Cognitive approaches to tasks: Performance and development Peter Skehan Chinese University of Hong Kong

Things (cognitive) task researchers look at: What?  Pre-task work: e.g. planning  During task factors: –task difficulty –task selection  Robinson and resource direction  Tradeoff claims  NoM and recasting promoting tasks –task conditions (time pressure, surprise information)  Post: –e.g. post-task activities intended to influence (earlier) task performance

Performance vs. Development Why do they look at these things?  Wid-ish convention that performance on tasks can be approached through Complexity, Accuracy, Lexis, and Fluency (Of course there are alternatives!)  First (main) emphasis: task research may help task choice and use to promote a controlled balance between these performance aspects, i.e. learners get to use the target language more effectively  Second (subsidiary?) emphasis: Theories of task performance, e.g. Cognition vs. Tradeoff. Different accounts of how form (complexity, accuracy) can be promoted, and how fluency can be helped. More specifically

In more detail....  Tasks of the right level of difficulty to enable enough attention to be available to focus on form (cf. Van Patten)  Tasks which push learners towards accuracy or complexity  Conditions which push learners similarly, e.g. guided planning, teacher-fronted planning  But these are generalised, not personal in orientation, unfocussedly hopeful, and contain no guarantees  They also contain no sort of record, or system of dealing with cumulative progress and areas of difficulty  Learning and development are not in focus

Principles for this approach  Identify a range of target structures  Choose tasks which meet Loschky and Bley-Vroman’s utility criterion to enhance these identified structures  Choose tasks and implement conditions which (a) do not make unreasonable attentional demands, and/or (b) have clear performance consequences, e.g. supporting accuracy  Sequence tasks over a longer period to try to achieve balanced development  Teachers and learners make a record of the language which is used  Use cycles of accountability to try to systematise and consolidate language progress  Give responsibility for monitoring to the learners themselves

Assessment  Obviously this is very optimistic  The tension is still between learning useful things about systematically promoting performance (even with there being room for a focus-on-form) but without any guarantee of learning and development  This simply believes in catalysing mysterious processes of acquisition  It also accepts a rather limited notion of what learning and development are, to which we now turn

Knowledge Construction, Activation and Use: A more powerful framework (and not mine)  Knowledge Construction: Items and systems –Noticing –Hypothesising –Complexifying, extending –Restructuring, integrating, discriminating  Knowledge Activation and Use –Repertoire creation, disponibilité –Achieving supported control, avoiding error –Automatising –Lexicalising Partial and complete learning of a system Not all or none, but halting in nature

Reinterpreting Pre-Task Work, and also speculating  Knowledge Construction –Noticing: Planning to trigger noticing-the-gap? –Complexification, extension: The consistent findings on complexity from planning  Knowledge Activation and Use –Repertoire creation (priming): Also complexity findings –Achieving supported control (Ellis’ rehearsal) : The weaker accuracy effects –Automatising, lexicalising: Planning as priming and pre- assembly of material: The consistent fluency and lexical effects

Reinterpreting during-task work  Knowledge Construction –Noticing (in input, and a gap) as a result of communicational pressure –Salience of feedback (perhaps) –(Robinson): More complex tasks –(Skehan): Complexity supportive tasks (perhaps)  Knowledge Activation –Pretty much any task use to some degree –Accuracy or fluency supporting tasks But note the problem of retention

Reinterpreting post-task work: General  Post task activities signal that while the task may be important, it is not all there is, and so relying on strategies isn’t enough: communication becomes the foil for thinking about form –Post task activities can influence attention allocation –Post task activities can be the starting point for (considerable) other work  Fundamental to all these approaches is the need to have some record (or recording) of what was said during a task, so that post-task work can have reliable and relevant material to work with

Post-task work: attention manipulation: some examples and findings –Threat of public performance: (S+F 97): raised accuracy in a decision making but not a narrative task –Transcription of some of one’s performance (F+S, forthcoming): raised accuracy for dec-mak and narr. Raised complexity for dec-mak –Transcription: Indiv vs. Pair; With and without revision (Li, forthcoming): Similar general findings to F+S: Plus:  Ind > Pair for lexical sophistication,  Pair > Ind for Complexity:  For Dec-mak only, Rev > No Rev for accuracy

Post-task work: attention manipulation: interpretations  Both post-task manipulations (public performance and transcription) insinuate pedagogic norms into performance. Learners are aware of what will/might come and switch attention to form  Decision making tasks produce more consistent significances and larger effect sizes  Transcription is more effective than public performance  Individual/Pair and Revision/No revision are interesting new developments: Ind. leads to lexis and pair to syntactic complexity: Revision is better for accuracy.  Different post-task manipulations have interestingly different impact in how attention is allocated. The ‘biddability’ of attention for Machiavellian teachers is remarkable (and more than I expected!)  Knowledge Construction, Knowledge Activation and Use?

Reinterpreting Task (Teacher) Work 1 (based on Willis and Willis) –Exploiting the salience of gaps which have just been noticed (note the likely fleeting nature of form during actual communication (Knowledge Construction)  Noticing is relevant at this stage, as one student piggy-backs on another student’s input  Note Swan’s point: not all problems are equal, and ‘need’ doesn’t’ automatically mean ‘readiness’. Teachers can use judgement here  Noticings can blossom into hypotheses with support and guidance

Reinterpreting post-task work 2 –Complexification and extension of features which have now been made salient (Knowledge Construction)  A noticing may have been of a simple form where more complex forms are accessible  What is noticed may fit into a wider system, e.g. where the system may have relevant acquisitional information

Reinterpreting Post-task Work 3  Restructuring or Integration may be possible with what has been noticed and asked about –What are considered distinct isolated elements may be noticed to be part of a system –Separate sub-systems may be realised to be part of one wider system

Reinterpreting post-task work 4  Discrimination –An omnibus form may be realised to require different forms to handle different functions, i.e. two forms are needed –Domains of applicability may be realised for two different forms

Reinterpreting post-task work 5  Consolidation –Learning/acquisition are not all or none, but may require focussed work. This can be appropriately done after language has become salient –Focussed treatment of form can be meaningful and acceptable to learners when it emerges from communicative need. Repetition and focussed exercises then may not be meaningless