Language Teaching Research 4,3 (2000); pp.

221250

Exploring the benefits of task repetition and recycling for classroom language learning
Tony Lynch and Joan Maclean Institute for Applied Language Studies, University of Edinburgh

Task-based methodology is particularly suited to teaching languages for specific purposes, because of its affinity to behavioural objectives. Doubts have been expressed as to whether learners actually learn language through doing tasks, and if they do, exactly what they learn. This paper reports the preliminary results of an ongoing study of the benefits of building repetition into a communicative task in an English for Specific Purposes course. We compare the performances of two learners at markedly different levels of English proficiency and find that both benefited from the opportunity to recycle communicative content as they repeated complex tasks. This suggests that task repetition of the type reported here may be a useful pedagogic procedure and that the same task can help different learners develop different areas of their interlanguage.

1 Introduction Task-based learning (TBL) is capable of a range of interpretations which, as Kumaravadivelu (1993) notes, are both enriching and potentially confusing. Even establishing a satisfactory definition of task is not straightforward (cf. Skehan, 1998; Widdowson, 1998). In part the differences in approach reflect the provenance of the evidence used by proponents of TBL to justify their particular form of task-based course design. Two main sources can be identified: ecological arguments for using real-world tasks in the classroom, and evidence drawn from second language acquisition.

Address for correspondence: Institute for Applied Language Studies, University of Edinburgh, 21 Hill Place, Edinburgh EH8 9DP, UK; a.j.lynch@ed.ac.uk Arnold 2000 13621688(00)LR069.OA

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1 The ecological case The first source of justifications for TBL is what we might term the ecological one: the belief that the best way to promote effective learning is by setting up classroom tasks that reflect as far as possible the real-world tasks which the learners perform, or will perform which means that TBL has particular value in the design and teaching of courses in English (and other languages) for Specific Purposes. Task performance is seen as rehearsal for interactions to come, be they professional or social (Krahnke, 1987). Pedagogic tasks are derived from real-world tasks to provide a vehicle for the presentation of appropriate target language samples to learners input which they will inevitably reshape via application of general cognitive processing capacities (Long and Crookes, 1992: 43). However, as a number of critics have pointed out, the idea of importing real-world tasks into the language classroom rests on a simplifying assumption that the learners are studying in an ESL context (Sheen, 1994; Fotos, 1998). While it is certainly true that ESL dominates the world of published research, most learning and teaching of English around the world occurs in an EFL setting. The ecological rationale for TBL is therefore weaker than many proponents claim and the taskbased approach will have at least to be modified, in order to be relevant to EFL classrooms which at best can only operate as linguistic microclimates within the native language culture (Fotos, 1998: 303). 2 SLA research Those arguing for TBL, drawing on SLA research, have tended to focus on issues such as learnability, the order of acquisition of particular L2 structures, and the implications of the input, interaction and output hypotheses. Objections have been raised about the quantity and validity of the empirical SLA evidence cited to support the claim that TBL is effective at all, let alone more effective than traditional approaches. Sheen (1994) argued that the movement towards TBL was precipitate and an act of faith. Particular prominence has been given to research into the negotiation of meaning and the claim that learners make progress through experiencing the need to modify their own production of

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the L2 (Pica et al., 1996). However, Aston (1986) questioned the advisability of setting learners tasks containing deliberate obstacles to communication, which required them to negotiate meaning by continual requests for precise clarification from their task partners. Aston argued that there would be an affective and interpersonal price to pay, and that such tasks might easily degenerate into conflict and confrontation between learners a point also made by Yule (1994). Moreover, Foster (1998) has argued that ordinary learners i.e. those in intact classes, not set up for research purposes can behave rather differently to what has been described by experimental researchers: contrary to much SLA theorizing negotiation for meaning is not a strategy that language learners are predisposed to employ when they encounter gaps in their understanding (Foster, 1998: 1). Despite these and other doubts, such as the actual linguistic benefits of activities drawn from non-classroom settings and the lack of longitudinal data (Sheen, 1994), TBL has become a dominant paradigm in the teacher education literature. Willis (1996) provides perhaps the most extensive treatment, presenting an overall framework for classroom action, in which the task is taken as organizing principle and reified into a Method: Pre-task (introduction and topic), Task (the task itself, planning and report) and Post-Task (language analysis and practice). Williss proposals enable teachers to visualize how they would adopt her classroom procedures, but have relatively little support from research, as Skehan (1998) has pointed out. For TBL methodology to be effective it needs to be grounded and principled: the challenge for a task-based pedagogy . . . is to choose, sequence and implement tasks in ways that will combine a focus on meaning with a focus on form (Foster, 1999: 69). II Research specifically relevant to our study This question of the role and potential of form-focused learning and teaching has been taken up by a number of critics who have addressed TBL from very different perspectives, ranging from the highly sceptical Sheen, who rejected TBL outright as a product of the liberal ethos which has permeated the approach to teaching in recent decades, particularly in the field of ESL (Sheen, 1994:

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144) to the more sympathetic Foster, who has called for a more realistic view of how learners perform classroom tasks (Foster, 1998). If the ultimate claim is that TBL provides a valid means of packaging language experience and leads to effective learning, then we need to assess that effectiveness by asking what precisely learners gain from specific tasks. Relatively few studies have investigated performance gains in a task-oriented environment (for a recent review see Skehan, 1998), but research into three specific task conditions has potential relevance to the work we will be reporting in this paper: task repetition, planning and time pressure. 1 Task repetition Exact repetition of a task was the focus of a study (Bygate, 1996) which analysed two performances by one subject who was shown a video extract and then asked to retell the story. The task was repeated without warning three days later. Bygate found that this form of repetition led to some improvement in fluency and accuracy, and a marked improvement in repertoire for example, a 75 per cent increase in subordinate clauses. He argued that these findings supported the hypothesis that during the initial task the learner was concerned primarily with heuristic planning of content, and was under pressure of time when seeking the linguistic resources to communicate it. On the second attempt, the content of the task being more familiar, she was more concerned with giving attention to the linguistic formulation. Bygate also noted the possible pedagogic value of manipulating task variables, such as repeating the task with different partners: different people will do tasks in different ways and a variety of partners could provide different learning opportunities (Bygate, 1996: 145). This is particularly important in our study. 2 Planning Planning has been the focus of a series of studies (e.g. Foster, 1996, 1998; Foster and Skehan, 1996; Skehan and Foster, 1997) investigating the effect of different forms of pre-task phase on student performance. Foster (1996) reported the performances on three 10-minute tasks: (1) a personal information exchange task, which was the least conceptually demanding; (2) a narrative task,

