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The development, implementation and redesigning of a task-based language curriculum for primary

schools

Marleen Colpin & Koen Van Gorp

Centre for Language and Migration (K.U.Leuven)

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Centre for Language and Migration• Within the Flemish Educational Priority

Policy• 3 main tasks:

– research– support of teachers and teacher trainers– syllabus and curriculum development

• Both in primary and secondary education

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Flemish Educational Priority Policy• Challenge: Provide equal educational

opportunities to all children regardless of their (linguistic) background

• How? Efficient and effective language teaching especially for both L1-learners at risk and L2 learners

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Language teaching: early '90s (1)

• Language teaching doesn’t meet the needs of a diverse student population and isn’t focussed on acquiring academic language proficiency

• It is very much based on teacher-centered PPP-paradigm (presentation, practice and production)

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Language teaching: early '90s (2)

• Time-allocation: 51% focus on form(s)– 32% language awareness

»20% traditional grammar excercises

– 19% spelling– 23% reading, 10% writing, 7% speaking, 5%

listening»whereas 90-95% of the attainment

targets deal with language proficiency

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De Toren van Babbel (TvB)

• The first task-based language curriculum for primary schools in Flanders

• To meet the challenge of equal opportunities and concerns of the early '90's

• Designed from 1992 to 1995

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Starting point

• Building on experience with communicative language teaching– Focussing on language profiency

• Conceptions of 'task' as unit of analysis in syllabus design (Long & Crookes, 1993)

• Needs analysis of academic language register in primary education– tools: vocabulary list as a means to control

language input in TvB

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Task example: Who is the thief?Grandmother Mouse came home through the back door. Her arrival frightened a thief. On entering she heard him running away through the front door; she also heard a metallic tool hitting the ground. But she was too late to see the thief.Her friend the fox detective Sherlock Holmes arrived promptly. He entered through the back door accompanied by the two major suspects: the bear and the stork. They were the only persons working nearby, so one of them had to be the thief.Sherlock looked about the living room. After inspecting the front door and noticing the wrench he immediately knew who the thief was.

Who is the culprit: the bear or the stork?

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Who is the thief? (2)

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Powerful learning environmentsfor language learning

POSITIVE, SAFE CLIMATE

MEANINGFUL, RELEVANT TASKS

INTERACTIONALSUPPORT

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The concept of task• Language as a means…• … to reach a motivating goal• Involve relevant and natural language

– needs analysis of academic language– pedagogical tasks as stepping stones

• manipulations of authentic target tasks in terms of complexity and motivating power but processing and language demands resemble target tasks

• Contain language learning potential– zone of next potential, negotiated difficulty

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The concept of task (2)

• Elicit interaction and feedback: co-operative learning– interaction serves different functions

• motivate, feedback (on meaning and form), collaborative dialogue, …

– stimulating peer interaction• heterogeneous groups

– promoting task-based interaction• e.g. jigsaw, …

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The concept of task (3)

• Focus on role of the teacher:– motivating language learners

• creating a positive, safe climate

– organizing learning environment• confronting leaners with meaningful, relevant tasks

– supporting language learners• negotiate, provide feedback, stimulate peer

interaction, …

= differentiated according to learners' needs

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Focus on form & focus on forms

• Primary focus on meaning (80% of the time)

• Focus on form activities (FoF): language awareness activities– a mapping of form on function approach– grammar: insight in how language works

• Focus on forms (FoFs): technical reading abilities, spelling

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Implementation of TvB (1)

• 18% of Dutch primary schools have bought TvB (especially educational priority schools, but also other schools)

• Positive voices about– choice of themes, activities, group work and

learning methods– motivating power of tasks, texts, …

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Implementation of TvB (2)

• The problems:

– Too much, too difficult• activities, reading texts

– Too little 'real practice' (exercises)• spelling, grammar

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Implementation of TvB (3)• Some teachers' concerns were not met

– Spelling (all grades)• Additional spelling materials are used

– Technical reading (2nd and 3th grade)– Evaluation (all grades)– Differentiation in amount and complexity of

lesson materials (all grades)– Remedial teaching (all grades)– Not enough support for learner feedback

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10 years later… what has changed?

• Learning from past implementation experiences

• Taking into account new developments in CTM and task-based approach in general

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2005-2007: TotemTaal

• Second task-based language curriculum for primary schools

• Fundamental changes and choices underlying task-based curriculum beginning of 21th century

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Changes and choices

• Concept of task

• Concept of syllabus design – complexity

• The role of the teacher

• Focus on Form(s)

• Task-based language assessment

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Concept of task• Open tasks

– With a clearly defined goal– Allowing a great deal of intellectual and creative

freedom– Promoting task-based interaction– With maximal potential for learning

• Relevant tasks– With regard to the attainment goals– Task-based + Task-oriented– Pedagogical tasks: manipulate complexity, variety

and motivational power

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Examples of attainment goalsfor the end of primary education• Listening

– The pupils can understand and structure the information from an explanation or an instruction of the teacher.

• Writing– The pupils can write a report of an event,

a story or an informative text for a familiar person.

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Concept of syllabus designCriteria for selection and sequencing

• Relevance and naturalness

• Characteristics defining tasks

– settings of different parameters, each of which is a continuum of diversity and complexity

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Parameters and settings

Each task challenges pupils to…• exercise one or more of the four language

skills– listening – speaking – reading – writing

• handle a text of a certain type, meant for a certain public– informative texts / argumentative texts /

directive texts / ...– known peer / unknown peer / known adult /

unknown adult

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Parameters and settings (2)

• handle information, depending on the goal of the task, on a certain level of processing– copy - understand as such/describe - structure -

evaluate

• handle texts about different subjects, representing or revealing a different ‘world’, e.g.– from here-and-now to there-and-then– from a more concrete of a more generalizing

perspective– demanding more of less knowledge of the world– offering more or less linguistic/visual support

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Parameters and settings (3)

• … and the text (spoken or written) distinguishes itself by a certain:– vocabulary– syntax– structure– code– conventions– ...

all of which can be more of less difficult.

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Task complexity

• Overall complexity = sum of all the settings

• Defining settings allows:– to gain insight in complexity– to ‘manipulate’ complexity

• In terms of making a task easier or more difficult on one or more parameters

• In terms of building in extra support

– to control diversity

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Examples: write a report of an event• Second grade:

– write a report of the creation of an animal (on a pre-structured card)

• Fourth grade:– write a report of ‘a day in the live of the king (in a

table with hours)

• Sixth grade:– write a report of your quest to liberate Mr. Orange

(free structure)

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Examples: parameter-settings

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Public

Level of processing

Subject/world

Text/Linguistic demands

2 4 6

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Teacher support & differentiatione.g.• Help to put ideas in a row• Ask questions from the perspective of

the reader of the report• Remind of the goal of the report• Point out where the report is not

accurate, too extensive, ...• Offer a scheme for writing

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The concept of parameters and settings

• Selecting and sequencing tasks

• Support

• Evaluation

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Broad concept of evaluation

• on a permanent base as well as at specific moments throughout the school year

• on products the pupils produce as well as on their acquisition/learning process

• with more traditional tests as well as more ‘alternative’ evaluation instruments, such as observation instruments, portfolio, ...

• by the teacher as well as the pupils themselves or other pupils