Language Focus Through Tasks example essay topic

I. Introduction Language teaching is a complex social and cultural activity, and its implementation in the classroom requires not only mastery in linguistics but also understanding within the socio-cultural context and psycholinguistics. The teaching trend of English has glided from methods that focuses on inputs to language learning such as Audiolingualism, to Communicative Language Teaching which is considered more effective since it focuses on the outcomes of learning and addresses what the learners are expected to do with the language (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). Following the trend, teaching methods in Indonesian formal institutions have been reconstructed, to further equip Indonesian learners with a better understanding in the sense of being competent and proficient in English language. Communicative Approach, which was under the umbrella of Communicative Language Teaching took over the place of Audiolingual Method used for curriculum 1975, due to the shortcoming in providing the necessary conditions for communicative competence proposed as the defect of Audiolingual Method.

However, during its implementation, it was realized that communicative approach has some defects concerning the overemphasizing of such language function as greetings, informing, apologizing, etc. and the teaching of 'frozen phrases' in which learners have to memorize and difficult to handle in connected discourse (Setiono, 1998). Task-Based Instruction (TBI) however, is considered as an approach that covers the defects of communicative approach, and therefore the government has planned to implement such method in Senior High School in the next school year of 2002-2003. TBI, which is also the branch of Communicative Language Teaching, is a teaching method in which presentation, practice and production are fundamental (Skehan, 1998), and is constructed on the basis of the argument that learners need to be able to communicate in target language for proficiency. Thus, learners should spend a lot of their time in the classroom using the target language to communicate with fellow learners and teacher, since it is the best way to develop communicative competence (see Willis, 1996, and Brown, 2001). Tasks are the central focus in creating a real purpose of language use, and used as the tool to improve the learners' language performance to compensate for the breakdowns in communication due to insufficient competence or performance limitations and to enhance the effectiveness of communication (Marcellino, 2002). It involves communicative language use focusing on meaning rather than linguistic structure (Nunan, 1989) and it is potential to stimulate real communication in the target language (Marcellino, 2002).

It is then expected that learners will feel less difficult to express their ideas in target language because of the gaps in their linguistic repertoire as they use the language and become aware of the language patterns and grammatical rules. Despite the so many features this method offers, the implementation of such method will face several potential problems if it is to be implemented in Indonesian formal institution classrooms, which in this case are the Senior High schools. This paper aims to point out the defects of TBI at both theoretical and practical levels on the basis of Indonesian learners' context on relevance to the issues of problems that are potential to arise. Those hindering factors will be discussed later on this paper as well as the suggestions to the TBI implementation. But before reaching those parts, let us discuss the existing theories of such method. II.

On Task-Based Instruction There are many different definitions of tasks in applied linguistics, and on this paper it will be presented the definitions and principals of TBI by Nunan (1989), Willis (1996), Skehan (1998), and Brown (2001), together with the common shares among them. Nunan (1989) defines "task" as a piece of meaning-focused work involving learners in comprehending, producing, and / or interacting in the target language, and furthermore differentiates tasks to analytic and synthetic term. In the previous term, tasks will contain some form of input data which might be verbal or non-verbal, and an activity which sets out what the learners are to do in relation to the input. This term also puts into account the goals and roles for both teachers and learners. The latter term emphasizes on the sequences of tasks and the coherence of lessons. He sets characteristics of a task-based approach to language teaching which emphasize learning to communicate through interaction in target language and the provision of opportunity for learners, not only on language but also on the learning process.

He argues that language is more than simply a system of rules (Nunan, 1989: 12), thus believes that putting authentic texts into the learning situation, as well as giving chances for learners to share personal experiences is important in classroom learning, since it is necessary to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom. In doing the task activities, he furthermore proposes three general ways of activity characterization; rehearsal for the real world, skills use and fluency / accuracy (Ibid. p. 59), which can be done in small-groups. The second definition of task is proposed by Willis (1996). She proposes that tasks are activities where target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose in order to achieve an outcome. In addition, she sets out four conditions that have to be met to create an effective learning environment in the classroom (see p. 19): 1) the provision of exposure to the target language, 2) the provision of opportunities for learners to use the target language for real communication, 3) the provision of motivation for learners to engage in the learning process, and 4) focused instruction, which draws attention to language form.