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in which students had to reconstruct a story from pictures; and (3) a decision-making task, in which agreement had to be reached. Of 32 students, half were given no planning time, a quarter were given planning time but no guidance, and a quarter were given guided planning time. The last of these conditions was expected to be the most conceptually demanding, since it allowed least time for attention to language forms. The first five minutes of each task were recorded and analysed for measures of fluency (e.g. pauses, repetition of words), complexity of language (e.g. variety of verb tenses, number of subordinate clauses) and accuracy. The main findings were as follows: (1) students without planning time were much more likely to pause frequently and at length; (2) students without planning time tended to use less complex language; (3) both of these effects were more marked in the conceptually more demanding tasks; (4) the planners tended to be more accurate than those without planning time, but among the planners those who had no guidance were consistently more accurate than those with guidance. Guided planning tended to increase the complexity of language but reduce its accuracy. 3 Time pressure The time available to complete a task has long been recognized as an important factor in task difficulty and therefore in task grading (e.g. Candlin, 1987; Skehan, 1996a; Johnson, 1996). But as far as we are aware, it has not been explored in a TBL framework. Where time has been investigated, it has been the time available to learners at the pre-task stage, e.g. as time for planning or rehearsal (for example Ellis, 1987; Crookes, 1989; Foster and Skehan, 1996) rather than time allowed during the task itself. Time pressure is clearly an important strand of what Brown et al. (1984) refer to as communicative stress; Johnson mentions it as a potential factor in grading tasks, in his discussion of real operating conditions (Johnson, 1996: 141). III The task in our study Our study arose out of our experience as teachers interested in the dynamics and effects of a task that we have used for some years

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in an ESP course. Our objective was therefore to examine the evidence for gains in performance of a specific task with a specific type of learner. As we have emphasized in the title of this paper, our focus was on performance of a classroom task under routine conditions. 1 Course context The task forms part of a course called English for Medical Congresses, which caters for health professionals who want to improve their ability to present papers in English at international meetings and conferences. The aims of the course are as follows: to facilitate general fluency; to improve pronunciation, especially of medical terms and expressions; to raise awareness of appropriate language for communication at congresses; and to develop effective presentation skills in English. One feature of English for Medical Congresses is that we accept applicants from a wide range of language levels, which has influenced task design in the course. The course itself is task-based, in the sense that it involves a series of linked activities that build up to a final-day conference at which research papers are presented, discussed and evaluated. During the course the participants work through a number of tasks preparing them for their presentation, for example, describing and discussing data in graphic form. They also have a full rehearsal to an audience of one (a tutor), which is videotaped for feedback purposes prior to the conference. Some of the lessons have specific language input (for example, expressions for describing different statistical patterns and trends), but in most lessons the main focus is on getting a communicative task done and then receiving feedback from the teacher; linguistic input tends therefore to be responsive rather than preventive. From the learners perspective, as we know from course evaluations, they are aware of a language agenda, even though the general orientation is to the task in hand. 2 The task The specific task we investigated is called the poster carousel (Lynch and Maclean, 1994). Briefly, the activity is as follows:

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1. Participants are paired up and each pair is given a different research article. They have one hour to make a poster based on the article. 2. The posters are displayed round a large room. From each pair, one participant (A) the host stands beside their poster, waiting to receive visitors asking questions. The B participants visit the posters one by one, clockwise. Their task is to ask questions about each poster. The host is instructed not to present, but to respond to questions. They are allowed only limited time (approximately 3 minutes) at each poster. 3. When the B participants arrive back at base, they stay by their poster and the A participants go visiting. 4. Once the second round is completed, there is plenary discussion of the merits of the posters (by the participants) and the teachers provide feedback on general language points. It will be clear that repetition in the title of this paper does not mean strict duplication of a task, as generally used in the literature (e.g. Bygate, 1996). In the case of the poster carousel, it is not a second (or third etc.) performance by one speaker on an identical task with the same listener; repetition in the case of the carousel means something more like recycling, or retrial (Johnson, 1996), where the basic communication goal remains the same, but with variations of content and emphasis depending on the visitors questions. Pedagogically, there were three main reasons for introducing the carousel into English for Medical Congresses: first, to provide freer talk after more controlled reporting tasks, which produce plenty of teacher feedback; second, as a lighter activity before the stresses of the final conference presentations; and third, as practice in formulating and handling questions under time pressure. We had informal evidence that it was successful as communicative practice. When teaching the course, we had observed how the poster carousel generates a great deal of interactive involvement and apparent enjoyment. We had also had positive comments from participants, one of whom said he had enjoyed the hurry, hurry, hurry of the activity. On the other hand, there had been occasional criticisms that the poster involved too much preparation for too little pay-off, and this was one of the

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reasons for our decision to study the task. The questions that we wanted to explore in our study were these: 1. Do learners gain from repetition in the poster carousel and do they think they gain? 2. In what ways do they gain from repetition and in what ways do they think they gain? 3 The carousel compared with research tasks The poster carousel differs in various ways from those investigated in TBL research. First, it features a more complex type of input. The input to the speaking tasks reported in the experimental literature is typically very limited, in order to oblige the subjects to rely on their own language resources. Prompt or cue materials tend to contain no language at all (e.g. the cartoon in Bygate, 1996) or brief role instructions (e.g. less than 50 words in Foster and Skehan, 1997). However, for the poster carousel, the learners read a medical journal article of 8001,000 words, which they then reduce to summary points in poster format. Second, there is the question of planning. The poster carousel involves a large amount of planning time: 6070 minutes of reading, discussion, selective summarizing of the original article, and then the joint production of the poster. However, none of this includes explicit planning of the language to be used during the carousel; the learners are primarily wrestling with the conceptual material and its linguistic expression in the poster. Equally, there is no rehearsal for the task, in the sense of a private performance before a public one (Skehan, 1996b): the interaction with the first visitor is not a dry run for the later visitors, since each cycle represents a performance in its own right, between host and visitor. Third, the instructions for the task are oral; there is no detailed written guidance of the type provided in the Foster and Skehan series (illustrated in Skehan, 1998: ch. 6). Prior to the poster production session, the learners receive advice on aspects of poster presentation such as layout, distribution of information, legibility, and so on. But for the carousel there is no instruction, other than the reminder that the hosts are not to launch into a pre-emptive mini-presentation, but are to wait for and respond to questions from each visitor.

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Fourth, the pedagogic focus is on the way the partners handle questions under time pressure, and in particular their comprehensibility and their ability to repair breakdowns. But the task is not seeded with target L2 structures or lexis (Ellis, 1987; Fotos and Ellis, 1991; Fotos, 1998). The final difference between the carousel and the typical research task is that it features a very short interval between cycles three minutes. In other studies of the effects of task repetition, the intervals between first and second performance have been days or weeks (e.g. Brown et al., 1984; Nobuyushi and Ellis, 1993). The only researchers we are aware of who used a shorter interval are Plough and Gass (1993), who implied that the two tasks they compared were performed in consecutive lessons. So our study was intended to see whether the particular type of recycling featured in the poster carousel, presenting each host with the challenge of dealing with questions from a series of visitors, promoted gains in accuracy in the short term. Apart from observing the learners performances on the task, we were also interested in exploring their own perceptions of whether (and if so how) they benefited from the opportunity for linguistic retrial, given that the task itself was not seeded with specific target structures and proceeded without teacher intervention. IV Method The subjects in our study were 14 participants on English for Cancer Conferences, a specialist version of the course, for oncologists and radiotherapists. They came from six European countries, and ranged in age from their late twenties to late fifties and in English proficiency from below 400 to over 600 on TOEFL. All were experienced in presenting conference papers in their own language and most had also already presented in English. We collected two types of data. First, we recorded all six interactions between each host and visitor by placing an audiocassette recorder near each of the seven posters. This sort of recording is a routine part of the course and so the participants were used to being recorded by the time they did the poster carousel. All 14 sets of six interactions were transcribed. Our second source of data was a self-report questionnaire, which we

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asked the participants to fill in at the end of the carousel session but before we had commented on their performance. The aim of the questionnaire was to ask them to reflect on their experience of the task as learners. For this preliminary study we have analysed the host performances of the two participants at the extremes of the proficiency range of the group: Alicia, from Spain (the weakest in the group, at less than 4.0 IELTS/400 TOEFL), and Daniela from Germany (over 7.0 IELTS/600 TOEFL). We chose these two to see whether there was evidence of different effects at different proficiency levels, since it is often assumed among EFL teachers that a task-based approach may work better at higher levels of proficiency, and that tasks should be graded and matched to learners level (Brown, 1986). Our analysis of Alicias performance revealed changes in the accuracy of her subject-verb structures, aspects of her lexico-grammatical output, and her pronunciation. Analysis of Danielas performance led us to focus on her explanation of a complex concept, aspects of her lexicogrammatical output, and her pronunciation. V Findings 1 The questionnaires We will comment briefly on the responses of all 14 participants to the questionnaire items (see Table 1), which give some insight into the learners perceptions of the experience of taking part in the poster carousel. Approximately half the participants said they had consciously planned changes and a similar number were aware of making changes to their language over the six cycles. Two said they had not planned changes but had in fact made them in the course of the carousel. The language area in which changes were most commonly mentioned was vocabulary. The two participants we will be focusing on here, Alicia and Daniela, provided contrasting comments in their questionnaires. Alicia indicated that during the carousel she had not consciously decided to change the way she expressed herself, nor had she noticed any unplanned changes. Daniela, on the other hand, wrote more on her questionnaire sheet than any other participant: she

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Table 1 Summary of questionnaire responses

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Conscious changes? Yes No Cant remember Unplanned changes? Yes No Cant remember Changes to vocabulary segmental pronunciation syllable stress grammar speed of speaking other: fluency 7 5 2 8 2 1 5 3 1 6 7 1

indicated that she had taken deliberate decisions to change linguistic expressions and had also noticed unplanned changes in her performance. She was sure she had made lexical and phonological changes, and she thought she had made grammatical adjustments as well. She completed her commentary on her thoughts and actions during the task as follows:
I wanted to use phrases I have learned during the course and I worked at it . . . I tried to find out if different explanations were accepted [by the visitors]. I felt I was quite relaxed all the time. I got to know the vocabulary better during the time.

2 The transcripts We now turn to extracts from the transcripts of Alicia and Danielas recordings, which suggest that their performance improved over the series of six cycles in a number of ways. a Alicia: Alicias English was very weak: on the dictation test that we administer at the start of the course, she scored only 5 per cent. But she was quite a determined communicator, which may be clear from the transcript extracts below. Her speech showed uncertainties about basic sentence syntax that one would expect of a learner at a level below IELTS 4.0/TOEFL 400.

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Subject-verb structures Despite her relatively low level in English, Alicia gained in accuracy during the six task cycles a total of some 20 minutes classroom work. One example of this gain is in terms of basic subject-verb (SV) order. The extracts (see Appendix) show all the instances of her use of is during the six visits, the letter C or I on the right-hand side indicating where she appears to have achieved a correct or incorrect SV sequence, respectively. Where necessary, we have added our gloss of Alicias intended meaning (shown in italics). Incidence of correct and incorrect SV structures over the six visits is shown in Table 2. The article that Alicia and her partner had worked on for their poster was a meta-analysis of research into the progress of patients who had undergone less extensive surgery, more extensive surgery, or surgery plus radiotherapy. At this level of proficiency, data can be hard to interpret, even in terms of basic SV sequence. Interpretation of Alicias speech is made more difficult by the fact that she appeared to use is in five different ways: 1. for it is (null subject), e.g. is meta-analysis (also cases 22, 32, 37); 2. in clause-initial position, for its that . . . (possibly influenced by spoken Spanish es que . . .): is the group surgery more versus surgery less is the same survival (also cases 11, 13, 15); 3. for there is/are e.g. is more deaths non-breast cancer in surgery and radiotherapy (case 31); 4. as a substitute for a verb such as produce or require e.g. surgery versus surgery plus radiotherapy is the same survival (also cases 24, 39); 5. as a left-shifted element e.g. is very important the conclusion (also cases 6, 10, 23).
Table 2 Alicia: subject-verb structure accuracy Correct Visit Visit Visit Visit Visit Visit 1 2 3 4 5 6 3 2 5 3 4 8 Incorrect 6 5 2 8 1 2

