Full Transcript for Discussing Chapter 5 of Mike Long 2015 Second Language Acquisition and Task-Based Language Teaching

just a... It's just a product of the pre-existing standards ⁓ and fine-grained we are or how we are being about people's needs and maybe it's just ⁓ because we've never And maybe if we did ⁓ take his approach and a more detailed needs analysis, we would notice more specific needs in more cases. ⁓ Yeah, ⁓ I think we also take from that ⁓ information like trends and ⁓ to build on. Right, yes, yeah, yeah. think Long gives an example of looking at the previous year's cohorts the types of things they needed. ⁓ and ⁓ in the third section, Long goes through a series of doubts posed about the value doing analysis. So one idea is is roughly the same everywhere and ⁓ differences between varieties ⁓ fairly and therefore you don't need to ask ⁓ where will be using the language. Yeah, I think that there is a trade-off between... because it like... Okay, so if I know a student is going to be moving to Edinburgh, then yes, it would be useful for them to have some guidance in understanding a Scottish accent. At the same time, is it worth... revising a course to include ⁓ of a Scottish accent ⁓ ⁓ can get by without it. ⁓ Lots of people in Edinburgh talk clearly. It's a huge effort to... new material ⁓ just that. yeah, there's a trade-off between the efforts revising material accordance with the needs ⁓ and the benefit of that, I think. ⁓ Yeah, and then a few other doubts. So another idea is should not do a needs analysis. And instead, you should just. should just wait for the learners to have their first day and then discuss what to cover and then, and I guess kind of just play it by ear and then... ⁓ And then when the course is over, then you know what was needed. It's a bit of a weird idea. Yeah, this is the ex post facto process. Because it should be both, shouldn't it? You should do a needs analysis before the course starts, and then you should make adjustments after the course starts. I think you need both. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but just by itself feels practical or as beneficial. Yes, and then we get to interesting section, felt or objective needs. I think in this section he's talking about ⁓ the place of expertise ⁓ in needs analysis. I think that this section is just the idea, so the objection would be do you need experts to conduct a needs analysis when learners can just tell you what they want. ⁓ And again, think the answer, I'm going to be like a broken record, again, I think that you need both. people who know the best ways of learning a language, expertise is needed ⁓ to suggest a course or a set tasks ⁓ or material. and at the same time there needs to be input from the learner. because the learner has to be on board whatever is suggested by experts they to see the value of it ⁓ and ⁓ have information you have about ⁓ so a learner know all of the tasks that they'll need to they also know ⁓ help, or they know about what helps them learn and that's different for every person. yes, I language to the medical field ⁓ So there are difficult issues whether medical practitioners ⁓ can trusted. But the point is, ultimately, if you disagree with doctor's diagnosis, ⁓ you can ask for a opinion. ⁓ think that's fair. ⁓ a fair way of dealing the ⁓ mismatch of knowledge between experts and ⁓ Right. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, he the they like to vote with your feet. It's what students are able to do with patience. it does resonate in that ⁓ it's far more ⁓ helpful see ⁓ the structure that it fits with you and ⁓ how you're going to, I keep wanting to go back to the boat metaphor, but not everybody wants the same boat. And we can have a general idea of how everybody works within water. It's a wild way of saying that. But we all know, maybe most of us understand how to float. At a certain very young age, we can understand how to float in water, but the ideal ⁓ or how we want to be ⁓ the is very different. ⁓ I think not taking into account the students perspective, the felt needs is like trying to force somebody into the wrong boat, I guess. Yeah, that makes sense. Because for example, if you are feeling very anxious about being in the water, that will affect the type of instruction you need to do. OK, and then the next doubt against the neath analysis is Lerner heterogeneity. the claim is that... If you get a group of students and you need to deliver a course to them and they all have different needs, you go through all the steps of doing a needs analysis and then all saying different things. what can you usefully do with that information? ⁓ And I found this section very unsatisfying because I think this is one of the strongest to doing a needs analysis and really this is the ⁓ that wouldn't a needs analysis ⁓ for a English ⁓ group course because there's I can do with that information. It's