Different from Nunan, Willis classifies tasks into six types (see p. 26-27), based on the various activity differences: 1) Listing, which tends to generate a lot of talk as learners explain their ideas which involves brainstorming and fact-finding, 2) Ordering and sorting, which involves four main processes: sequencing, ranking, categorizing and classifying items, 3) Comparing, which deals with matching and finding similarities and differences, 4) Problem solving, which requires learners' intellectual and reasoning powers, 5) Sharing personal experiences, which encourage learners to talk more freely about themselves, and 6) Creative tasks, which is often called projects and can involve combinations of task types. With regards to the implementation in the classroom, she proposes three phases in accordance to the attainment of the four learning conditions mentioned above: 1) pre-task, 2) task cycle and 3) language focus. Pre-task is the introduction phase to the topic and task and it is not to teach large amounts of new language, but to boost learners' confidence in handling the task and furthermore should actively involve all students and create interest in doing task. The task phase, which is divided into three components: the task-stage, planning and report, is the chance for the learners to use whatever language they already know in order to carry out the task, and then to improve that language under teacher's guidance, while planning their reports of the task. The last phase in Willis' task-based framework is language focus, which has two components: analysis and practice. Both of the components follow the report stage of the task cycle and add an opportunity for explicit language instruction, handled in a learner- centered way.

The purpose is to highlight specific language features used in the task cycle, to encourage students to focus their attention on forms of the language and to allow a closer study of some of the specific features naturally which occur during the task cycle. In addition, Willis argues that this last phase fulfils the fourth condition for learning language forms explicitly. The next definition of task is proposed by Skehan (1998), which is also the criteria of tasks within the TBI. He argues that a task is an activity in which meaning is primary, there is some communication problem to solve, there is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world activities, task completion has some priority and the assessment of the task is in terms of outcome (Skehan, 1998: 95). It is a theoretical framework for task-based teaching that claims to balance the development of fluency with accuracy and interlanguage restructuring. Skehan points out the distinction for the analysis of tasks as the variable to determine the success of implementing the principals he proposes.

The major contrasts of the distinctions are between the language required, the thinking required and the performance conditions for a task which is then mentioned as code complexity, cognitive complexity and communicative pressure. Code complexity covers linguistic complexity and variety, vocabulary load and variety, and redundancy and density. Cognitive complexity is divided into two: cognitive familiarity and cognitive processing. The previous is furthermore broken down into topic familiarity and predictability, while the latter one is separated into four: information organization, amount of 'computation', clarity and sufficiency of information given, and information type. Communicative stress, which reflects the performance conditions under which the task needs to be done, are divided into six components: time limit and time pressure, speed of presentation, number of participants, length of text used, type of response, and opportunities to control interaction. He argues that Willis' approach has little guidance regarding task difficulty analysis and syllabus specification (ibid. p. 128), he then sets out five principals to anticipate drawbacks of Willis' approach: 1) Choose a range of target structures, 2) Choose tasks which meet the utility criterion, 3) Select and sequence tasks to achieve balanced goal development, 4) Maximize the chances of the focus on form through attentional manipulation, and 5) Use cycles of accountability.

Principle four is the central principle in this approach, with all other principles dependent upon it. It is divided into three stages, and the chances of noticing need to be established at the initial stage. In the task completion phase, it should be put into account that attentional demands, which come out of a task, need to be of appropriate demand and level. At the last phase, there should be opportunity for reflection and awareness, so what is accomplished can be processed more deeply and consolidated. While Nunan, Willis and Skehan refer tasks as activities, Brown (2001: 83) suggests that a task is a special form of technique and task-based learning is a perspective that can be taken within a Communicative Language Teaching framework, which the priority lies in the functional purposes. Following Nunan in setting the characteristics of a task-based approach to language teacher, he furthermore differentiates between target tasks, which students must accomplish beyond the classroom, and pedagogical tasks, which form the nucleus of the classroom activity.

Target tasks are much more specific and more explicitly related to classroom instruction while pedagogical tasks include any of the series of techniques designed ultimately to teach students to perform the target tasks. Despite the various developments of approaches of TBI, the approaches discussed share some common ideas. The common sense of tasks is that they involve communicative language use focusing on meaning rather than linguistic structure. They all agree in giving learners tasks as the tools to perform rather than items to learn, in using activities such as problem-solving and discussion to develop learners' language.