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In spite of the difficulties of interpretation, there is some evidence that Alicias basic SV accuracy did increase in overall terms during the carousel. The Correct and Incorrect cases in her is expressions for the six visits show that her accuracy rate was (1) 33 per cent, (2) 29 per cent, (3) 71 per cent, (4) 33 per cent, (5) 80 per cent, and (6) 80 per cent. With the exception of visit 4, those figures suggest that she was able to benefit (for reasons that we will explore in Discussion, below) from opportunity for practice in the first two visits and then achieved a broadly stable level of accuracy, at which she produced a correct order of elements seven or eight times out of ten. A possible explanation for the lower rate in visit 4 is that two of Alicias persistent errors were predominant in that visit: six of the ten relevant expressions involved her use of is in initial position, in place of either its or its that . . .. The relative dominance of those two errors in visit 4 seems to be discourse related: during the visit, her interlocutor requested confirmation and clarification of minor details, such as the meaning of surgery more (extensive surgery) in case 20, and whether or not a particular group of patients had been included in the analysis, in cases 25 and 26. During other visits, the visitors questions and comments required Alicia to elaborate on wider topics such as the nature and significance of the findings, and in those cases she used fewer is-initial structures. Lexico-grammatical accuracy A second general feature of Alicias performances is the way in which she used her interlocutors as a source of language. She turned the interactive nature of the task to her advantage, even if the effect was relatively limited. For example, during visit 1 she appeared to be searching for the word thousand; five minutes (and two visits) later she was able to access the word without audible difficulty:
Visit 1 Alicia Visitor Alicia Visit 3 Alicia Seventeen (pause) Thousand Thousand

Seventeen thousand analysed

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Similarly, during visit 6, she produced a lexico-grammatically more correct expression than in visit 2, in response to a question from her interlocutor:
Visit 6 Visitor Alicia Visitor Alicia Relapse of disease. I see. Its very interesting. Well . . . but overall survival is not different? Is not different But disease-free survival is different? Yes, yes.

There Alicia produced is not different, while in visit 2 she had said, less accurately, is not difference and is difference. However, it could be that during the final visit she was simply reflecting the words of her interlocutor, repeating them as a holistic chunk, rather than achieving an improvement of her own. Pronunciation As the weakest speaker in the class, Alicia was also given the potential benefit of more coaching or prompting from her visitors than we have found in other pairs interactions. In the example below, her pronunciation of the initial vowels of the words surgery, radiotherapy and plus came in for attention:
Visit 6 Alicia That surgery versus surgery and radiotherapy [moderates?] non-breast cancer in group surgery. And (eh) other conclusion very important is the surgery Surgery Surgery (eh) plus Plus radiotherapy Plus radiotherapy is local recurrence 7 per cent. O-oh, ah I see. And surgery alone is 20 per cent. pronunciation /suzeri/ /rdio/ /suzeri/ /suzeri/ corrects vowel to /s -/ surgery now correct; but /plu:s/ corrects to /pls/ and /reidio/ both now correct

Visitor Alicia Visitor Alicia Visitor Alicia

now correct

However, although Alicia was as she herself was well aware the least proficient in the class, she was not totally dependent on the language used by her visitors. Here is a case where she

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rejected contamination from an error (underlined) in a visitors question:

Visit 1 Visitor Alicia Visitor And . . . yes . . . only on this group it was statistically significant results? Only on this group? In on in this group em + in global eh in global group Mhm (etc.)

To summarize, we have discussed evidence in Alicias recordings that during the course of the carousel her spoken English output became more accurate, in three broad areas: (1) in syntax her ordering of SV elements of the verb to be; (2) in lexicogrammar greater ease of access to the word thousand, and accurate use of the adjective different rather than the noun difference; and (3) in phonology her production of vowels in surgery, radio and plus, at first in response to coaching from an interlocutor, and then spontaneously. However, these improvements contrast with her responses to our questionnaire, in which she wrote that she had made no changes to her English during the interaction with her six visitors. b Daniela Danielas performances reveal a quite different level of linguistic sophistication; she had scored 97 per cent on the dictation (against Alicias 5 per cent). Nevertheless, Danielas output also shows evidence of improvement over the same 2025 minutes of the carousel. Unlike Alicia, Daniela reported in the questionnaire that she thought she had made both conscious and unplanned changes during the carousel. She wrote: I wanted to use phrases I had learned during the course and I worked at it, and I tried to find out if different explanations were accepted. She noted that she had made changes in vocabulary and pronunciation, and commented: I got to know the vocabulary during the time. Explanation of a complex concept The topic of her poster was whether the addition of chemotherapy to tamoxifen increased the quality of life, which was defined in this study as the length of time in which patients were symptom-free. Quality of life was calculated by a statistical procedure referred to in the original article as Q-

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TWIST, unfamiliar to both Daniela and her visitors. The acronym was not explained in the article, and she told us before the start of the carousel that she was uneasy about her lack of knowledge about the statistical method. Five of Danielas six visitors did in fact ask her questions, directly or indirectly, about the statistical method, and this is where she experimented to find out if different explanations were accepted. To her first visitor, who asked directly about Q-TWIST, Daniela gave a short explanation, which may have been acceptable but was not acknowledged. For her second visitor, she produced a longer explanation, broken down into short steps, and received acknowledgement. (In the extracts below, the words in brackets are back-channelling from the visitor.)
Visit 1 Visitor I dont understand this. Whats Q-TWIST? Is a . . . statistical test, or it is a . . . conclusion done from the response of some patients to tamoxifen alone or chemotherapy more tamoxifen? Q-TWIST is a new method of calculation. And we calculated the . . . quality adjusted . . . outcome. . . . It is a method to find out how, how much of the time the patients live without tumour and without toxicity . . . how much of this is really good for them. . . . So it was a calculation on a . . . meta-analysis of breast cancer studies . . . all applying the same But you have not said if it was early breast cancer?

