CAPÍTULO 1. Marco teórico y contextos
A. La ciudad del río: de la fundación hasta el siglo dieciocho
Table 4.5 summarises the features of task design that capture the changes the teachers made to the textbook tasks. Some of the themes were named using terms taken from the task-based literature.
TABLE 4.5: Features of task design modified by the teachers
Design feature Definition
1. Input dependence
input-dependent
input-independent
Task does/does not require students to depend on input provided (other than task
instructions) to carry out the task.
2. Goal orientation (Duff, 1986; Ellis,2003)
convergent
divergent
Task does/does not require students to agree on a solution.
3. Solution type (Ellis, 2003)
closed
open
The task does/does not require a single, correct solution (or a limited range of correct solutions)
4. Personalisation
personalised
non-personalised
The task does/does not involve students talking about themselves, their lives, and their experiences.
5. Immediacy
(more) immediate
(more) remote
The task does/does not relate to the students’ immediate world (immediate needs or
interests).
6. Authenticity (Ellis, 2003)
(more) situational
(more) interactional
The task does/does not involve a ‘real-life situation’.
These six task features represented an appropriate level of descriptive delicacy for capturing the nuances of teacher and textbook tasks. The first three features represent different layers of open-endedness that describe the nature of the changes made by the teachers in a way that a simple characterisation as open/closed tasks would not be able to do. For example, while closed tasks involve a single correct task solution, or a limited range of correct solutions (Long, 1985b), open tasks do not have any pre-determined correct solutions (Ellis, 2003). However, open tasks can differ in terms of the goal
orientation, whether it entails students to reach an agreement on the solution
(convergent) or students can have their divergent viewpoints (divergent)(Duff, 1986). In fact, divergent and convergent tasks are sub-types of open tasks (Ellis, 2003, p.90). My data show that tasks can also differ in whether they involve students in using the input provided (other than task rubrics) in order to carry out the task or not (input-dependent and input-independent). For instance, a task that requires students to use the
information provided about the participants who took part in a boat trip and the seat map to decide on the most suitable seat for each participant on the boat (see Example 6) is an input-dependent task because students rely on the input given to carry out the task. However, a task that requires students to discuss in groups what they are going to do in the next few days off is an input-independent task, as all the content comes from the students. Examples 4-5 show that an open task can be convergent or divergent, and similarly it can be input-dependent or input-independent, while a closed task is typically convergent and input-dependent (Example 6). This shows that all the three themes (input-independent/input-dependent, divergent/convergent, open/closed) are
necessary to reveal the current data. And these three themes are straightforward and
objective to code.
Example 4:
Example 5:
Example 5:
Work in pairs, discussing which piece of advice from the reading passage, do you think, the most useful
(Textbook post-reading task, Unit 6, English 12, p.65)
Open Divergent Input-dependent Work in groups, discussing
five essential things to bring for an overnight camping trip (Teacher speaking task, 110A)
Open Convergent Input-independent
Example 6:
The remaining three design features from Table 4.5 denote different aspects of task authenticity in the current data that would not be captured solely by a label of
situational or interactional authenticity defined by Ellis (2003). According to Ellis (2003), situational authenticity “concerns whether a task needs to correspond to some real world activity” (p.6) and it follows that not all tasks involve a real life situation. Tasks such as ‘describe and draw’ or ‘decide on who should stay in the plane’ would hardly ever occur in real life tasks in the target language, but “the kind of language behaviour they elicit corresponds to the kind of communicative behaviour that arises from performing real world tasks” (Ellis, 2003, p.6).
Ellis (2012, personal communication) posits that all tasks should aim to attain
interactional authenticity, that is, to induce interactional processes similar to real life communication, and therefore tasks with situational authenticity are also tasks with interactional authenticity. Interactionally authentic tasks are not necessarily situationally authentic tasks. It seems to me, when I applied these concepts to my data, whether or not a task concerns situational authenticity is a matter of degree. That is, a task can be more situationally authentic than another because of its likelihood of occurring in real life in the target language. In light of the current data, I coded the teacher tasks and textbook tasks as more or less situationally authentic in relation to each other. However, in order to be consistent with the previous themes that involved binary variables such as closed/open, input-dependent/input-independent, and convergent/divergent, if a teacher or a textbook task is less situationally authentic than the other, they were coded as ‘more interactional’, even though ‘more interactional’ does not mean at all that the task involves students in processing language use of real life communication more deeply than the other. In two cases in the data (Examples 7 and 10) where both the
Work in groups. Read the seat plan and decide on the best seat for each participant using the participant information provided
(Textbook speaking task 2, Unit 6, English 10, pp.66-67)
Closed Convergent Input-dependent
teacher task and the textbook task were equally situationally or interactionally authentic tasks, they were both coded as ‘more situational’ or ‘more interactional’.
As the name indicates, Feature 4, personalisation, refers to whether students talked about themselves. Feature 5, immediacy10 concerns the context in which the task is situated, and whether it addresses students’ immediate concerns or interests, as
explained by the teachers. The following quote shows that immediacy arose from the
teachers’ words of reasoning, and it was needed to capture this theme in the current data.
