert as early as
possible, to reach the large markets and ports of Syria. With more
than 600 miles of desert without water, between the mouth of the
Euphrates and Syria, they would naturally be obliged to keep along
the banks of that river, until the extent of desert country became
diminished. They would then find the copious springs of Tadmor the
nearest and most convenient to make for; and in their direct route
from the north of India along the Euphrates. These springs would
then immediately become most important, and would naturally
attract the attention of a wise prince like Solomon, who would ‘fence
them with strong walls.’ Here the caravans would rest and take in
water; here would congregate the merchants from adjacent
countries and Europe; and from hence the great caravan would be
divided into numerous branches, to the north, south, and west54. A
large mart for the exchange of commodities would be established,
and an important city would quickly arise. The choice of this spot by
Solomon, we may naturally consider founded on a policy of enriching
himself by drawing the commerce of India through his dominions,
from which commerce, probably, he derived the wealth for which he
is so celebrated. In the chapter, succeeding that in which Solomon is
mentioned to have built Tadmor in the wilderness, we read that ‘the
weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year, was six hundred
three score and six talents of gold55; besides that he had of the
merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice-merchants, and of all
the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country.’”
The city which Solomon built was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar; but
who rebuilt it is entirely unknown. It is not mentioned by Xenophon,
in his history of the expedition of Cyrus the younger, though he gives
a very accurate account of the desert, and must have left this place
not a great way to the right in his march towards Babylon. Nor is it
once alluded to by Diodorus, nor Plutarch, nor Arrian, nor Quintus
Curtius, nor, indeed, by any of the biographers or historians of
Alexander; although he marched through this desert to Thapsacus.
Nor is it taken any notice of as being in existence even in the time of
Seleucus Nicator, he who built so many cities in Syria; nor is it once
mentioned in the history of his successor. It is not even mentioned
so lately as the time in which Pompey the Great conquered the
country in which it is situated. No notice is taken in Roman history of
its being in any way existing, till the time of Mark Antony; who, after
the battle at Philippi, marched against it, as we are told by Appian,
with a view of plundering it; but the inhabitants escaped with their
effects over the Euphrates. This very circumstance proves it to have
been at that time no very large place; added to which, it seems to
be certain, that none of these temples, &c., could have been in
existence; for the Romans had, for some time, been alive to the
benefits of works of art; especially paintings, sculpture, and
architecture. His sole object, in going thither, was to plunder the
Palmyrene merchants, who were supposed to have acquired
considerable wealth, by selling the commodities of India and Arabia.
Added to all this, Strabo, the best and most accurate geographer of
ancient times, does not once speak of its name. The first description
of this now celebrated place is by Pliny; and it runs thus:—“Palmyra
is remarkable for situation, a rich soil, and pleasant streams. It is
surrounded on all sides by a vast sandy desert, which totally
separates it from the rest of the world, and has preserved its
independence between the two great empires of Rome and Parthia,
whose first care, when at war, is to engage it in their interest. It is
distant from Seleucia three hundred and thirty-seven miles; from the
Mediterranean two hundred and three; and from Damascus one
hundred and seventy-six.”
These distances are not quite accurate, being too great. Palmyra is
also mentioned by Ptolemy, who makes it the capital of sixteen cities
in Syria Palmyrena. Trajan and Hadrian made expeditions into the
East, and must have passed through this city, or near it. Nothing,
however, is said of it. Had the temples been there at that time,
Hadrian, who was so great a patron of the elegant arts, would, there
can be no doubt, have valued them. Some, indeed, insist that he
repaired the city; and that it was thence called Hadrianopolis.
The Palmyrenes submitted to that emperor about the year 130.
Hadrian, then, making a tour through Syria into Egypt, delighted
with the situation and native strength of the place, is said to have
determined on furnishing it with various splendid edifices and
ornaments; and it is probable, that he then conferred upon it the
privileges of “Colonia Juris Italici,” which, as we learn from Ulpian, it
actually enjoyed, and the inhabitants were thence induced by
gratitude to call themselves “Hadrianopolitæ.” It is supposed that
many of its marble pillars, particularly those of the long porticoes,
were the gift of this emperor. It must, nevertheless, be borne in
mind, that all this is little better than conjecture. Mr. Halifax,
however, says, “that as the most ancient inscription, he met with at
Palmyra, was dated the three hundred and fourteenth year from the
death of Alexander, that is, ten years before Christ, and another,
dated between twenty and thirty years before Hadrian, consequently
before the Romans got footing there, he concluded, that the
sumptuous structures he saw there were not raised by the Romans.”