Daniela

Visitor Visit 2 Visitor Daniela

Visitor Daniela

What is it, Q-TWIST [??] conclusion? Its a new method we used for finding out the quality adjusted survival time. It takes into measurement the time . . . (mhm) from the beginning of the therapy. First the patients do have toxicity sideeffects. Then they feel better and they are well. And this is the time that is . . . interesting for finding out what we call quality adjusted survival time (mhm) the survival without any symptoms at all. And this is the time and it has to be estimated on different um . . . from different other times and . . . we turn, we take this time and calculate on it . . . in a way to turn it from absolute time into some percentage. But that TWIST it is only a mathematical method? Yes it is a mathematical method. A statistical method.

The explanation given in visit 2 is confirmed as at least partly successful by the visitors response. However, the explanation is

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much longer: 108 words, as opposed to 60 words in visit 1 (word totals here exclude hesitation sounds). Danielas aim, as a medical scientist, is presumably to be both clear and concise. The first part of the description is clear, but the last part is over-wordy and repetitive, without gaining in clarity: And this is the time and it has to be estimated on different, from different other times, and we turn, we take this time and calculate on it in a way to turn it from absolute time. The third visitor did not ask about Q-TWIST. The fourth visitor did ask about Q-TWIST, but wanted an explanation of the acronym, rather than of the procedure. When Daniela could not supply that explanation, the visitor registered disapproval (Well!, produced with a marked high fall) and changed the topic.
Visit 4 Visitor Daniela Please could you explain me what is Q-TWIST? Yes, I would like to. It is a method of finding out the time . . . the patient is without any symptoms after the beginning of a therapy. As you can see on this Yes but these shortage, what does it means? Q-TWIST? Q-TWIST? Im sorry, I dont know what it means. Because I am puzzled, when I see Q-TWIST. I dont know what that expression means. Yes. Im sorry, I cannot explain that. Well! And the aim of the study, as I see, was the quality of life?

Visitor Daniela Visitor Daniela Visitor

The fifth visitor asked Daniela to explain the table of Q-TWIST data, and this time she incorporated her explanation into a summary of the study. She stated the research question, the method (including Q-TWIST) and the findings. This fuller explanation ran to 231 words, compared with 108 words in visit 2 and 60 words in visit 1. This explanation appears to have been satisfactory, with continual acknowledgement from the visitor. As in visit 2, the least concise part of the explanation is that concerning the actual statistical calculation (underlined).
Visit 5 Visitor Daniela This table . . . it looks like being a little bit complicated. Can you help me? Of course I can. We were interested in the time . . . without any symptoms the patients had once they were treated for breast

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cancer. (yes) Thats the question (yes). . . . What we did was a metaanalysis of nine different trials (yes) taking the data, and estimating the time between the outset of therapy, the end of toxicity (and chemotherapy?) and the point where first symptoms of recurrent cancer or death occurred. This is the period of uh high . . . This is the period of . . . [??] . . . any symptoms with high well-being (yes), just in terms of what we know (yes, yes), its not a quality of life analysis (yes) or anything like that. And then we take this time, and the time between . . . the time of relapse and the death or endpoint of the study, and we do this calculation. It looks a little bit difficult but its (but, yes) a statistical method . . . to find out if there is . . . its weighing the different times and . . . its calculating um the . . . outcome of this time that is without any symptoms. And its comparing . . . we did this on each study (yes) and then put it together (yes), and afterwards we compared the patients who had tamoxifen only with those who had tamoxifen and chemotherapy (yes). And we found out that theres no difference in the time spent without symptoms. So what we can conclude is that um . . . the addition of chemotherapy to tamoxifen does not improve the quality adjusted survival time, as we can calculate it with this method. Yes.

Visitor Daniela

Visitor

The sixth and final visitor also asked for a general explanation, and Daniela followed the same strategy, stating the research question, the method including Q-TWIST, and the findings. Again, the fuller explanation was acknowledged by regular backchannelling from the visitor. This time the explanation of the statistical calculation (underlined) was more concise. A request for clarification of the acronym was handled more successfully than in visit 4, although this may have been because the visitor was more co-operative.
Visit 6 Visitor Daniela Can you explain it to me? I dont understand it. Yes, it looks a bit difficult. um . . . The question is . . . the question we wanted to answer is (yeah?) um how much time do the patients have after the onset of therapy (mhm?) until . . . death or relapse (mhm?) without any symptoms at all (mhm), neither toxicity (yeah) nor symptoms of relapse (yeah). So we measured these two times, time of toxicity (yeah) and time until relapse (aha!) thats the symptom-free survival, and we calculated the time in between them (mhm). And then

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Visitor Daniela Visitor Daniela

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Visitor

Why is it called TWIST? I dont understand TWIST. Well its just an abbreviation. I cant really translate it to you. Uhuh. Uhuh, uhuh. But its understandable. This This is the time. And we take this time . . . and some others (yeah) to do the Q-TWIST calculation . . . (yeah) and what we get is the result that . . . the time without symptoms is not different for patients . . . who (yes) received tamoxifen (yeah) or tamoxifen plus chemotherapy. (yes) So in regards to this aspect (yes) there is no difference between the two groups. I understand it. Mhm, mhm, I understand.

The explanation in this last visit was 134 words, compared with 231 words in visit 5. So during the course of the carousel Daniela can be considered to have improved her explanation, first making it fuller and then making it more concise. Lexico-grammatical performance In her questionnaire, Daniela reported that she had deliberately worked at using expressions she had learned during the course, and had noticed changes made to vocabulary and pronunciation. There are also signs in the recordings of an improvement in her choice of words. For example, in visit 1 she said how much time the patients live without tumour and without toxicity, how much of this is really good for them. This is rephrased in various, better ways to subsequent visitors: for example, survival without any symptoms at all (visit 2), the time spent without symptoms (visit 5), and the question we wanted to answer is how much time do the patients have after the onset of therapy until death or relapse without any symptoms at all (visit 6). Pronunciation We have more objective evidence of conscious change in her pronunciation of data, which shows a shift from /dat / to /deit /. Earlier in the course, Daniela had asked about the pronunciation of the word data because she had noticed both versions (as /dat / or /deit /) in her professional conversations with native speakers, and wondered what the difference was. When she was told that the latter was more common in Britain, Daniela announced her intention to use that. Below are all the occurrences of the word data during her turns as host in the carousel. She used both pronunciations, but in visits 2 and 4 she explicitly corrected herself, and the trend in the series was towards the pronunciation /deit /.