(1) Next week our students are going to have three days off because the provincial examination is going to be held at the school. So I made use of the situation and changed the textbook task to instead ask students to talk about what they are going to do during these days off. This is what students are immediately interested in, and they will engage more in the task. (110A)
Although immediacy and personalisation (Feature 4) seem overlapping, they indicate different nuances that further distinguish the teacher tasks and the textbook tasks. Immediacy was needed to capture the difference between the teacher tasks and textbook tasks, especially in cases where both involved personalisation. For example, instead of using the textbook task that involved students talking about their future job (as to where, and who to work with, what salary to get, etc.), the teacher used a debate task where students have to defend their job choice. He said:
(2) In real life, this issue (job choices) often causes tensions between parents and children of this age. I think my task would engage my students better, because this issue of debate reflects their immediate concerns. At this time point, Grade 12 students have to choose which university to make applications for and prepare for university entrance
examinations, university of medicine, pharmacy, or pedagogy as these relate to their future jobs. They have to persuade their parents to let them choose their favourite university. Also students are still at school; they have never done any job yet; it is too far
10 In some studies (e.g., Foster & Skehan, 1996; Gilabert, 2007; Gilabert et al., 2009; Iwashita, MacNamara,
& Elder, 2001; Robinson, 2001), immediacy refers to the contextual support of a task. For example, ‘here and now’ (with pictures) tasks are referred to as immediate and ‘there and then’ (without pictures) as remote (also see Ellis, 2003).
away to ask them to imagine the salary they will get, the working condition and so forth.
(712G).
The phrases in bold reveal how the theme ‘immediacy’ came about in the data. In this case, although both the teacher task and textbook task involved students talking about themselves (their future jobs), the teacher task was coded as more immediate than the textbook task as reasoned by the teacher (see Example 7).
Example 7:
TASK Characteristics
Textbook Work in groups, talking about your future job including
-Where you will work -Who you will work with -The salary you may get -The working conditions
(Speaking task 3, unit 6, English 12, p.67 )
Personalised More remote More situational
Teacher Debate: Work in groups, talking about your future job. You have to defend your job choice against your friends’ counter- arguments.
(712G)
Personalised More immediate More situational
Again, for the sake of consistency, if a teacher task or a textbook task is less immediate than the other, it was coded as ‘more remote’. Of course in the case that the teacher task was personalised and the textbook task was not (or vice versa), the personalised task was synonymous with ‘more immediate’ and the non-personalised task was ‘more remote’ (see Example 8).
Example 8:
TASK Characteristics
Textbook Work in groups. Read the seat plan and decide on the best seat for each participant using the participant information provided.
(Speaking task 2, Unit 6, English 10, pp.66- 67)
Non-personalised More remote More interactional
Teacher Work in groups of four, discussing what you are going to do in the next 3 days off.
(110A)
Personalised More immediate More situational
Some few examples (Example 9) where both teacher and textbook tasks were not personalised, but the teacher task involved simulations or role-plays and was coded as ‘more immediate’ because teachers perceived and presented them as such.
Example 9:
TASK Characteristics
Textbook Groupwork: Discuss which piece of advice given in the passage you find most useful and least useful. Why?
(Post-reading task, unit 6, English 12, p.65)
Non-personalised More remote More interactional
Teacher Role-play: Student A plays a job candidate and Student B plays a teacher
Job candidate: seeks the teacher’s advice on how to prepare for a job interview (912I)
Non-personalised More immediate More situational
The teacher reasoned that the textbook task was more ‘far away’ than her task because in her task, students had a chance to practice their future situation.
(3) Here students can give their own advice, so it was closer to them and the situation is likely that in the future when they will be seeking advice to attend a job interview. (912I)
As in the case of Feature 6, there were three cases where both the textbook task and the teacher task were coded as ‘more remote’ because neither of the tasks was ‘more immediate’ than the other (Example 10).
Example 10:
TASK Characteristics
Textbook Pairwork: Rank the following causes of overpopulation in order of importance and explain why
(Speaking task 1, unit 7, English 11, p.83)
Non-personalised More remote More interactional
Teacher Groupwork: Discuss causes of overpopulation
(611F)
Non-personalised More remote More interactional
I coded the textbook tasks and the teacher tasks for the first three features (Table 4.5) first, and then coded them for the last three features. Then I summarised coding tables of each pair of textbook task and teacher task as in Example 11. I subsequently
calculated the frequency of each of the six themes for the textbook tasks and the teacher tasks to detect the patterns. Layered and focussed coding enhanced accuracy (Révész, 2012).
Example 11:
TASK Characteristics
Textbook Work in groups. Read the seat plan and decide on the best seat for each participant using the participant information provided.
(Speaking task 2, Unit 6, English 10, pp.66- 67) Input-dependent Convergent Closed Non-personalised More remote More interactional
Teacher Work in groups of four, discussing what you are going to do in the next 3 days off.
(110A) Input-independent Divergent Open Personalised More immediate More situational
A Vietnamese EFL teacher was trained to independently code the textbook tasks and the teacher tasks using the six design features in Table 4.5 above. She first coded these tasks for the first three features, and then coded them for the last three features. The Cohen Kappa ( was .96 for teacher tasks and .95 for textbook tasks, indicating high inter-rater reliability. Teachers’ task rationales were also provided to the second coder for coding Feature 5.