From an inscription on the shaft of a column in the long portico,
where all the inscriptions seem to have been under statues, it
appears that, in the reign of Alexander Severus, they joined that
emperor in his expedition against the Persians.
From this time to the reign of Gallienus, no mention is made of this
city: but then it became so conspicuous, that its history will be a
subject of interest to all succeeding times.
The following is an abstract of the history of this period, presented
to us in the pages of Gibbon, Mr. Wood, and other writers. A place
possessed of such singular advantages, and situated at a convenient
distance from the gulf of Persia, and the Mediterranean, was soon
frequented by the caravans, which conveyed to the nations of
Europe a considerable part of the rich commodities of India. Palmyra
insensibly increased into an opulent and independent city; and,
connecting the Roman and Parthian empire by the mutual benefits
of commerce, was suffered to observe an humble neutrality; till at
length, after the victories of Trajan, the little republic sank into the
bosom of Rome, and flourished more than one hundred and fifty
years in the subordinate yet honourable rank of a colony; and it is
during this period of peace, Mr. Gibbon is disposed to believe, that
the wealthy Palmyrians constructed those temples, palaces and
porticoes of Grecian architecture, the ruins of which in modern times
have excited so much admiration and wonder.
The Roman affairs in the East had been for some time in a very
deplorable condition, when Odenatus, a Palmyrene, but of what
family or rank originally in the state is not agreed56, made so
judicious a use of his situation between the two rival powers of
Rome and Persia, as to succeed in getting the balance of power into
his hands. It appears, that he declared in favour of different
interests, as alterations of affairs rendered necessary. At length he
joined the shattered remains of the Roman army in Syria, routed
Sapor, the Persian king, and advanced as far as Ctesiphon, the
capital of his empire. He returned from this expedition in great glory;
and hence Gallienus, emperor of Rome, was induced to declare him
Augustus and co-partner of his empire.
This elevation,—which he enjoyed jointly with his celebrated consort,
Zenobia,—appeared to reflect a new splendour on their country, and
Palmyra for a while stood upon an equality with Rome. The
competition, however, was fatal; and ages of prosperity were
sacrificed to a moment of glory.
The last public action of Odenatus was his relieving Asia from the
Goths, who had over-run several of its provinces, committing great
ravages; but retired upon his approach: in pursuing them, however,
Odenatus was assassinated by an officer of his own guard, named
Mæonius, who was also his kinsman; and who, having taken the son
off also, became for a short time sovereign. He, too, shared the fate
of those he had betrayed, and Zenobia became sovereign queen in
his stead.
All that is known of Zenobia’s extraction is, that she claimed a
descent from the Ptolemies of Egypt57; and that she boasted of
having Cleopatra for an ancestress. She was a woman of very great
beauty58; and of very extraordinary enterprise. We cannot enter into
her history so fully as we could wish. She conquered Syria and
Mesopotamia; she subdued Egypt; and added the greater part of
Asia Minor to her dominions. Thus a small territory in the desert,
under the government of a woman, made the great kingdoms of the
Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ part of the dominions of a single city,
whose name we look in vain for in their history; and Zenobia, lately
confined to the barren plain of Palmyra, ruled from the south of
Egypt to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea.
At length Aurelian, the Roman emperor, entered the field against
her; and the loss of two great battles, the former near Antioch, the
latter at Emesa, reduced her to the necessity of taking shelter within
the walls of her own capital. Aurelian besieged her there; but the
enterprise was exceedingly difficult. “The Roman people,” said
Aurelian, “speak with contempt of the war, which I am waging
against a woman. They are ignorant both of the character and
power of Zenobia. It is impossible to enumerate her warlike
preparations, of stones, of arrows, and of every species of missile
weapons. Every part of the walls is provided with two or three
balistæ59, and artificial fires are thrown from her military engines.
The fear of punishment has armed her with a desperate courage. Yet
I still trust to the protecting deities of Rome, who have hitherto been
favourable to all my undertakings.”