Both Willis and Skehan share similar perspective in using pre-task, task cycle and post-task as the learning procedure, and in using focused instruction as the tool to draw learners into awareness of structural patterns, whereas Skehan adds the importance to focus on task difficulties as a precondition for any task work. The tasks used in this methods are supposed to focus the learners' attention more closely on the comprehensibility of the language they are using in order to complete tasks which is then lead to the danger in TBI (Foster, 1999). The learners are encouraged to prioritize a focus on meaning instead of a focus on form, and thus they are challenged to use fluent but inaccurate language since language does not have to be well-formed to be meaningful. However, Skehan seems to have foreseen this danger and thus states that the chances of the focus on form is to be maximized through attention manipulation, as well as Willis concerns that a language focus is needed so that learners acquire the language structure.. Problematic issues on TBI At the theoretical level, there are two criticisms for TBI.

First, it is said that there is no valid procedures available to develop competency lists for most programs (Richards and Rodgers, 2001), and furthermore there is little evidence in the form of lesson transcripts to confirm those benefits which are claimed for tasks (Seedhouse, 1999). The procedure might work within one group but not within the others, since it depends much on variables such as personality factors, cultural background, behavior of teachers and learners, and so on. The second one is concerning its tendency to divide activities up into sets of competencies and the sum of the parts does not equal the complexity of the whole (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). TBI seeks to teach language in relation to the social contexts in which it is used and language is taught as a function of communication about concrete tasks. Learners are only taught the language functions which are necessary for tasks completion, and thus language learning is broken down into meaningful chunks (Ibid. p. 146).

It is a particularly narrow and restricted variety of communication, and the organization of the interaction is geared to establishing a tight and exclusive focus on the accomplishment of the task (Seedhouse, 1999). At the practical level, as the approach to TBI has been presented on the previous chapter, the difficulties of using such approaches in formal institution classrooms in Indonesia should have by then been noticed. There are many potential problems both the learners and teachers will face if TBI is implemented in the classroom. A. Learning Styles and Strategies Learning style is the learner's preferred mode of dealing with new information, and learners' actions to enhance their own learning are known as learning strategies (Oxford, 1990) which, although not always, reflect the learners' typical learning style. The expectation of learners influence the learning strategies, and the Indonesian learners's strategies, which is quite similar to other Asian learners, may also impede the implementation of such independent learning methods, since Gardner and Miller (1999) noted based on Littlewood's prediction, that learners tend to see knowledge as something to be transmitted by the teacher rather than discovered by the learners. This is clearly contradict ive to the nature of TBI itself, which for instance tends to promote learning by analyzing the language focus through tasks, emphasizes on the importance to develop skills and strategies using language to communicate, and furthermore uses feedback to judge one success and become aware of the social meaning of language forms. Furthermore, as TBI requires problem-solving skills to task-completion, Indonesian learners tend to be accustomed to memorization strategy.

It should not be neglected that the styles and strategies in teaching learning activities, in this case in Indonesia, are also affected by the existence of years of traditional teaching in which the teacher is seen as an authoritative figure (Gardner and Miller, 1999), and learners lack of opportunity to express their ideas and be reluctant to 'stand-out' by expressing their view, and tend to be passive in the classroom (Be, 1996). They have a tendency to get aligned with the teacher, and it can be stated in common sense that they rarely argue nor give their own opinion, as they are un confident when they have to communicate their own ideas. These facts can be explained as the results of the aspects of the cultural constrain in Indonesia. There are four cultural aspects as the part of cultural constrain in Indonesia (Marcellino; in Suara Pembaharuan, 1997), in which influence the learning style, that impede the implementation of such independent learning like TBI: 1) Principle of Total Obedience, 2) Unquestioning Mind, 3) Elders know all, and 4) Teachers can do no wrong. The four aspects mentioned above in addition position learners as the subordinates to the teacher, which is also contradictory to the teacher-roles as the facilitator and language advisor in TBI.B. Learners' competency Since the priority of TBI, as Brown (2001) noted, lies in the functional purposes rather than the form of language, the input of TBI can come from authentic materials (see Nunan, 1989, and Marcellino, 2002) such as newspaper extracts and extract from a play.

Thus, the mastery of the four skills of English is required to be able to covert the tasks successfully. Nunan (1989) summarizes Littlewood's view which argues that the learners must attain a high degree of linguistic competence and understand the functions of linguistic systems and implement them in communication. In this sense, learners must be able to develop skills in manipulating the linguistic system, to the point where he can use it spontaneously and flexibly in order to express his intended message (Nunan, 1989: 13). Items that are mastered as a part of his linguistic competence must also be understood as part of a communicative system, and this is one hindering factor that is difficult to overcome since English has not become part of their internalized language system (Willis, 1996).

