Theme: Speaking as an interactive process Table of content

Activities Learner role
Task components

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  Goals are the general intentions behind any given task. They may relate to a range of general outcomes or may directly describe teacher or learner behavior.
  

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  Input refers to the data that form the point of departure for the tasks.
  
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  Activities specify what learners will actually do with the input. o Teachers and learners roles refer to the part that learners and teachers are expected to play in carrying out the task as well as the social and interpersonal relationships between the participants.
  
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  Setting refers to the classroom arrangements specified and it also requires consideration of whether the task is to be carried out wholly or partly outside the classroom.
  

Advantages of tasks in speaking instruction

Basically, learners performing communicative tasks negotiate to establish the meaning of unfamiliar aspects of the task language, and the procedure necessary to achieve task goals and this fosters their language acquisition (Courtney, 1996: 320; Finch, 1999 and Lee, 2000: 33). Apparently, using group work and pair work throughout tasks increases the amount of learner's talk going on in a limited period of time and lowers the inhibitions of learners who are unwilling to talk in front of the full class thus increases their motivation (Ur, 1996: 121; Zacarian, 1996; Finch, 1997 and Ellis, 2003). In addition, from the pragmatic competence perspective, tasks may engage students in different speech events and communication actions. Tasks such as role plays, simulations and drama engage students in different social roles. Such tasks provide opportunities to practice the wide range of pragmatic and sociolinguistic abilities students need in interpersonal encounters outside the classroom (Kasper, 2001 and Ellis, 2003). Tasks also help develop students' ability to produce coherent, fluent sentences, so they enhance their discourse competence (Sayer, 2005: 14 and Slimani-Rolls, 2005: 196). 57 Furthermore, although tasks seem to support only interaction purposes of speaking which consist mainly of short turns, tasks can be developed to cater for long turns and transactional talks as well (Ur, 1996: 131 and Zacarian, 1996). Thus, in more details, tasks offer the following advantages for the EFL speaking classroom: 1. Meaning: When tasks are the means of learning, the target language takes on meaning as students try to focus on actual problem solving. Instead of the TENOR situation (Teaching English for No Obvious Reason), students have a reason for learning (Norman, 1996: 598; Willis, 1996, b: 54 and Hedge, 2000). 2. Ownership: If students are allowed to see the task through all of its stages (task completion), without the teacher playing an interventionist role, they can achieve a valuable (and motivating) sense of fulfillment and heightened self confidence that comes from understanding, performing, and reflecting on the task by themselves. In other words, tasks transform the curriculum from one that is teacher -based to one that is learner-centered (Lee, 2000 and Furuta, 2002:28). 3. Learning levels: Learners take on content matter (input) that is appropriate to their current stage. In this way, students are allowed to progress through tasks at their own rate, and this helps them to concentrate on aspects that are suitable for their learning level (Ellis, 2003). 4. Assessment: Tasks help students focus on outcome, show them their learning needs, and help them evaluate their communicative competence (Finch, 1997 & Ellis, 2003). 5. Error-correction: When students are conducting problem solving in groups, errors in communication become evident to the whole group, and the teacher (functioning as a language resource) can be asked to supply the necessary language, giving "the right information to the right people at the right time" (Ellis, 2003). 6- Skills integration: tasks always imply several skills areas, not just one. In this way the four language skills are approached in an interconnected way (Brown, 2001: 244).

Classifications of communicative tasks

Previous research in the domain of task- based interaction has provided insight into a variety of task types, and the potential effect of those types on oral performance. Reviewing previous research on task types relevant to developing speaking skills, it is apparent that tasks can be grouped in different ways:

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  Pair/ Group tasks: According to Scarcealla &Oxford (1996: 159) pair tasks involves students' work one-on-one with others in class. On the other hand, group tasks involve more than two students.
  
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  Closed/ open tasks: Closed tasks have just a single correct answer. They are very structured and have very specific goals. On other hand, open tasks are more loosely structured, with a less specific goal, for example exchanging anecdotes on a theme (Nunan, 1999: 53 and Willis, 1996, a: 28).
  
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  Information gap tasks: When one conversation partner has knowledge relevant to the situation discussed, which is unknown by the other partner, an 'information gap' is said to exist. The need to acquire the information triggers communication between the two which bridges the 'information gap' (Nation, 1990; McDonough & Mackey, 2000 and SlimaniRolls, 2005: 196).
  

In this type of exercise, one student may know some information, and the other student must use questions to find out what it is. On the other hand, both students may have distinct bits of information and communicate with one another in order to achieve a common objective (Nunan, 2005: 66). Information gap tasks, in other words, might be one-way or two-way.
Learners are encouraged to apply and expand their repertoire of positive communication techniques, which they use to overcome any inadequacies in language competence, through information gap exercises, which are thought to be useful in developing speaking. They also incorporate the dimension of 60 meaning negotiation, which is an important aspect of communicating (Legutke & Thomas, 1993: 85 and Ellis, 2003).
Opinion gap/ reasoning gap tasks: Opinion gap tasks involve identifying and articulating a personal preference, feeling, or attitude. The task may require using factual information, formulating arguments, and justifying one's opinions. A reasoning gap task involves deriving some new information from given information through the process of inference or deduction and interacting with others to deliver these inferred new information (Ellis , 2000: 199 & Liao , 2001: 41).
Information processing tasks: In this type of tasks, all the participants have access to the same information. However the task requires some sort of cognitive or emotional involvement. Examples of this task are listing and ordering, comparing, ranking, and problem solving tasks: