On November 14, 1998, Rod Ellis returned to Temple University Japan for TUJ's distinguished lecture series. Ellis first came to TUJ as a weekend guest lecturer in 1987. From 1988 to 1993, he served as full-time faculty at TUJ, during which time he wrote The Study of Second Language Acquisition (1994), known as "The purple book." Ellis then moved to Temple's main campus in Philadelphia but has returned to TUJ frequently since.
The lecture was preceded by an introduction by Ken Schaefer, director of TUJ's Ed.D and M.Ed. Programs in TESOL. With his characteristic blend of humor and sincerity, Schaefer compared Ellis to Noam Chomsky, who was lecturing at the same time in Kyoto. He compared the two on a number of counts including service to the TESOL profession, teaching skill, and ability to write "really big books that people actually read." He concluded that, of the two, Ellis has done far more for TESOL and SLA research and that TUJ was very lucky to have been able to work so closely with him.
Ellis began the lecture by laying out what he planned to cover over the weekend. The first of five topics, defining and describing tasks, was covered in the session open free to the public on Saturday afternoon. The remaining four topics were addressed in the later sessions for TUJ students: tasks, listening comprehension, and SLA; tasks, interaction, and SLA; tasks, production, and SLA; and tasks and socio-cultural theory.
Ellis' purpose over the weekend was clearly descriptive, not prescriptive. The interchangeable use of words like exercise, activity, and task is a confusing factor in SLA research. He suggested that a clear definition of tasks would be helpful for both researchers and teachers. A broadly accepted definition would aid researchers in designing studies and teachers in interpreting research findings. It was clear that the distinction Ellis proposed was not drawn in order to cast out everything that failed to meet the criteria for a task. He repeatedly emphasized that exercises and activities are useful teaching devices: they simply need to be distinguished from tasks. In struggling for an overriding label to cover all the above, he settled for "devices," though he seemed uncomfortable with it.
Ellis asked those present to consider some definitions of a task proposed by other researchers. Once we had read them over, he proposed the following as hallmarks of tasks:
- A task is a work plan.
- A task involves linguistic activity.
- A task requires primary attention to be on message (cf. "exercise").
- A task allows learners to select the linguistic resources they will use themselves.
- A task requires learners to function primarily as language users rather than learners.
- A task has a clearly defined non-linguistic outcome.
Though these criteria are meant to be exhaustive, Ellis admitted they are not all cut and dried. For this reason, he presented teaching devices as lying along an exercise-task continuum, with specific devices being more or less task-like. This became very clear when the audience was given examples of a number of devices and asked to decide whether they were tasks or exercises.
Having established this caveat, Ellis went back and attempted to clarify each of the six criteria. Defining a task as a work plan is necessary, he concluded, because any task as conceived by a teacher or a materials developer may not match what learners actually do. There is a work plan, and there is the actual process. While these may overlap, they are likely to differ to some extent. In short, lesson planners cannot control how learners actually perform assignments in the classroom so defining tasks as process is problematic.
Ellis then moved on to the second point, that tasks involve linguistic activity. While this may be obvious, the point was made in contrast to the definition offered by Long (1985) which includes things like painting a fence. While this is indeed a task in the broader sense of the word, it clearly need not involve linguistic activity. As such, it is of no interest in TESOL or SLA research.
In stating that a task requires primary attention to be on message, Ellis purposefully avoided using the "meaning versus form" dichotomy. He argued that, in form-focussed exercises, one must still understand the meaning in order to correctly complete the exercise. For example, an exercise requiring students to fill in the blank may be something like: Yesterday, John ____ to the movies. In this example, the choice of the correct word depends, to a certain extent, on an overall understanding of the meaning. Furthermore, a student would have to understand the meaning of the word yesterday in order to choose the past tense form of the verb. However, Ellis maintained, the sentence has no message.
While some tasks are unfocussed and meant solely to promote general oral fluency, other tasks can be focussed tasks. In these, the teacher's aim is to develop learners' linguistic resources. However, in order to ensure the focus is on the message, learners must not know the teacher's aim. Thus, a focussed task becomes an exercise if the work plan calls for learners to be aware that the task is designed to practice a certain part of language. Again, Ellis stated that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. The distinction is only for descriptive purposes.
The fourth criterion was that learners must be given the opportunity to select the linguistic resources they will use themselves. That is, that providing them with word lists, instructions about language use, or explicit models turns the task into an exercise. If learners are asked to use certain lexical items, grammatical forms, or if they are given models to work from, the focus will not likely be on the message.
This point relates to the fifth: If learners are provided with lists or models to work from, then they are simply practicing the language, not using it. When people are acting as students, they practice language. When people are acting as language users, they don't.
Ellis' last point was that there must be a clearly defined non-linguistic outcome. The irony here is that while this outcome must be the students' goal in performing the task, neither teachers nor researchers are remotely interested in it. Their ulterior goal is, to promote oral fluency or to develop learners' linguistic resources. Thus, teachers and researchers must, in Ellis' words, engage in some trickery when using tasks.
Ellis said he has been asked many times how tasks can be employed in beginning level classes. His answer was that tasks need not involve language production. In fact, in beginning language classes he would rely heavily on listening tasks. He suggested employing TPR (Total Physical Response) techniques to make tasks comprehensible right from the start. He also noted that many people believe that tasks must be done in pairs or small groups. While tasks are often performed this way, they needn't be. Again, people who hold such beliefs are overlooking listening tasks.
The lecture was well prepared, interesting, lively, clearly delivered, and, by all accounts, well received. With his ease in the classroom and his ability as a leading theorist and researcher, Rod Ellis is an inspiration example for all of us in TESOL and SLA research.
References
Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Long, M. (1985). A role for instruction in second language acquisition. In K. Hyltenstam and M. Pienemann (Eds.), Modeling and assessing second language acquisition (pp. 77-100). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.