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Learning Language through Task Repetition
Edited by Martin Bygate
[Task-Based Language Teaching 11] 2018
► pp. 255–278

Chapter 10
Mediating input-based tasks for beginner learners through task repetition

A sociocultural perspective

| Kobe Gakuin University

This chapter examines task repetition from a sociocultural perspective. I will report a study examining how the dynamics of teacher-student interaction change when the same task is repeated over time. I draw on sociocultural theory by viewing task repetition as one way of dynamically mediating learners’ participation in an input-based task. The task was a listen-and-do task consisting of a simple procedure – the teacher’s commands followed by students’ action – with no requirement that the learners speak in the L2 (English). The same task was repeated nine times over five weeks. The participants were a group of six children, aged six, who had no L2 knowledge or experience of formal language learning. The lessons were audio- and video-recorded. The transcribed interactions and the video-data were analysed in detail to explore how the teacher’s scaffolding changed over time and how the students shifted from other-regulation to self-regulation. The analysis showed that the teacher employed two different approaches: mediating the task commands in the early lessons to assist the students’ comprehension and then pushing learners towards self-regulation in later lessons by reducing the level of support. The teacher’s actions led to co-construction and enabled the students to move from other-regulation to self-regulation in both comprehending key items in the input and voluntarily producing them. Overall, the study shows how the nature of ‘activity’ changed as the task-as-workplan was repeated over time.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Language development in sociocultural theory
    • Regulation and internalization
    • Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
    • Activity theory
    • The study
    • Participants
    • Teaching materials and procedures
    • Data analysis
    • Findings
    • Mediating the learners’ completion of the task
      • Teacher’s action 1: Comprehension strategies
      • Teacher’s action 2: Elaborating a key word
      • Teacher’s action 3: L1 use
    • Pushing learners to self-regulate
      • Encouraging students to request clarifications using adjectives
      • Teacher’s action 2: Pushing students to comprehend the plural morpheme
      • Teacher’s action 3: Encouraging the students to use the L2
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 25 September 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tblt.11.10shi
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Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Moore, Paul J.
2022. Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) in Japanese EFL Contexts. In International Handbook on Education Development in Asia-Pacific, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Moore, Paul J.
2023. Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) in Japanese EFL Contexts. In International Handbook on Education Development in the Asia-Pacific, ► pp. 661 ff. DOI logo

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