In another letter he writes to the senate in the following terms:—“I
hear, Conscript Fathers, that it hath been urged against me, that I
have not accomplished a manly task, in not triumphing over Zenobia.
But my very blamers themselves would not know how to praise me
enough, if they knew that woman; her firmness of purpose; the
dignity she preserves towards her army; her munificence when
circumstances require it; her severity, when to be severe is to be
just. I may say, that the victory of Odenatus over the Persians, and
his putting Sapor to flight, and his reaching Ctesiphon, were due to
her. I can assert that such was the dread entertained of this woman
among the nations of the East and of Egypt, that she kept in check
the Arabians, the Saracens, and the Armenians; nor would I have
preserved her life, if I had not thought she would much benefit the
Roman state.” This was written after her defeat.
Tired of making unsuccessful attempts, Aurelian determined to try
the effects of negotiation, and accordingly wrote to Zenobia. The
style he adopted, however, rather commanded terms than proposed
them:—
“Aurelian, emperor of the Roman world, to Zenobia, and the others
united together in hostile alliance.
“You ought to do that of your own accord, which is commanded by
my letters. I charge you to surrender, on your lives being spared;
and you, Zenobia, may pass your life in some spot where I shall
place you, in pursuance of the distinguished sentence of the senate;
your gems, silver, gold, silk, horses, and camels, being given up to
the Roman treasury. The laws and institutions of the Palmyrenes
shall be respected.”
To this letter Zenobia returned the following answer:—
“Zenobia, Queen of the East, to the Roman Emperor, Aurelian.
“Never was such an unreasonable demand proposed, or such
rigorous terms offered, by any but yourself! Remember, Aurelian,
that in war, whatever is done should be done by valour. You
imperiously command me to surrender: but can you forget, that
Cleopatra chose rather to die with the title of queen, than to live in
any inferior dignity? We expect succours from Persia; the Saracens
are arming in our cause; even the Syrian banditti have already
defeated your army. Judge what you are to expect from the junction
of these forces. You shall be compelled to abate that pride with
which, as if you were absolute lord of the universe, you command
me to become your captive.”
When Aurelian read this letter, says Vopiscus, he blushed; not so
much with shame, as with indignation.
Her answer inflamed the emperor to the highest pitch. He pressed
the siege, therefore, with redoubled vigour; and the city was
reduced to such extremities, that her council advised her to send for
succour to the Persians. Thus counselled, she determined on going
to the king of Persia in person. She set out, therefore, on the fleetest
of her dromedaries, and had already reached the banks of the
Euphrates (about sixty miles from Palmyra), when she was
overtaken by Aurelian’s light horse, and brought back, captive, to the
feet of Aurelian. We are told, that the sight of the queen gave the
Roman emperor infinite pleasure; but that his ambition suffered
some humiliation, when he considered that posterity would always
look upon this only as the conquest of a woman60. The city
surrendered soon after, and was treated with great lenity.
Aurelian now went to Emesa; on arriving at which place, he
questioned the queen as to her motives, and the persons who had
advised her to make so obstinate a defence. He sternly asked her,
how she had presumed to rise in arms against the emperors of
Rome? “Because,” answered Zenobia, “I disdained to consider as
Roman emperors an Aureolus or a Gallienus. You alone I
acknowledge as my conqueror and my sovereign; and this I do,
because you know how to conquer.”
When, however, the soldiers demanded her immediate execution,
her fortitude forsook her. She confessed by whose counsel she had
been guided. She purchased a dishonourable life at the expense of
her friends. They were immediately led to execution; herself was
reserved to grace the conqueror’s triumph.
Among those of her friends, whose names she had betrayed, was
the illustrious Longinus, author of that noble Treatise on the
Sublime, which is so well known and appreciated by every scholar.
He it was, she confessed, who had drawn up the letter. “Her
councillors,” she said, “were to be blamed, and not herself. What
could a weak, short-sighted, woman do? especially when beset by
artful and ambitious men, who made her subservient to all their
schemes? She never had aimed at empire, had they not placed it
before her eyes in all its allurements. The letter which affronted
Aurelian was not her own—Longinus wrote it; the insolence was his.”