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Visit 2 In a retrospective analysis of many different /dat / /deit / Visit 3 And they were em the the /deit / were collected from nine different studies we just . . . we concentrated on the toxicity /dat / and the time of relapse. We dont have the detailed /dat / about the length of tamoxifen application. Visit 4 What we have here are /deit / on treatment-related toxicity the the (tut) /dat / of /deit / of this analysis are taken from nine different centres Visit 6 These are the /deit / on survival and relapse-free survival. So we concentrated only on these /deit /.

Given her questionnaire comment I got to know the vocabulary during the time, we investigated whether increased familiarity with the vocabulary had resulted in greater fluency (measured by number of words per minute). We found that her speaking rate was slowest during the first visit (about 98 words per minute) but after that it remained stable, at about 140 words per minute. It can be seen from these measures that in general Daniela was a reasonably proficient speaker of English. During each visit she was planning and experimenting with her language and communication strategies and so it is not surprising that her rate of speech did not change. The slower speed in the first visit was probably due to the unfamiliarity of the task itself. VI Discussion Our research questions were as follows: Do learners gain from repetition in the poster carousel? Do they think they gain? In what ways do they gain? Again, in what ways do they think they gain? We have established that when receiving visitors to their poster, attention to language was evidenced by: self-corrections of vocabulary and pronunciation (Daniela); corrections of pronunciation and grammar prompted by the interlocutor (Alicia); correct

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fluent use of some language forms after initial difficulty (Alicia); correct use of forms introduced and practised earlier in the course (Daniela and Alicia). For Alicia, who had severe language problems, some errors (e.g. SV order) occurred less frequently with task repetition; for Daniela, information density and expression of precise meaning improved with task repetition. The recordings and transcripts have allowed us to observe changes in performance, but we were also interested in finding out about learners own perceptions during the poster carousel. The questionnaire responses though admittedly more limited suggest that Alicia and Daniela had very different perceptions of their performances over the six poster cycles. As we noted earlier, Alicia wrote that she had neither planned nor made changes to her English, whereas Daniela told us that she had made both planned and unplanned changes. As teachers we face the paradox that weaker learners like Alicia may be so concerned with making themselves understood that they do not have the chance to monitor the changes and improvements they are making to their L2 output. It may be useful if teachers point this out to them. Alicia and Daniela reacted to the communicative challenge in different ways. Both showed evidence of making their English more native-like during the six cycles of the carousel: Alicia in terms of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation; Daniela in terms of pronunciation and of the precision with which she was able to explain Q-TWIST to her later visitors. This may be evidence of the shift of attention outlined in Bygates (1996) study of identical task repetition, in which the learner moved her focus from accessing expressions at Time 1 to monitoring them at Time 2:
this shift, from a preoccupation with finding the expressions to a greater capacity for monitoring formulation, may be precisely what teachers might wish to encourage since it may enable learners to pay more attention to the task of matching language to concepts, and possibly to improving their knowledge and organization of the language. Bygate (1996: 144)

Danielas comments in the questionnaire that she had made conscious changes to both vocabulary and pronunciation are borne out by the evidence of her choice of words in explaining Q-TWIST and her self-corrections of the initial vowel of data. On the other

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hand, Alicia commented that she had neither planned nor noticed changes. Yet we have seen that in some respects her English did become more accurate, even if she did not realize it. We have also discussed instances where she was able to incorporate her visitors expressions into her own talk, but it may be that these were cases of temporary loans rather than lasting adoptions. Why did Alicias performance improve? It may be that she felt gradually more at ease with the material, and also gained from the positive experience of having coped with the problems of communicating with fellow professionals, under the quite severe time pressure of the 3-minute task cycle. She had expressed fears at the start of the course that she would not make herself understood, and perhaps this greater confidence over the carousel series allowed her to free up some processing space to pay attention to language. It seems plausible that the differences in the way Alicia and Daniela reacted to challenge in the task were related to their levels of English. Learners at lower levels of proficiency may be so (pre)occupied with marshalling their resources to express themselves adequately that they do not have spare capacity to deploy on correcting or refining their means of expression. Alicias response that she had made no changes during the six carousel cycles suggests that her attention was so firmly fixed on conveying what she wanted to say that she was unable to monitor her own performance. In contrast, Daniela was one of two participants who said in their questionnaires that they had both consciously planned to make changes and also noticed unplanned changes; they were among the three most proficient speakers in the group. From the pedagogic point of view the interactive nature of this task is particularly important. The carousel is based on the idea that the arrival of a new visitor should present the host with a novel challenge and a relatively natural opportunity to recycle the communicative form and content of the poster. As we stressed earlier, repetition in the carousel involves retrial rather than duplication; the visitor is not simply a cipher, someone to listen to a different version of the same monologue, but a communicative partner indeed, one who takes the initiative by asking the questions and then reacts to the adequacy and comprehensibility

