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Task-Based Syllabus Design

This document discusses task-based syllabus design, focusing on selecting, grading, and sequencing tasks. It argues that traditional syllabus design takes too restrictive a view, while communicative language teaching requires a more radical rethinking of key questions about what to teach, why, and when. A communicative approach to curriculum design is advocated, where tasks are selected based on learners' communicative needs outside the classroom. Important considerations for communicative tasks include authentic materials, familiar topics, and two-way information exchange. Tasks should incorporate what is known about successful communication and second language acquisition. A routine model is proposed for systematically linking tasks to real-world needs through grading tasks according to functions, meaning negotiation, and sequencing based on learner

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cherryyy82
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40 views

Task-Based Syllabus Design

This document discusses task-based syllabus design, focusing on selecting, grading, and sequencing tasks. It argues that traditional syllabus design takes too restrictive a view, while communicative language teaching requires a more radical rethinking of key questions about what to teach, why, and when. A communicative approach to curriculum design is advocated, where tasks are selected based on learners' communicative needs outside the classroom. Important considerations for communicative tasks include authentic materials, familiar topics, and two-way information exchange. Tasks should incorporate what is known about successful communication and second language acquisition. A routine model is proposed for systematically linking tasks to real-world needs through grading tasks according to functions, meaning negotiation, and sequencing based on learner

Uploaded by

cherryyy82
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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TASK-BASED SYLLABUS DESIGN: SELECTING,

GRADING AND SEQUENCING TASKS

Wilson Burgos Aroca


Master’s Degree on English Language Teaching
SYLLABUS DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

Syllabus Design Syllabus


methodology
Selection, Selection,
justification and justification and
sequencing of sequencing of
linguistic and learning tasks and
experiential activities
content

How to achieve a rational articulation in selecting, sequencing and


integrating tasks so that the curriculum is more than an untidy 'rag-bag'
of tasks ?
SCOPE AND CHANGING NATURE OF
SYLLABUS DESIGN
• Traditional view: syllabus design in a restricted
light.
• Communicative language learning and
teaching has forced a radical rethinking of key
curriculum questions:
what?, why? and when? methodology (how?),
and assessment (how well?).
TRADITIONAL AND COMMUNICATIVE
CURRICULUM MODELS COMPARED
Question for discussion: Why must we follow a communicative approach
to curriculum design?
COMMUNICATIVE TASKS

What do you think are the teacher’s roles in communicative tasks? What
are the learners’ ones?
IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS ON
COMMUNICATIVE TASKS
• Communicative needs.
• Authentic material.
• Content familiarity.
• information organization; familiarity of topic; explicitness and
sufficiency of information; referring expressions.
• Two-way tasks and one-way tasks.
• Length of speaking.
• Variation on learners’ task preferences.
• Required information exchange tasks and optional information
exchange tasks.
• Convergent and divergent tasks.
• Teacher’s VS students’ task preferences.
SELECTING TASKS

Tasks should:

- Be systematically linked to the things learners need to do in the real world

- Incorporate what we know about the nature of successful communication

- Embody what we know about second language acquisition.


A ROUTINE MODEL OF TASKS
Task grading according
to macro functions or
gender and negotiation
of meaning

Task selection and


sequence based on
learners’
communicative
needs
CONCLUSIONS
• We must adopt a more communicative view of curriculum,
where knowledge is not mostly pre-stablished.
• Tasks must be selected and sequenced according to the
learners’ communicative needs, those which they need to do
outside the classroom.
• Communicative tasks must graded according to the
management of interaction, the negotiation of meaning and
the macro functions.
• Research has put a lot of emphasis on psycholinguistic tasks
but not on the importance of ‘real world’ ones.
• More than pedagogic, we must select “real world” tasks,
where learners approximate the sort of tasks required of
them in the world beyond the classroom.
• A method based on task routines can be used to select,
sequence and grade communicative tasks.
THANK YOU

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