still going to be the same course. ⁓ be lucky and you could get several learners saying the same thing about what they need. if all of them say, or if two of them want ⁓ learn English ⁓ work ⁓ then another two are just doing it for fun and then another two are want to make travel easier, ⁓ what can do with that information? ⁓ But you're right, yeah, because ⁓ that my question. It's like, ⁓ what this general English class, ideal that we're looking at? ⁓ ⁓ There's so many different avenues ⁓ if you would have at least ⁓ a 50 page needs analysis, wouldn't be any kind of fit. what you mean, you'd have all of this information but then you just, ⁓ you're just gonna do a general English course then... ⁓ Yeah. Yes, well so his view is that you would, that the course would be shaped by ⁓ the results the needs analysis. ⁓ But ⁓ mean, so my question is would that really make would really make for a better course? ⁓ Yeah, I'm just thinking about other schools I've worked in or studied in. studied Italian a week in a school they had a system ⁓ of, on the day, they interviewed everyone in class. there was a placement test and there were a few questions like, what do you want to study and what topics do you like to talk about? ⁓ I remember

was also a short ⁓ face-to-face ⁓ and on that day ⁓ they they chose material and printed it off and put it in a little booklet for everyone. yeah. In terms of my experience on that course, think there was one, it was just one language point I ⁓ would been selected for me. ⁓ So like, ⁓ yes, I do make mistakes with object and subject pronouns. ⁓ so that one the things we studied. ⁓ So was that significantly better than just the general Italian course? Honestly, I don't know, because I think anything I would have done would have been useful. it was quite a lot of effort for them ⁓ have come in and be interviewed. And so they've a day of class from that. ⁓ So, I know. Would you have a negative experience? ⁓ if that one point wasn't there, ⁓ if you had this information ⁓ and then ⁓ of it addressed in that week, ⁓ would you have away with a negative experience, do you think? ⁓ yeah, Yeah, I think at the time was impressed ⁓ because I... ⁓ they had noticed I kept making mistakes with, it's like the ending of a participle and how the pronoun, how the object pronoun affects it. And I've totally forgotten the rules now, but at the time I thought, ⁓ that's so helpful, but they've noticed I make mistakes with this. So yes, I think that would have, but lots of it, lots of the stuff that they chose was not for me. It was for other people in the group and it was stuff I wasn't interested in. Like there was a whole lesson about animals, which I just, ⁓ yeah. So my is, was a lot of effort and lot of compromises and ⁓ if had just done a unit a course that's generally useful and generally interesting, ⁓ I think it would have quite similar ⁓ but then we would have the extra day of class. ⁓ my point was, in a group, ⁓ language learning situation, it's much less beneficial. If I was just a one-to-one student then that would have been incredibly useful because then the course would be exactly tailored to me but because it was just a compromise between a group of five of us it was 20 % for me and then 20 % actually not very interesting and it would be the same if you just took a unit from a course book and maybe 20 % of it would be really useful for me and then the rest would be I could take or leave. so another ⁓ with needs analysis mentioned in this section is that the case of very young their needs for language is not yet known because you don't know what a child will up and go on to do ⁓ Long's response is to out of the education system in the country. ⁓ because one can make predictions about what a child would need to take later. So to me it's a bit of a weird point because if you've got a group of eight year olds and you're thinking about their university entrance exams, are you really going to prepare for that? Ten years? Yeah, that kind of feels like the answer to that is that the needs analysis would be general English. It would be the course book because that's what they would need because the course book should probably respond to those exams. So then it kind