When Aurelian heard this, he directed all his fury against the
unfortunate Longinus. That illustrious person was immediately led to
execution. Far from lamenting his fate, however, he condoled with
his friends, pitied Zenobia, and expressed his joy; looking upon
death as a blessing, since it would rescue his body from slavery, and
give his soul to that freedom he the most desired. “This world,” said
he, with his expiring breath, “is nothing but a prison; happy,
therefore, is he who gets soonest out of it, and gains his liberty.”
A modern poet has very finely alluded to this in his poem on
Palmyra.
On the hushed plain, where sullen horror broods,
And darkest frown the Syrian solitudes;
Where morn’s soft steps no balmy fragrance leave,
And parched and dewless is the couch of eve;
Thy form, pale city of the waste, appears
Like some faint vision of departed years;
In massy clusters still a giant train,
Thy sculptured fabrics whiten on the plain.
Still stretch thy columned vistas far away,
The shadowed dimness of their long array.
But where the stirring crowd, the voice of strife,
The glow of action and the thrill of life?
Hear the loud crash of yon huge fragments fall,
The pealing answer of each desert hall;
The night-bird shrieking from her secret cell,
The hollow winds, the tale of ruin tell.
See, fondly lingering, Mithra’s parting rays
Gild the proud towers, once vocal with his praise:
But the cold altars clasping weeds entwine,
And Moslems worship at the godless shrine.
Yet here slow pausing memory loves to pour
Her magic influence o’er this pensive hour:
And yet, as yon recesses deep prolong
The echoed sweetness of the Arab song,
Recalls that scene, when wisdom’s sceptred child,
First broke the stillness of the lonely wild.
From air, from ocean, from earth’s utmost clime,
The summoned genii heard the muttered rhyme;
The tasking spell their airy hands obeyed,
And Tadmor glittered in the palmy shade.
So to her feet the tide of ages brings
The wealth of nations and the pomp of kings,
And for her warrior queen, from Parthia’s plain
To the dark Ethiop, spreads her ample reign:
Vain boast, ev’n she who winds the field along,
Waked fiercer frenzy in the patriot throng;
And sternly beauteous in the meteor’s light,
Shot through the tempest of Emesa’s fight.
While trembling captives round the victor wait,
Hang on his eye, and catch the word of fate,
Zenobia’s self must quail beneath his nod,
A kneeling suppliant to the mimic god.
 But one there stood amid that abject throng,
In truth triumphant, and in virtue strong;
Beamed on his brow the soul which, undismayed.
Smiled at the rod, and scorned the uplifted blade.
O’er thee, Palmyra, darkness seems to lower
The boding terrors of that fearful hour;
Far from thy glade indignant freedom fled,
And hope too withered as Longinus bled61.

Palmyra, having become subject to a foreign yoke, bore the burthen

with impatience. The inhabitants cut off the Roman garrison. On
which Aurelian instantly returned, took the town, destroyed it, and
put to death most of its population, without distinction of age or sex.
The slaughter was so extensive, that none were left to plough the
adjacent lands.
Aurelian soon repented of his severity. He wrote to Bassus:—“You
must now sheathe the sword; the Palmyrenes have been sufficiently
slaughtered. We have not spared women; we have slain children; we
have strangled old men; we have destroyed the husbandmen. To
whom, then, shall we leave the land? To whom shall we leave the
city? We must spare those who remain; for we think, that the few
there are now existing, will take warning from the punishment of the
many who have been destroyed.”
The emperor then goes on to desire his lieutenant to rebuild the
Temple of the Sun as magnificently as it had been in times past; to
expend 300 pounds weight of gold, which he had found in the
coffers of Zenobia, beside 1800 pounds weight of silver, which was
raised from the sale of the people’s goods; together with the crown
jewels, all which he ordered to be sold, to make money to beautify
the temple; while he himself promises to write to the Senate, to
send a priest from Rome to dedicate it. But, in the language of
Gibbon, it is easier to destroy than it is to restore.
Zenobia was now to be led to the conqueror’s triumph. This triumph
was celebrated with extraordinary magnificence. It was opened by
twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and above two hundred of the
most curious animals from every climate of the known world.
Ambassadors from Æthiopia, Arabia, Persia, Bactriana, India, and
China, attended the triumph; and a long train of captives,—Goths,
Vandals, Sarmatians, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls, Syrians, and
Egyptians. Amongst these, Zenobia. She was confined in fetters of
gold; a slave supported the gold chain which encircled her neck, and
she almost fainted under the weight of her jewels. She did not ride,
but walk! preceded by the chariot in which she had once indulged
the vain hope of entering Rome as empress62.