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of the hosts response. The two speaker performances we have discussed here suggest that what these learners gained from the carousel task was the chance to try out alternative forms of expression (syntactic and lexical in Alicias case, and lexical and phonological in Danielas). There seems to have been a further interlocutor effect on Alicia and Danielas performances. In both cases, the proportion of talk produced in each interaction by Alicia and Daniela varied consistently according to visitor: Daniela spoke most with Susanna (71 per cent) and Peter (72 per cent), and least with Alexei (50 per cent); Alicia also spoke most with Susanna (54 per cent) and Peter (49 per cent), and least with Alexei (27 per cent). This underlines the fact that in the classroom, as opposed to experimental settings, an individual interlocutors willingness or ability to contribute to interaction plays a key role in a learners experience of the task. Even if the researcher might want to screen out that individual dimension as an unwanted variable, learners and teachers have no option but to cope with it (cf. Foster, 1998). At the same time, this finding also suggests that there may be a systematic pattern to the way individual students adopt particular discourse roles (see Ellis, this issue). A third issue in relation to the interactive nature of the carousel is that Alicia seems to have used her visitors not just as listeners with an interest in hearing her explanation of the poster study, but as sources of new or more accurate expression in English forms. Given their markedly different levels of proficiency, it is clear that while Alicias role was more reactive (as she receives corrections and recasts from her partners), Daniela was usually able to use the interaction proactively as a means of extending her repertoire. VII Conclusion We set out to find evidence that learners gain from the poster carousel task, given the doubts that have been expressed about TBL in general (e.g. Sheen, 1994) and recent research into formal effects of various experimental tasks (e.g. Bygate, 1996; Foster, 1998). Our findings suggest that linguistic changes did occur in the output of two very different learners, faced with the same communicative challenge, and we have argued that this flowed

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from the poster carousels particular configuration of input, interlocutors and repetition under time pressure. We would not wish to claim that all TBL therefore works; a study such as this, in which we have focused so far on just two participants, raises obvious questions of generalizability. We think it is likely that the repeated task cycles and the time pressure are likely to be important variables, so researchers and teachers working with larger groups of learners will need to be careful about generalizing from this specific task. However, we also believe that the evidence of differential gains and levels of awareness in Alicias and Danielas performances underlines the value of studying task effects on a case-by-case basis, rather than using mean figures for a group of learners. As Foster (1998) has recently argued, one must have some doubts about a group-based analysis of classroom performances especially, in which as teachers know and as we have shown with Alicia and Daniela different pairs of learners actually do very different things in what is apparently the same pedagogic event. Of course, the disadvantage of the caseby-case approach is that it is highly labour-intensive, and at this stage we are not in a position to offer generalizations from an analysis of all 14 participants performances. However, the findings from an investigation of three further participants, selected across the range between Alicia and Daniela, show similar patterns of change to those identified here. That analysis (Lynch and Maclean, 2000) confirms the influence of proficiency level on both the type of linguistic change and also on the degree to which the learners were conscious of making those changes. Having underlined that this study is preliminary though, we believe, suggestive we will close by discussing possible implications of our findings. The first point to emphasize is that the changes we have identified occurred during a task with no targeted linguistic items. The carousel is designed to stimulate interaction of a relatively free kind at least when compared with some of the experimental tasks discussed in the TBL literature. In designing this particular classroom task, we were concerned mainly with the comprehensibility of both partners contributions and the appropriateness of the hosts responses to questions, and less with formal accuracy. Nevertheless, this unfocused task resulted in a number of changes in the output of both learners under study.

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The second point to stress is that the changes we have discussed arose from mere practice, from learner-to-learner talk in which the teacher did not intervene in any way. While we agree that it is optimistic to suppose that retrial alone will efficiently eradicate mistakes (Johnson, 1996: 129, our emphasis), it seems reasonable to conclude that there are some linguistic benefits of retrial, even without teacher intervention. Bygate (1996) asked what learners might gain from unprompted, unguided task performance. In this case, the answer appears to be that the combination of task conditions and professional curiosity meant that the visitors prompted the hosts towards more accurate performance without the need for direct intervention by the teacher. Third, there is evidence that the same task can be productive for learners at different levels, including those with English as limited as Alicias, so teachers who are sceptical about the role of taskbased learning at lower levels of proficiency may draw some comfort from the fact that even Alicia was not apparently overwhelmed by a task that many native speakers find challenging, namely, responding effectively to probing questions from a fellow professional. However, our final note is cautious and cautionary. We have no evidence that Alicia was aware of the changes she was making indeed there is her own testimony (in the questionnaire) that she had made no changes and there was no time in the poster lesson for the learners to engage in the sort of post-task activity that might have drawn her attention to the changes in her performance. This initial study has led us to appreciate more clearly the potential role of post-task language work guided by the teacher. Although there is evidence that repetition of the task enabled Alicia and Daniela to improve in accuracy in the short term (over the 20 minutes of the carousel), we see a need for teachers to follow up task-based practice with noticing activities, so that we can help learners consolidate for the longer term what may otherwise be fragile changes in their interlanguage. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Alicia, Daniela and the other participants in the English for Cancer Conferences course, who

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allowed us to use the recordings of their carousel performances for this research, and also Martin Bygate and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. VIII References
Aston, G. 1986: Trouble-shooting in interaction: the more the merrier? Applied Linguistics 7(2): 12843. Brown, G. 1986: Professionalism and grading in ELT. In Meara, P., editor, Spoken language. London: BAAL/CILT, 319. Brown, G., Anderson, A., Shillcock, R. and Yule, G. 1984: Teaching talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bygate, M. 1996: Effects of task repetition: appraising the developing language of learners. In Willis, J. and Willis, D., editors, 13646. Candlin, C. 1987: Towards task-based language learning. In Candlin, C. and Murphy, D., editors. Language learning tasks. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall. Crookes, G. 1989: Planning and interlanguage variation. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11(3): 36783. Ellis, R. 1987: Interlanguage variability in narrative discourse: style shifting in the use of the past tense. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 9(1): 1220. Foster, P. 1996: Doing the task better: how planning time influences students performance. In Willis, J. and Willis, D., editors, 12635. 1998: A classroom perspective on the negotiation of meaning. Applied Linguistics, 19(1): 123. 1999: Task-based learning and pedagogy. ELT Journal 53(1): 6970. Foster, P. and Skehan, P. 1996: The influence of planning on performance in task-based learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18(3): 299324. 1997: Modifying the task: the effects of surprise, time and planning type on task-based foreign language instruction. Thames Valley Working Papers in ELT 4: 3850. Fotos, S: 1998: Shifting the focus from forms to form in the EFL classroom. ELT Journal 52(4): 3017. Fotos, S. and Ellis, R. 1991: Communicating about grammar: a task-based approach. TESOL Quarterly 25(4): 60828. Krahnke, K. 1987: Approaches to syllabus design for foreign language teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Kumaravadivelu, B. 1993: The name of the task and the task of naming: methodological aspects of task-based pedagogy. In Crookes, G. and Gass, S., editors, Tasks in a pedagogical context: integrating theory and practice. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters, 6996.