of becomes irrelevant. ⁓ I see what you mean. ⁓ yeah, yeah, indeed. Because you would just need a one size fits all course for people who are going to take that exam, that standardized exam in the future. So there's no point in interviewing the child and asking about it. I kind of feel like asking them, like, what do you need, school? Got it. Right. Interesting. Yes. ⁓ so the next doubt about analysis ⁓ is the that don't need to ⁓ subject ⁓ specific. activities tasks that your students need to do, ⁓ just need ⁓ help them ⁓ ⁓ communicative competences. It was an interesting example. So he gives the example of a course in electrical engineering ⁓ if take a set of native speakers and they're new to the subject and you put them on this course, ⁓ then lot of technical language that they have to learn ⁓ on the as it were, but they're able do that because they have ⁓ the foundation of skills. ⁓ And so that seem to imply ⁓ non-native speakers you just need to teach them ⁓ language and then they'll be able to cope with process learning technical terms ⁓ they're on course. Yeah, the quote I from this was that ⁓ what is good for native speaker should be good for the non-native speaker, so the a teacher's job is to bring non-native speakers, non-area specific underlying competence up to scratch. Not to the native speakers' levels, to levels adequate for them to cope ⁓ ⁓ information in the area of specialization. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. mean, ⁓ that fair. So it's a bit of ⁓ blunt, the solution of just teach students the language ⁓ That's a bit of blunt tool because you could just teach them ⁓ language that they will need for that course and then you save a lot of time and effort and ⁓ they can also see how the course is relevant to them. yeah, ⁓ seems, I think that's a good point. ⁓ the next point is, he calls it the dark side of needs analysis, which is the idea that If you just take the information about job a learner will be doing and then you teach them just to do that job, then that traps people entry-level jobs and condemns them to a life of manual labour. Brandon, what is your reaction to this point? Yeah, I mean, I think it would be very similar to Long's in that, I mean, I think this is like the lengthiest section that he writes on in terms of ⁓ counter arguments to needs analysis. ⁓ Yeah, I completely disagree that needs analysis is something ⁓ of any kind of ⁓ intent. I don't know, that idea seems like it would come from individuals who ⁓ look down upon those kinds of jobs, you know, that ⁓ is the world we in and those are the realities that people face. ⁓ And ⁓ I think for lot of extrinsic learners, what's going to ⁓ help them, enter this world of learning English is ⁓ a very specific course English ⁓ tailored just them. ⁓ don't know, idea it's somehow by and large leading English language learners in any kind of social engineering. ⁓ It feels very of tune with... the students I've had at least. And I Lom also rejects as a doubt about ⁓ analysis ⁓ So I think his position is that Like of course you start learning to do the which are ⁓ just most basic and most and practically urgent to you and you leave language for socialising. to later. think that's fair. like we were saying before, just because you've taught someone to do a certain job, that doesn't condemn them to doing that job forever. You've taught them, ⁓ they could probably do it already, but you're just, the point is that you're teaching them how to do it better and how to be ⁓ ⁓ It just feels like there couldn't be a better jumping off point for somebody wanting to continue learning English than having those basic needs met. ⁓ ⁓ I mean, in the same way like, have the same students over several classes, I still ⁓ write my name ⁓ the board. And I think that as being, one less thing, much of what we're doing is focused speaking ⁓ and remembering certain words are, ⁓ if they don't have to keep name in their head, ⁓ like one less thing that just makes everything else. ⁓ If it's a half a percent easier, that's a half a percent going towards learning something else in the future that will make the next thing easier. just found it funny that this is an argument against it. I ⁓ appreciate including it what is probably very think that people may do, but... But yeah, I think that's a really good point. think about not the time spent, not just is learned in the classroom, but about how people's lives will go ⁓ after the ⁓ and if ⁓ made ⁓ significantly for them ⁓ just to through a working day at their job, then that frees time and mental energy they can notice how a customer says hello, ⁓ it's a subtle feature of greetings English and so if you've them ⁓ how to the practical tasks in their job then ⁓ is also them. leading the way for them to learn other aspects of language. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so that is all the doubts about needs analysis and the growth of needs analysis, ⁓ Long again compares language to other professions. I think he it a doctor. ⁓ The first thing a doctor is talk the patient and then diagnose them. And engineers and architects ⁓ will... study client's space and their requirements, ⁓ I'm going to take measurements. ⁓ so he's saying similarly in language teaching there is a need for needs analysis. one thing that's interesting about this is the, think, second language instruction is the intersection between vocational areas and academic subjects. If you do a course in history or maths, one interviews you beforehand to know why you're interested in the subject. You just do the course because conception ⁓ how to teach those ⁓ and that's the result a of thought and practice. there's a natural order of topics that you cover and of course not everyone needs to do all of those topics in order but the study of the subject is what it is and this perception of having do a needs analysis. ⁓ Whereas I think second language it's sort of not clear. I think some people's perspective is it's like an academic subject, ⁓ and then other people