The Palmyrenes63, says Zosimus, had several declarations from the
gods, which portended the overthrow of their empire; and, among
others, having consulted the temple of Apollo, at Seleucia in Cilicia,
to know if they should ever obtain the empire of the East, they got
the following unceremonious answer:
Avoid my temple, cursed, treacherous nation!
You even put the gods themselves in passion.

The religion of the Palmyrenes, it is evident, was pagan; their

government, for the most part, republican; but their laws are entirely
lost; nor can anything be known in respect to their polity, but what
may be gathered from the inscriptions. Their chief deity was the
Sun.
In regard to their knowledge of art, they have left the finest
specimens in the ruins that now remain; and, doubtless, Longinus’
work on the Sublime was written within its walls. “From these hints
we may see,” says Mr. Wood, “that this people copied after great
models in their manners, their vices, and their virtues. Their funeral
customs were from Egypt, their luxury was Persian, and their letters
and arts were from the Greeks. Their situation in the midst of these
three great nations makes it reasonable to suppose, that they
adopted most of their customs and manners. But to say more on
that head from such scanty materials, would be to indulge too much
in mere conjecture, which seems rather the privilege of the reader
than of the writer.”
Some years after this, we find Diocletian erecting several buildings
here; but what they were is not stated. Justinian, also, repaired
Palmyra, which, according to Procopius, had been almost entirely
deserted. These repairs, however, are supposed to have reference
rather to strength than to ornament; and this is the last mention of
Palmyra in Roman history.
The various fortunes of Palmyra, to and from the time of Mahomet’s
appearance, are scarcely known, except that it was considered as a
place of great strength; and that in the twelfth century, a. d. 1171,
there were, according to Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the spot in
that year, two thousand Jews in it.
Palmyra, according to the Arabs, once occupied an area nearly ten
miles in circumference, and is supposed to have been reduced to its
present confined and ruined state by the quantities of sand64 driven
on it by whirlwinds.
The walls of the city were flanked by square towers. They were
three miles in circumference, and it is imagined that they included
the great temple. What remains there are of the wall, do not look,
according to Mr. Wood, unlike the work of Justinian; and may be part
of the repairs mentioned by Procopius; and the highest antiquity
anything else can claim is the time of the Mamelukes.
A SHORT CHRONICLE OF PALMYRA.
(From Sellerus).
Anno Pers. Palmyra, built by Solomon after he had finished
Jul. 3720. the temple of Jerusalem.
Mund. 3010.

P. J. 4125. Destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, before he laid

M. 3415. siege to Jerusalem.

P. J. 4673. Pillaged by Mark Antony.

M. 3963.
V. C. Varr.
713, ante
Christ 41.

Anno Christi. 122. Hadrian, Imp. 6, went into the East, and is
supposed to have rebuilt Palmyra; in
consequence of which it assumed the name
of Hadrianople. At this period Malenthon was
a second time secretary of the city.
264. Odenathus, having roused the Persians, is
declared Augustus by Gallienus.
267.Odenathus, with his son Herodianus, slain by
Mæonius, who assumes the sovereignty of
Palmyra; but is himself slain a few days after.
Then Zenobia assumes the empire in her own
name, and those of her sons.
Circa 216. Palmyra made a Roman colony by Caracalla, in his
expedition into Parthia.
227.The republic assisted Alexander Severus against
Artaxerxes, king of Persia; Zenobia being their
general.
242/3. The republic assisted Gordian against the Persians.
260. Valerian taken prisoner by Sapor, king of Persia.
a. d. 267/8. Zenobia routed Gallienus’s general, Herodianus.
Vabellathus assumes the empire.
263. Claudius chosen emperor of Rome.
270. Zenobia conquers Egypt by her general Zabdas.
272. Palmyra taken by Aurelian.
273. Zenobia follows in the triumph of Aurelian at
Rome.
298. Hierocles, governor of Palmyra, under Dioclesian.
527/8. Justinian repairs and fortifies Palmyra.
634/9. Palmyra subjected by the Mahometans; Jabala,
the son of Al Ilum, being then lord of Tadmor,
and king of Gassan.