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Johnson, K. 1996: Language teaching and skill learning. Oxford: Blackwell. Long M. and Crookes G. 1992. Three approaches to task-based syllabus design. TESOL Quarterly 26(1): 2756. Lynch, T. and Maclean, J. 1994: Poster carousel. In Bailey, K. and Savage, L., editors, New Ways of Teaching Speaking. Washington, DC: TESOL, 10809. 2000: A case of exercising: effects of immediate task repetition on learners performance. In Bygate, M., Skehan, P. and Swain, M., editors, Researching pedagogic tasks: second language learning, teaching and testing. Harlow, Essex: Longman. Nobuyoshi, J. and Ellis, R. 1993: Focused communication tasks and second language acquisition. ELT Journal 47(3): 20310. Pica, T., Lincoln-Porter, F., Paninos, D. and Linnell, J. 1996: Language learners interaction: how does it address the input, output and feedback needs of L2 learners? TESOL Quarterly 30(1): 5984. Plough, I. and Gass, S. 1993: Interlocutor and task familiarity: effect on interactional structure. In Crookes, G. and Gass, S., editors, Tasks and language learning: integrating theory and practice. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters. Sheen, R. 1994: A critical analysis of the advocacy of a task-based syllabus. TESOL Quarterly 28(1): 12751. Skehan, P. 1996a: Second language acquisition research and task-based instruction. In Willis, J. and Willis, D., editors, 1730. 1996b: A framework for the implementation of task-based instruction. Applied Linguistics 17(1): 3862. 1998: A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skehan, P. and Foster, P. 1997: Task type and task processing conditions as influences on foreign language performance. Language Teaching Research 1(3): 185211. Widdowson, H.G. 1998: Skills, abilities and contexts of reality. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18: 32333. Willis, J. 1996: A framework for task-based learning. London: Longman. Willis, J. and Willis, D., editors, 1996. Challenge and change in language teaching. London: Heinemann. Yule, G. 1994: ITAs, interaction and communicative effectiveness. In Madden, C. and Myers, C., editors, Discourse and performance of international teaching assistants. Alexandria, VA: TESOL, 189200.

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Appendix Alicia: subject-verb sentence structure

Visit 1 1. Is the group surgery more versus surgery less is the same survival = Its that in the groups undergoing more and less extensive surgery there is the same survival rate 2. 3. In conclusion very important is . . . = In conclusion it is very important that . . . . . . the surgery versus surgery plus radiotherapy is the same survival = . . . surgery, compared with surgery plus radiotherapy, produces the same survival rate Is reduced radiotherapy isolated local recurrence = radiotherapy reduces isolated local recurrence Is significant the reduction the local recurrence = the reduction in local recurrence is significant Is very important the conclusion = The conclusion is very important And is this important = And this is important Important conclusion is the radiotherapy group more died = An important conclusion is that more of the radiotherapy group died Total for visit C C

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

I I I I

Visit 2 9. Is very conclusion . . . = It is a very (important) conclusion 10. Is very important the study = The study is very important 11. Is surgery versus surgery plus radiotherapy is not difference significant = its that surgery, compared to surgery plus radiotherapy, produces no significant difference 12. Is meta-analysis = Its a meta-analysis 13. Is the isolated local recurrence is difference significantly em versus surgery = Its that isolated local recurrence is significantly different compared to what it is with surgery Total for visit C C

I I

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Visit 3 14. Is a meta-analysis on . . . = Its a meta-analysis 15. Is the group lumpectomy or quadrantectomy . . . versus surgery eh more eh mas non-radiotherapy is non difference significant = Its that comparing lumpectomy or quadrantectomy with surgery plus non-radiotherapy there is no significant difference 16. The conclusion is very . . . 17. Conclusion eh, the first important is = in conclusion the first important thing is 18. Extensive surgery is not necessary 19. And eh isolated local recurrence is very important in group eh surgery alone = And isolated local recurrence is very common in the surgery-only group Total for visit Visit 4 20. Is the surgery versus surgery less, mastectomy = Its surgery as opposed to less extensive surgery, mastectomy 21. Lumpectomy in this work is also radiotherapy, is eh menos extensive, eh less extensive, mastectomy = Lumpectomy in this study is plus radiotherapy (and) is less extensive mastectomy 22. Is the meta-analysis = Its a meta-analysis 23. Is the conclusion very important = its a very important conclusion 24. Is the surgery adequate versus surgery plus radiotherapy is the same survival = its that appropriate surgery, compared with surgery plus radiotherapy, achieves the same survival rate 25. Is the group yes included = the group is included, yes 26. Is included. = Its included 27. Is the same, yes = Its the same, yes 28. Is eh reduced local recurrence = there is reduced local recurrence Total for visit 3 C CC

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C C C

Visit 5 29. Less is the mastectomy = Less extensive means mastectomy 28. Surgery is mastectomy modified = Surgery is modified mastectomy 29. And more surgery is amplified mastectomy = and more extensive surgery means amplified mastectomy 30. Quadrantectomy is surgery less, plus radiotherapy = Quadrantectomy is less extensive surgery plus radiotherapy 31. Is eh more deaths non-breast cancer in surgery and radiotherapy, versus surgery only = There are more deaths from . . . Total for visit Visit 6 32. Is a meta-analysis = Its a meta-analysis 33. The objective is . . . 34. And no chemotherapy is included in this study 35. And other conclusion very important is the surgery plus radiotherapy is local recurrence 7 per cent = and another very important finding is that surgery plus radiotherapy produces 7 per cent local recurrence 36. And surgery alone is 20 per cent local recurrence = and surgery alone leads to 20 per cent local recurrence 37. Is not different 38. My experience is . . . 39. The tumour less three centimetres is surgery quadrantectomy and lumpectomy plus radiotherapy = a tumour of less than 3 cm requires quadrantectomy . . . 40. And tumours more three centimetre is mastectomy and neo-adjuvant chemotherapy . . . = and tumours of more than 3 cm require mastectomy and neo-adjuvant chemotherapy Total for visit

I 4 1

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CC

C I C C