Abstract
This study reports on the design, implementation and analysis of a task cycle(Ske han, 1998) comprising two grammar exercises, a focused task (Ellis,2003) and a communicative task administered to 47 EFL learners in 10intact classes in Brazil. Results suggest that focused tasks may help learnersautomatize specific linguistic forms, freeing up cognitive resources to focus onmeaning, thus fostering the acquisition of complex linguistic structures in L2.Results are discussed in terms of psycholinguistic accounts of skill buildingwhich view the acquisition of language as the automatization of processeswhich develop out of controlled processes (McLaughlin & Heredia, 1996).
Highlights
Research on second1 language acquisition (SLA) has moved away from the search for the Holy Graal of applied linguistics or “the best method”, to a more mature approach that attempts to understand the many processes involved in acquiring a second language (LarsenFreeman, 1993)
This study departed from psycholinguistic accounts of task-based instruction to propose a cycle of tasks composed of three moments, namely, a pre-task phase in which instruction focused on form and grammar exercises were used to introduce a syntactic structure, a during-task phase with a focused task to practice the form of the target language structure, and a post-task phase with a communicative task in which production was free and focused on meaning
The rationale motivating this design was that the syntactic language structure investigated was difficult to acquire for Portuguese speakers who had to undergo syntactic computation to produce the form of the target structure in L2 and that perhaps a task cycle which manipulated learners’ attention from a complete focus on form to a focus on meaning would benefit the acquisition of this structure in L2
Summary
Research on second language acquisition (SLA) has moved away from the search for the Holy Graal of applied linguistics or “the best method”, to a more mature approach that attempts to understand the many processes involved in acquiring a second language (LarsenFreeman, 1993). Different approaches (for example: socio-cultural theory, task-based instruction (TBI), linguistic approaches based on Universal Grammar) have been used to investigate the issue of how people come to master a second language Though these approaches differ in their departure points and assumptions, they coincide in their goal, namely, to explain different aspects of second language (L2) use and acquisition. The communicative approach aimed at developing learners’ ability to communicate meanings and proposed that this was achieved through learners’ engagement in communicative activities which later became known as “tasks” (Bygate, Skehan & Swain, 2001) Though both approaches focus on meaning rather than on form, they differ in that the TBI approach uses tasks as the basic unit of syllabi (Willis & Willis, 2001; Skehan & Foster, 1999)
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