 659. The battle of Tadmor, between Datracus and Adis.
746. Solyman, the pseudo-caliph, beaten by Merwan,
fled to Tadmor.
1172. Palmyra visited by Benjamin of Tudela.
1678. Palmyra visited by some English merchants,
attended by forty servants and muleteers,
who first informed Europe, that such splendid
ruins as those of Tadmor were in existence.
At this time Melbam was Emir.
1691. The English merchants visit Palmyra a second
time; the Emir being Hassine.
1693. Dôr, Emir of Palmyra65.
We shall now give place to accounts in respect to the first
impressions, made by these ruins on the minds of different
travellers.
Mr. Halifax says66, “the city itself appears to have been of a large
extent by the space now taken up by the ruins;” but that there are
no footsteps of any walls remaining, nor is it possible to judge of the
ancient figure of the place. The present inhabitants, as they are
poor, miserable, dirty people, so they have shut themselves up, to
the number of about thirty or forty families, in little huts made of
dirt, within the walls of a spacious court, which inclosed a most
magnificent heathen temple: thereinto also Mr. Halifax’s party
entered, the whole village being gathered together at the door;
whether to stand upon their defence in case the strangers proved
enemies (for some of them had guns in their hands), or out of mere
curiosity to gaze, he knew not. However the guide, who was an Arab
whom Assyne their king had sent to conduct them through the
village, being a man known among them, they had an easy
admittance; and, with a great many welcomes in their language,
were led to the sheik’s house, with whom they took up their abode.
“And to mention here what the place at first view represented,
certainly the world itself could not afford the like mixture of remains
of greatest state and magnificence, together with the extremity of
poverty and wretchedness.” The nearest parallel Mr. Halifax could
think of, was that of the temple of Baal, destroyed by Jehu, and
converted into a draught-house.
“We had scarce passed the sepulchres,” says Mr. Wood, “when the
hills opening discovered to us all at once the greatest quantity of
ruins we had ever seen, all of white marble; and beyond them,
towards the Euphrates, a flat waste as far as the eye could reach,
without any object that showed either life or motion.”
When Mr. Wood’s party arrived, they were conducted to one of the
huts, of which there were about thirty, in the court of the great
temple. The inhabitants of both sexes were well-shaped, and the
women, though very swarthy, had good features. They were veiled;
but did not so scrupulously conceal their faces as the Eastern
women generally do. They paint the ends of their fingers red, their
lips blue, and their eyebrows and eyelashes black67.
They had large rings of gold or brass in their ears and nostrils, and
appeared to be healthy and robust.
The ruins were next visited by Mr. Bruce:—“When we arrived at the
top of the hill,” says he, “there opened before us, the most
astonishing, stupendous, sight, that perhaps ever appeared to
mortal sight. The whole plain below, which was very extensive, was
covered so thick with magnificent ruins, as the one seemed to touch
the other, all of fine proportions, all of agreeable forms, all
composed of white stone, which, at that distance, appeared like
marble. At the end of it stood the Palace of the Sun, a building
worthy so magnificent a scene.”
The effect on the imagination of Mr. Addison appears to have been
equally lively:—“At the end of the sandy plain,” says he, “the eye
rests upon the lofty columns of the Temple of the Sun, encompassed
by a dark elevated mass of ruined buildings; and beyond, all around,
and right and left towards the Euphrates, as far as the eye can
reach, extends the vast level naked flat of the great desert, over
which the eye runs in every direction, piercing the boundless
horizon, without discovering a human being or a trace of man.
Naked, solitary, unlimited space extends around, where man never
breathes under the shade, or rests his limbs under the cover of a
dwelling. A deep blue tint spreads along its surface, here and there
shaded with a cast of brown; the distant outline of the horizon is
clear and sharply defined; not an eminence rises to break the
monotonous flat, and along the edge extends a large district covered
with salt, distinguished from the rest by its peculiar colour.
“There is something grand and awe-inspiring in its boundless
immensity. Like the first view of the ocean, it inspires emotions,
never before experienced, unearthly in appearance, and out of
character with the general fair face of nature. The eye shrinks from
contemplating the empty, cheerless solitude, and we turn away in
quest of some object to remove the scenes of utter loneliness, that
its gloomy aspect is calculated to inspire.”