It can result from the limitation of English usage in conversation, in which it is not used in daily conversation, and as soon as the learners are outside the classroom, they immediately speak Indonesian. C. Teacher's competency Teacher's competency is the most important aspect in determining the success of teaching-learning activity, since it is the teacher who manages the class activity, although TBI can be defined under the perspective of learner-centered approach. In using traditional teaching methods, the teacher needs at least three main sets of skills in addition to conduct the activities in the classroom (Tudor, 1993): Personal, educational, and course planning skills. If TBI is to be implemented in formal institution, teachers may need to change typical teaching routines in dominating the whole learning process, to give learners more opportunities to experiment with the target language themselves, and furthermore need to be more skillful than the minimum requirements proposed by Tudor. In TBI, teacher is generally a facilitator, who balances the amount of exposure and use of language, and ensuring they are both of suitable quality; the course guide, who explains the overall objectives of the course and how the components of the task framework can achieve these (Willis, 1996: 40); the language advisor (Ibid. p. 57), who helps learners shape their meanings and express more exactly what they want to say; and the chairperson (Ibid. p. 59), who manages the teaching learning activity.

However, when it comes to the teacher's competence in the use of English, quite a number of English teachers has not reached a 'mature' level of language use (Soenjono, 1996, and Be, 1996), as some of them only master the English structure (Marcellino and Buch ori; in Kompas, 1996). As the result, they are not capable in improvising the teaching materials. Dealing with teacher's proficiency, it should also be put into account the teachers' failure to interpret the communicative approach, used as the basis of curriculum 1994, resulting from their insufficient knowledge of communicative approach itself. Communicative approach requires teachers to expose their learners to performance of the language both in productive spoken and written forms, while in terms of teaching-learning interaction, class activities are devoted mostly to reading a text and answering questions based on the text (Setiono, 1998). If teachers of Senior High school are to be exposed to TBI, which in practice is more complicated than communicative approach, how can then they perform the interaction in class and deal with the unpredictable teaching situations and the needs to conduct discussions and being the language advisors, with their present proficiency, to meet the objective of learning? D. Classroom capacity The nature of classroom interaction can easily restrict the learning opportunities open to the language learner, and one main problem detected concerning this matter is the size of the class, which in average consists of 30 to 40 learners (see Setiono, 1998). This condition is undesirable for conducting an effective communicative class, which calls for a small number of learners.

Individual attention becomes the teacher's dilemma since it is increasingly difficult to monitor each learner in such classes. This class capacity moreover raises one other problem, which is considered crucial in task-based implementation. As it has been discussed (see Chapter II on Willis' and Nunan's task-based approach) that the exposure to opportunity to speak the target language is important as one of the conditions needed in language learning, the learners in formal institution will surely lose their chances to be exposed to this essential criteria, since they only have limited frequency and little opportunity to be exposed to the target language. IV. Conclusion and Suggestion Linguists such as Nunan, Willis, Skehan and Brown agree that TBI is a teaching method that focuses on meaning rather than form. Tasks are considered as a tool to encourage learners to use the target language in real situation in expressing their ideas in both oral or written form, as the learners must communicate with each other in target language in order to accomplish certain tasks.

In implementing TBI in formal institution classrooms in Indonesia, which in this case are in Senior High schools, the factors such as learning styles and strategies, the learners' and teacher's competency, and the size of the classroom may impede the success of using such method. On relevance to the potential problems, I argue that such method cannot be used as the method to foreign language teaching, as it would then appear that most Indonesian learners would not get the advantages of such learning method. With regards to the learning styles and strategies, the cultural constrain should be expelled from the learners' paradigm, for instance by abolishing the four cultural aspects (Marcellino; in Suara Pembaharuan, 1997). Teachers should reform the way they address the learners in such a way that learners no longer see the teachers as authoritative figures. As with teacher' competence, the most important step to be taken is to improve the standardization of teacher's education, in which the government should be involved (Tila ar, in Suara Pembaharuan 1997), since teachers are the most responsible profession in improving the generation. It is only by improving teacher's competence that the learners can get a better education, which in this case a more accurate English learning in the formal institution.

With the problem of the size of the class, there is no other solution than to provide a more conducive class environment which consists of a small number of learners to give more opportunity to language exposure, following Willis' argument about one of the essential conditions of language learning. In conclusion, with the present teaching-learning situation, together with the status of English as a foreign language, it is not yet high time to use such independent teaching method such as task-based learning. However, teachers can in fact adopt a communicative teaching method in which the structural elements may be well incorporated to achieve the communicative goals (Marcellino, in Kompas, 1996).

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