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.In contrast, procedural knowledge con-sists of knowing how using cognitive strategies and procedures to solveproblems (1999: 338).For example, one can visit the ATA website on theInternet and use a search engine to select individual translators from thedatabase; yet without understanding the underlying principles of Booleanlogic, the search is likely to produce misleading results too many or too few hits. Along the same lines, knowing how to resize boxes and align text in a Task-based instruction 217localization application such as Catalyst represents memorized knowledge.Conceptually, however, it is much more important to understand the meta-phor underlying such actions, i.e., that a gray box on the screen represents anobject that can contain other objects, such as outlines, divider lines, checkboxes, text boxes, etc., each of which is itself an object.Once the concept hasbeen acquired, the student can encounter any such object in any softwareenvironment and, knowing that it can be manipulated in particular ways, needonly discover how these manipulations are implemented in this particularsoftware application.Over the last twenty years, we have seen the development of a number oflearner-centered pedagogical approaches based in Cognitive Theory thatmight help translator trainers avoid the temptation to dispense declarativeknowledge regarding the use of technology of the press this button ªrst variety within a traditional performance magistrale.Task-Based Instruction(TBI) is one such methodology.Developed for the teaching of foreign lan-guages, it is based not on Skinner s behavioral theory, but on the theory ofcognitive processing elaborated by Bloom.In his now famous taxonomy,Bloom delineated six dixerent cognitive processes and organized them hierar-chically from the least to the most complex: memorization, understanding,application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation.Arguing that behaviorist ap-proaches to language instruction based largely on repetition and drills engagedonly the lowest levels of cognitive processing, methodologists following Bloomdeveloped TBI in order to bring the real world into the classroom in such away that language form is learned though language use, not through explicitexplanations of grammatical forms and functions (Krahnke 1987: 57, 58).This shift in focus initiated a major re-thinking of traditional classroomactivities insofar as:From an interactionist perspective, most classroom activities or instruments fordata collection are not an e¹cient means to assist language learning in the classroomor to study the processes of L2 comprehension and interlanguage modiªcation, asthey do not guarantee the conditions for goal-oriented or negotiated interaction inwhich learners can take an active role.Instead, they require learners to comply withgoals they have had no part in setting.Their opportunities to work toward collectiveor individual goals are blocked, as teachers and researchers control both thequestions that are asked and the responses that are expected.Opportunities forlearners to negotiate meaning or exchange information are also limited sinceinformation ¶ows in only one direction from answer-supplying learner toquestion-asking teacher or researcher.(Pica, Kanagy, Falodun 1993: 10)Although Anita Csölle and Krisztina Károly are generally correct in saying the despite the recent welcome of the task-based approach to language instruc- 218 Geoxrey S.Koby and Brian James Baertion, the term task lacks a uniªed, generally accepted deªnition (1998: 1),there are several features of the instructional task that distinguish it from otherclassroom activities such as substitution drills or role-playing.An exectivelanguage learning task aims to motivate students to acquire language forms inorder to perform in a real world language event that engages higher-levelcognitive processing. Learner-centered tasks, explains Robert Davis, aredesigned to give participants a social or personal reason to speak, such thattheir production is potentially interesting to the participants, to use theterminology of Pattison (Davis 1997: 270).As James Lee puts it:While there is not yet complete agreement on how to construct task-based activi-ties, the consensus is that task-based activities engage the language learner inpurposeful language use for which the language is the means to an end.(1995: 445,italics added)Krahnke also insists that the goal of the language-learning task be non-instructional (57), that is, the goal should be related to the student s real-lifeneeds and activities.The student is therefore directly invested in the goal of thetask. In an academic setting, Krahnke explains, students might work on apaper or report that is actually needed for a content-area class.Beginningstudents might tackle the process of applying for a program or job, obtainingthe forms and information necessary to complete the process (58).Pica, Kanagy and Falodun summarize the fundamental shift in methodol-ogy represented by TBI, when they write that a task is not an action carriedout on task participants; rather, a task is an activity which participants, them-selves, must carry out (2).Other essential characteristics of a task as describedby Krahnke include: a process of informational manipulation and develop-ment; the acquisition of informational content that the language learner didnot have at the beginning of the task; the application of the higher-ordercognitive processes of evaluation, selection, combination, modiªcation orsupplementation.Lee makes a similar point that a task should involve theexpression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning (445).David Nunan,too, emphasized the higher-level cognitive processing involved in the comple-tion of an exectively designed task:[A task is] a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending,manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their atten-tion is principally focused on meaning rather than form.(1989: 10)In addition to producing greater communicative proªciency, the beneªts ofTask-Based Instruction may include: enhanced motivation, insofar as thetask relates to the real life of the students; enhanced self-conªdence in stu- Task-based instruction 219dents who are able to accomplish a real-world task; enhanced L2 proªciencyin adult learners; and enhanced cultural literacy (Leaver and Stryker1989: 272 3)
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