like Long ⁓ view more on ⁓ the vocational side. it makes sense, guess, because of the heterogeneity of learners. So there are learners like the Americans who just learning a language for fun. ⁓ And they're just interested in the language as objects. then there are, ⁓ as points out, are many involuntary learners or learners ⁓ a purely external ⁓ I mean that feels apt to my somewhat experience in teaching English ⁓ and ⁓ taken classes as well like it absolutely does where it's not as rigid and definitely looking the ⁓ the space around the student rather than just the student itself, like where they're... I mean, their needs are how can they be met. And I guess that is just to say that that makes sense in that intersection I have felt in learning this. being a teacher and trying to teach English because at same time there is a very clear academic side of it that... ⁓ I don't know, I don't want say is that odd with that. Do you feel like it's at odds with those two ideas? do you feel like they, because you said intersection, and I do think it exists there, but is it a kind of intersection? is it a fraught meeting? Yeah, good question. And I think one learner could have both types of motivation. So if one is an expat in Thailand and learning Thai, there's the interest in the language itself and just wanting to know how the language works. But then there's also a lot of practical reasons why you might want to learn. And I think that's probably the case for many, if not most, And the view of language as just ⁓ that your learning is purely for utilitarian reasons, kind takes the fun out of it as well. ⁓ yeah, like some the descriptions of courses, and like the... yeah so course for the incoming students of electrical engineering and okay so ⁓ they're gonna on this course ⁓ and so just going to teach them ⁓ about ⁓ to to lectures and ⁓ how to their citations and that might be worse than a general English course which has light and activities but then is also teaching the student ⁓ a complicated bit of grammar then ⁓ the activities are really fun and the texts are generally ⁓ effective then okay, let's look at note taking skills. Right. and the chapter gets into, think, long outlines notions of target situation analysis, or TSA, ⁓ present ⁓ situation analysis. I the idea of a target situation analysis is looking at, for example, what job student will be doing in the future, ⁓ and so working out they will need in that role. I think the main problem with this is just ⁓ it's hard to predict. Especially if you don't know and it's quite a rare situation that you know exactly what job you're going to be doing in six months from now and you do it at language course it does happen But ⁓ you said people who are learning for work ⁓ are just learning to increase their opportunities ⁓ to do a very specific job There is a discussion of something called the communication needs processor, ⁓ was devised by Munby in It's a quite procedure for doing needs analysis. I'm just

going to from some of this. It's page 101. ⁓ So it's a multi-step system for doing a needs analysis. The first step is to gather information from students. And so initially about the field for which the L2 was required or purposive domain the institutional or psychosocial settings in which learners would be operating. In other words, ⁓ where they're to use the language. ⁓ Next came information about their communicative purposes, ⁓ social relationships roles and instrumentality, medium mode and ⁓ channel. ⁓ in words, what are they going to be doing? then followed the learner's current and target proficiency level different and the variety or dialect required. So in other words, how difficult do they find the different tasks to ⁓ do. as well as target communicative events, for example writing term papers, conducting religious services, or making a sales presentation. ⁓ so in other words, just what will they need to be doing ⁓ the language. then so from this description, ⁓ this procedure, ⁓ linguists then derive a list of functions or skills and then also the realisations of those functions. so for example, from an interview with a student, you that they will need to make a lot of polite requests and so the of using intonation politely and using modal verbs and would you mind doing this? then taking those language items and then putting them into a service. So that's the procedure. And I think Long kind semi in agreement ⁓ with the procedure. ⁓ one of the problems ⁓ with so ⁓ he through several criticisms. ⁓ Some said it was too impractical, ⁓ too intensive. And the fact that it's labour intensive. It's sort of, yeah, it does, it feels like it could easily just be a waste of time and just, if you just know something about the learner, you've got common sense and your teachers are responsive to learners' needs as exhibited in the classroom. That's more than enough teach language successfully and you don't need to spend hours collecting data and then... then deriving a syllabus from it. And I think an even stronger criticism ⁓ of the approach is... So this stage of getting all the tasks that learners need to do and then deriving and functions and then deriving language items and then teaching language items. But ⁓ think become divorced ⁓ from the And so for example, ⁓ with requests, ⁓ are many ways of making a request. learners really to know the sentence pattern, ⁓ would you mind plus ing? ⁓ Because actually there lots of ways of doing that. And if you're teaching that as a structure, kind of in, not in isolation, but it's divorced from the task and from the context, something is lost when you do that. Because the language items have no meaning outside of the context. think I follow. You're looking puzzled. Yeah, no, mean this was a hard section for me to swallow, if I'm being honest. Yeah, and then it wasn't super clear what he was saying about example Hassan ad-Din Right. So they a survey and it turned out that no one was reading anything in English. ⁓ So does this that they need English reading skills or not? think the university then a plan for getting students to read in English more with the hope that they then become professors and encourage their students to read more. He gives some, in this section he also gives an example of needs analysis. So, asking students where they use English, ⁓ how important are listening, speaking, reading and writing English for you, check the boxes below. Yeah, this is the type of thing which I think not very useful ⁓ give to on group courses. I worked a school that had a needs analysis very similar to this and ⁓ very gave any information because was always with the different areas, it was always mix. You'd never get a ⁓ that unanimously wanted one skill over other skills. then in the section about why are you learning English, it was always just something incredibly generic like for university. yeah, so it was not very useful. Okay, alright, getting to almost through the chapter now, so he has a ⁓ the fifth ⁓ he makes an argument for why tasks be the ⁓ unit of needs analysis. And so point that the learners or the stakeholders... So they don't have any expertise ⁓ language or language learning, they do know tasks that need to know. ⁓ And then teachers or applied linguists it's the opposite, so they've got lots of language awareness but they don't know ⁓ the tasks learners need to ⁓ do. So would seem to imply the information you collect should be about the tasks, ⁓ because that's information that you're lacking. which makes sense. I like this section as well because gives on page 109, he gives ⁓ definitions of tasks. So the word task ⁓ is in different ways by different people. There's quite range of ⁓ different definitions. He quotes people. Kandlin, for example, defines tasks this way. ⁓ One of set of different differentiated, sequencable, problem-posing activities involving learners and teachers in some joint selection from a range of varied cognitive and communicative procedures, apply to existing and new knowledge in the collective exploration and pursuance of foreseen or emergent goals within a social milieu. And there are a few convoluted definitions, ⁓ I love the contrast between those and Long's definition. So long definition, a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others freely or for some reward. And then the final sentence of this, tasks are things they will tell you they do if you ask them and they are not applied linguists. So yeah, it's just the things that you need to do in your day-to-day life. So weighing a patient, sorting letters, making a hotel reservation, writing a cheque. But I guess, so one question I would tasks are viewed in that way, and your view is, so you've got to help the learner do all those things. Some of them do a lot of language use, but some of them really don't. And ⁓ ⁓ wonder useful ⁓ that information And if you're in heavily practical component into the classroom and then ⁓ maybe students. there was an