From these pages we turn with satisfaction to those of an American:
—“I have stood before the Parthenon, and have almost worshipped
that divine achievement of the immortal Phidias. I have been at
Milan, at Ephesus, at Alexandria, at Antioch; but in none of these
renowned cities I have beheld any thing, that I can allow to
approach in united extent, grandeur, and most consummate beauty,
this almost more than work of man. On each side of this, the central
point, there rose upward slender pyramids—pointed obelisks—domes
of the most graceful proportions, columns, arches, and lofty towers,
for number and for form, beyond my power to describe. These
buildings, as well as the walls of the city, being all either of white
marble, or of some stone as white, and being everywhere in their
whole extent interspersed, as I have already said, with multitudes of
overshadowing palm trees, perfectly filled and satisfied my sense of
beauty, and made me feel, for the moment, as if in such a scene I
should love to dwell, and there end my days.”
Burckhardt speaks thus of Palmyra and Balbec:—“Having seen the
ruins of Tadmor, a comparison between these two renowned remains
of antiquity naturally offered itself to my mind. The temple of the
Sun at Tadmor, is upon a grander scale than that of Balbec, but it is
choked with Arab houses, which admit only a view of the building in
detail. The architecture of Balbec is richer than that of Tadmor.”
In respect to the ruins, we must content ourselves with giving a very
general account, as it would be impossible to render a minute
description intelligible without the aid of plates.68 Our account will
be a compilation from those given by Mr. Halifax, Mr. Wood, Mr.
Bruce, Mr. Addison, and other writers, who have been there.
The entire number of distinct buildings, which may still be traced,
are from forty to fifty. To the northward of the valley of the tombs,
on the highest eminence in the immediate vicinity, towers the ruined
Turkish or Saracenic castle. It is seated on the very summit of the
mountain, and surrounded by a deep ditch, cut out of the solid rock.
It is said by the Arabs to have been built by Man Ogle, a prince of
the Druses; its deserted chambers and passages partake of the
universal solitude and silence; there is not a living thing about it; it
seems to be deserted even by the bats.
From this castle is seen an extensive view round about: you see
Tadmor under you, inclosed on three sides with long ridges of
mountains, which open towards the east gradually, to the distance of
about an hour’s riding; but to the east stretches a vast plain beyond
the reach of the eye. In this plain you see a large valley of salt, lying
about an hour’s distance from the city69.
It is imagined by the Persians that this castle, as well as the edifices
at Balbec, were built by genii, for the purposes of hiding in their
subterranean caverns immense treasures, which still remain there70.
“All these things,” said one of the Arabs to Mr. Wood, “were done by
Solyman ebn Doud, (Solomon, the son of David,) by the assistance
of spirits.”
But of all the monuments of art and magnificence, the most
considerable is the Temple of the Sun.
This temple, says Bruce, is very much ruined; of its peristyle there
only remains70 a few columns entire, Corinthian, fluted and very
elegant, though apparently of slenderer proportions than ten
diameters. Their capitals are quite destroyed. The ornament of the
outer gate are, some of them, of great beauty, both as to execution
and design.
Within the court are the remains of two rows of very noble marble
pillars, thirty-seven feet high. The temple was encompassed with
another row of pillars, fifty feet high; but the temple itself was only
thirty-three yards in length, and thirteen or fourteen in breadth. This
is now converted into a mosque, and ornamented after the Turkish
manner.
North of this place is an OBELISK, consisting of seven large stones,
besides its capital, and the wreathed work above it, about fifty feet
high, and just above the pedestal twelve in circumference. Upon this
was probably a statue, which the Turks have destroyed.
On the west side is a most magnificent arch, on the remains of
which are some vines and clusters of grapes, carved in the boldest
imitation of nature that can be conceived.
Just over the door are discerned a pair of wings, which extend its
whole breadth; the body to which they belong is totally destroyed,
and it cannot now certainly be known, whether it was that of an
eagle or of a cherub, several representations of both being visible on
other fragments of the building.
The north end of the building is adorned with a curious fret-work
and bas-relief; and in the middle there is a dome or cupola, about
ten feet in diameter, which appears to have been either hewn out of
the rock, or moulded of some composition, which, by time, is grown
equally hard.
At about the distance of a mile from the OBELISK are two others,
besides the fragment of a third; hence it has been reasonably
suggested, that they were a continued row.
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