Nancy Cervantes Tinoco

Design a task (Focused Communication)

Introduction
Rod Ellis made a distinction between focused and unfocused communication tasks; a task
involves one or the four language skills, which engages the learner or student in cognitive
processes, such as evaluating, reasoning, or selecting information to complete a task.

Ellis describes the focused type of communicative tasks as the tasks which are constructed
in a way that require language learners’ use of a particular form of grammar, learners are
encouraged to focus on a specific linguistic feature rather than to meaning, as for unfocused
communication tasks are the tasks in which learners use the target language without any
requirement to use a specific grammar structure for completing the task. However, both
focused and unfocused tasks present opportunities for L2 learners to use the target language
in a meaningful situation and foster communicative language use.

On the following communication focused task, the teacher expects students to use the
previous knowledge of the target language to communicate new ideas to a situation without
focusing on the grammar but breaking down the task in order for learner to indirectly focus
on form; moreover, cognitive processes are expected in the learner as Candlin suggested
“the language learning tasks need to include nonlinguistic goals…including awareness,
responsibility, tolerance, self-realization, and self-confidence” (Candlin as cited in
IEXPRO, n.d., p.42).

General objectives
  Students practice the speaking skills to communicate in the target language to talk
about personal experiences.
 Students use speaking, reading, writing, teamwork, and creativity.
 Students practice the use of present perfect simple with time expressions.
 Students share in written and spoken form about experiences about themselves or a
person that has made them who they are.

Characteristics of the group

The group for this particular task, is formed by 50 male and female students between the
age of 16 to 18. The students have been through 240 hours of English classes, they are
expected to have an upper-elementary level or a low pre-intermediate level, according to
the English in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). The group consists
of students who are mostly visual students.

Task
Objective: Students will learn about an elder person’s life experiences. Learner’s will share
information about their personal experiences with their classmates.

Input: Student’s will read a text about an elder person’s life experiences. The text will help
them do the task and prepare them to talk about their personal life experiences.

Activities:
1. Reading: Students read the text “I Have Enjoyed My Life.”
2. Speaking:
a. Students talk about Jenna’s experience and their answer to the reading
comprehension.
b. Students make a presentation about their life experiences.
c. Students will use the worksheet “Find someone who” to find a classmate
who meets up with the description.
3. Writing:
a. Students talk about their life experiences or a person’s life experiences.
 b. Students make a timeline based on their pretend life experiences.
c. Students make sentences about their classmates’ experiences based on the
information from the worksheet “Find someone who”
4. Creativity:
a. Students make a presentation about their life experiences or a person’s life
experiences.
b. Students elaborate a timeline.

Pre-Task (15 minutes)

Previously to class as homework, students read a text about Jenna and her experience of
living abroad and answer the questions to see the level of comprehension of the
information.

In trios, students will share the answers to the questions from the text and will talk about if
they know someone or if they have experienced something similar.
 If the student knows someone who is abroad, they can share the information with
the classmates and how do they feel about it.
 Students can talk about something that they struggled learning.
 Students can talk about a life experience.

Task Cycle
Students will use the text as an example for their task. The students will imagine that they
are already an elder person, 73 years old as the person in the reading, who has experienced
many things their lives, either negative or positive. Now they are being asked about their
lives and will story tell their life experiences. In case they want to work in pair, they can
pretend to be long-life friends, a couple, etcetera., and they will have to explain.

Planning
 Students can work in pair, trios or individually to decide about what they will talk
about in their presentations.
  Students may need to do a timeline of their pretend life and negotiate to agree on the
life experiences that they will share and details about those experiences, such as
duration, importance, who, what, where and why.
 Learners must elaborate a timeline of their life and with key word to follow a
sequence to their story.
 Students plan their presentation to the class.
 Students must decide how are they to participate in their presentation.

Report (15 minutes per team or student)

Students will take turns to make their presentations and give details of their experiences
such as duration of the activities, how long, who, etcetera. The teams or students will take
turns to ask or make comments about the presenters’ life experiences.

Language Focus
Analysis: The teacher will take some examples from the presenters or will elicit to the
activities that make the most impact on the class. The teacher will write the examples on
the board and elicit what the structure have/has + past participle verb is used for. Also, the
teacher will elicit the structure have/has + past participle verb + since/for, to talk about the
duration of an activity that started in the past.

Practice:
Students go around the classroom with the worksheet “Find someone who” to look for a
person who meets up with the description and to ask the duration of the activity or when it
started, the students will write down the information in the worksheet.
Students will use the information they collected and write sentences, including the time
period information given to them. They ask something that is not in the worksheet that they
consider interesting using the “free space” box.

Material:
 White paper sheets
 Color pencils
 Jenna’s text and questions
 Worksheet “Find someone who”
Wrap up: (15 minutes)
Learners will share go around the classroom and tell their classmates an interesting fact or
experience from someone else in the classroom and the duration of the activity or when it
started. The objective is to get to know interesting facts of their classmates and that can
integrate the group better by knowing themselves better.
Follow up:
Learners will do another two presentations in the following task which are real-life
experiences in the upcoming partials.
1. Individually: Student’s will ask a person in their family, who is older than them,
about their life experiences in order to write about them. They must create a
timeline with images to support their information. Students will talk about their
family member’s life exercises.
2. In teams: Students will get together and make research on someone who is or has
make changes that impact in the world. It can be an inventor, investigator, activist,
famous person, etc. Students will write a paper about the activities that that person
has done or life experiences that have changed the world either in a positive or
negative way. Students must create a timeline or a presentation, such as PowerPoint.
Students must organize their presentation and show it to the class.

Teacher’s role
 The teacher acts a facilitator, the teacher provides a model or examples of the task.
 The teacher acts as a monitor: while having students perform the task, the teacher
may consider factors like time limits, surprise elements, and students’ interaction.

Student’s role
Student interaction is expected to ‘built in’ to the lesson, as they need to communicate to
complete the task. Students are expected to make mistakes while working on a task
however they are encouraged by their classmates or there is peer feedback.

Arguments for doing this task

It is important to let students acknowledge that learning a language has a purpose, which is
not only learning vocabulary, knowing grammar structures, or memorizing verbs, but to
give a practical use to the language and make students aware of the uses that the target
language has. The activities are meant to raise awareness of the language usage in a
communicative way, encouraging them to think outside the box and apply the language to
real life situations as well as to have a profound and meaningful influence on students’
cognitive and affective characteristics by raising their autonomy, self-esteem, self-
confidence, and motivation.

Conclusion
I have taught the grammar topic present perfect with time expression for students to be able
to talk about their life experiences in a semi communicative approach, however sometimes
falling into grammar translation method because of the context circumstances; yet I have
not work with focused communication tasks.
On the task about I followed the structure suggested by Willis’ task framework, trying to
place students as the center of the learning process in which they interact and use the
language to fulfill communicative needs, promoting the acquisition of present perfect
grammar structure, but they throughout the task are focused on the content and not on the
form, students are expected to look for the necessary information, either grammar or
vocabulary to express the desired message given them the chance to be autonomous and
gain self confidence to work with their classmates.

References
Nobuyoshi, J., & Ellis, R. (1993). Focused communication tasks and second language
acquisition. Elt Journal, 47, 203-210.

Universidad IEXPRO. (n.d.). Tasks and a Focus on Form (pp 21-32).

Universidad IEXPRO. (n.d.). Issues in Task Design (pp 33-43).