It's 8.00 am on the first proper day of the holidays, and I already have 7 posts on our National Priorities Project sitting in draft, waiting for September when I can publish them. Some, like the NPP's role in creating our Department Inclusion Plan already show outcomes. Others, like the question of the importance of creating meaning versus mechanical exercises are left currently unresolved. Before I can write more on this topic, I need to get another question out of the way: Is our Year 7 French Art Exhibition a "Task"?
I have written before on Task Based Learning and why we ought to have it on our radar in the school language classroom. Task Based Learning is an approach that puts the emphasis on the learner using the language to complete a communicative Task. The declared focus is on the completion of the Task, rather than on the language itself. The Task is often "authentic" (a word which in language teaching tends to mean "simulated" rather than "real") and the process of interaction in completing the Task may count as part of the Task as much as the outcome.
On this basis, our Year 7 French Exhibition could be considered a "Task". Every pupil creates an artwork, they describe it in French, and their work goes on display to the public. The task is purposeful and authentic, requires a degree of autonomy and creativity, is for a real audience, and is celebrated for the outcome.
Back in 2010 we used to have tangible outcomes for as many of our KS3 French units as possible. We were awarded the European Award for Languages for a curriculum built around things like the French Cafe, Child's Picture Book, Letters to France, and an embryonic Art Exhibition. In 2011 we used a LinkedUp project with 3 other high schools to broaden this to welcome information for refugees for the Red Cross, a menu translation wheel for a local cafe, and a video for the Norfolk Broads Authority. The project was based, somewhat unquestioningly, on the idea that this led to "Deep Learning." Having responsibility for the outcome and engagement with a real client, was supposed to make the learning substantially different from normal classroom learning. The model was Design Technology, and the idea was that language learning suffered from a lack of tangible outcomes. We wanted to think through how we could be more like Food Technology or Resistant Materials. Pupils would be involved in the process of creating something using their French and they would have something to show and be proud of.
The idea also involved an understanding of breaking down the learning into the knowledge and skills required. It coincided with this project to show pupils that writing in French was a nuts and bolts technical process, not magic. One of the outcomes of the project for the schools involved was that our curriculum had to be carefully structured to equip pupils with the knowledge they needed in order to be creative. And the other was that developing pupils' ability to use the language is as much a part of the learning as is learning the language itself. Both of these lessons have had long term impact on the design of our curriculum.
But I think we were largely uncritical of the idea that tangible outcomes ("Tasks") was "a good thing." I don't know how far we were persuaded by the idea of "Deep Learning", and we didn't really examine exactly what was being learned deeply. If we focus on the language itself, it is certainly possible for pupils to undertake a project such as the French Art Exhibition, and then look at their work a month later and be unable to remember what it means. But they may have learned lessons about themselves as language learners and language users in an intercultural world.
That is the remit of this National Priorities Project. But with as sharp a focus as possible on the integration of pupils' growing intercultural identity with the learning of the language itself. Does the French Art Exhibition contribute to the learning of the language? Or does it risk being a distraction or at worst an irrelevance when it comes to pupils' retention of grammar and vocabulary?
Which brings us back to the question of whether the French Art Exhibition is a "Task".
And my answer is No. Our Year 7 French Art Exhibition has some of the surface features of Task Based Learning. It has a Task to be completed and celebrated by a real audience. But there are deeper features of Task Based Learning that it potentially does not meet.
The defining aspect of a Task, is not its authenticity or creativity. It is how a Task stands in opposition to an Exercise. In an exercise, the teacher specifies the language to be used. We use the exercise for pupils to practise using the language they have been taught. We expect to see them using the language, and may use a tick list to check they have done so. There may be an element of personal expression involved, but we train pupils to "use the French you know" and "don't say things you can't".
This is not Task Based Learning. Task Based Learning has a declared focus on the Task, not the language. But it isn't abdicating responsibility for language learning. It's carefully engineered with important aspects of language learning in mind. It is deliberately allowing the learner to test the limits of their knowledge, to try to say things that stretch the envelope of what they can do with the language. One reason for this is to act as a driver for further learning. And the other is to force the learner to explore how to use the language they do have, in order to complete the task. In Task Based Learning, the learner isn't using today's specified language point. They are using the entirety of the language they have learned so far. The process forces them to articulate their knowledge, to pull on all the nascent conceptualisation of the grammar, deploy their skill and ingenuity as a communicator, take ownership of language and create meaning.
It is important we don't lose sight of this, in our world of "use the French you've learned" and "don't say things you can't", especially if our learners seem to be able to churn out today's language point, but aren't accumulating a repertoire they can use in order to express themselves. And once I have finished writing this post on whether our Exhibition is a Task, I will come back with a more nuanced examination of whether it matters, returning to the idea of a continuum of communication.
But for now, I can say that our Exhibition is not an example of Task Based Learning.
We carefully teach the pupils the language they are going to need: definite and indefinite articles, word order and adjectival agreement, prepositions, 3rd person of -er verbs, opinions... We create scaffolding and checklists to make sure they are including these features. We use model answers, we annotate and improve drafts, we check for accuracy. We tell pupils not to try to say things they can't, and we tell pupils what language we expect to be included.
Now we have got that out of the way, I do have more to say. Because one of the Big Ideas emerging from our work on the National Priorities Project is the idea of a continuum of "meaning" from mechanical lexical knowledge of what a word means, to genuine communicative creation of meaning. What we need to look at is whether this difference has an impact on the nitty gritty of language learning. We shall see...
Next Post: Some surprising conclusions about Translanguaging.
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