example in ⁓ another paper I read for this, ⁓ it was and Arthur in our first episode, we read ⁓ a paper Dick Alwright. ⁓ There was example of a group of learners who had to I think design ⁓ design a ⁓ design a from some cardboard material, ⁓ something like ⁓ like could they write an instruction manual ⁓ for designing a plane ⁓ So of that task would involve language use, then lots of it, so actually assembling the plane, you might just be ⁓ and ⁓ some ⁓ And I just wonder if that's always a good use of classroom time. ⁓ I mean, that's a very good point that I don't. Because I think about some of the task-based lessons that I've done that have felt very limited in the amount of English that can come from them. Even if it is very beneficial, right. also brings up the distinction between focused and unfocused tasks. ⁓ So a focused task is one is designed to get students ⁓ use a particular ⁓ item and you can set up task and then... monitor for use of the language. So for example, if students have choose best room to you might think, well, so that itself to using comparatives. And so you do the task and then monitor for use of comparatives, and teach comparatives. So everything is building up to you presenting a language ⁓ Whereas an unfocused task. You just ⁓ learners doing it and then just see what's difficult and then help them with whatever's So, ⁓ yeah, you have thoughts on that ⁓ section? He in one of the definitions how the task have a, this is from Noonan, but the task should have a sense of completeness. being able to stand on its That just stood out to me as like where I've seen tasks work and not work as well. I think that sense of completeness feels... but very beneficial into having students take away a sense learning something from the task. that mean that there should be a clear outcome? A clear end? I don't feel like it has to be outcome, ⁓ but a, ⁓ a takeaway, an understanding of where this sits in their world and not, know, here are your lines, here are my lines, okay, okay, now we've been actors for a moment or we've made an airplane and that's great. There should be a clear beginning, middle and end. Yes, I think I know what you mean. think it's difficult because lots of tasks in real life are not really like that. There are just very brief interactions that people have and I think it's not always easy to design classroom activities around those. ⁓ Okay and to the last section. So last ⁓ is about analysis so this is all about the limitations that are faced when think deciding what to do a news analysis ⁓ and One of the, I think, one of the kind of recurring of Long's is bringing learners stakeholders on site learners come from ⁓ of traditional ⁓ classroom instruction. And task-based language teaching is very different from that, and so they need to be persuaded the approach for it to be successful. And I think main benefits of doing a needs analysis, that you know where learners are coming from. you know about their previous experiences of language learning and you know about their attitudes because even if you cannot fully persuade them of task-based language teaching, least knowing where they're coming from and finding compromise and so yeah, giving them a bit of structured grammar instruction but then also ⁓ them doing more ⁓ Yeah, I think it's much likely to be successful if you know where learners are coming from. Okay, can, shall I make some concluding remarks? Yes. Okay. think that Long ⁓ persuasively for using task as the unit analysis, even if there are difficulties with that. ⁓ has persuasively argued against most objections to very idea of a needs analysis. so for me, he has not successfully argued that we must be doing a needs analysis with every student. especially when it comes to group courses and especially for groups of students who do not have. specialised needs and he says that most students have specialised needs and I would honestly question that and it could just be because of our context. So in our context most students are just people who are here for a while, they need something to do for a month, they like to travel, they want to develop personally. So it could well be true that that is not the language learner and the average language learner is someone who is ⁓ thrust a situation in another that they ⁓ don't particularly to be in and they need language just for practical reasons or just for an exam. Yeah, I'm left with question of how ⁓ ideas apply to my context. But I am, ⁓ there eight more left. I'm leaving it as an open question. ⁓ think ⁓ is actually also, ⁓ this conversation, I'm ⁓ the place, in the same place because I, having read was more convinced, but ⁓ I think that ⁓ coming from an idealized imagination of ⁓ a can be or be. And had this conversation, ⁓ I agree that I don't know that ⁓ it always guarantee a better experience for students, it could just data. think that wouldn't be as helpful. ⁓ Yeah, think, yes, I think if you're going to do a needs analysis, you have to also know exactly what you will do with the information. Which I think, I think will be the topic of chapter six, which is about identifying target tasks. I think we will end ⁓ discussion. we see what he has to say about ⁓ identifying target ⁓ Brandon, thank so much for another discussion. ⁓ thank you listening. ⁓ And see you time. ⁓