Repetition is boring.
No?
Here’s a quick experiment: say repetition. Now say over and over, time and time again, day after day, again and again, on and on, round and round. Aren’t you bored yet?
Repetition doesn’t sell.
While it’s essential for language learning (no repetition, no progress), the word itself is often carefully avoided when promoting teaching methods or learning platforms. Why?
Because even the most engaging activity can become dull when it’s repeated over and over, time and time again, day after day, well, you know the drill.
So it’s no wonder that repetition is often seen as synonymous with plain boredom. And while the latter can sometimes spark a bit of creativity, that creativity usually has little to do with learning. More often, it just leads students to lose focus, or to focus on anything but the learning (see more here: How to Be a Boring Teacher).
Yet the challenge isn’t repetition itself – it’s how we design it. To keep learners engaged and avoid that feeling of ‘here we go again’, each round of a task has to feel a little different. And that’s totally doable just by tweaking a few key elements each time.
Take a classic task like ‘describe an image to your partner’. You can switch things up by having students work with a different partner, setting a time limit, changing the image, or even moving from a spoken version to a written one. Small tweaks, big impact.
To help with brainstorming the ideas for variations, I’ve built my Task Tweaker.
I’ve used an experimental model for the app with the combination of parameters that I think give the best results in terms of language learning. It’s not as fast as ChatGPT, but I like the output it generates for this purpose.
It’s simple to use:
Describe your task or task instructions (e.g., ‘Describe a picture to your partner’). The more specific details you provide, the better and more accurate the generated variations will be.
Add your learning objective (e.g., Prepositions of place+fluency).
Include your students’ age (e.g., Teens), level (e.g., Intermediate), and, optionally, interests (e.g., Travelling and adventures), or specific constraints (e.g., Hybrid or online class, low-resource setting, limited time, or particular focus, e.g., speaking).
Click Generate.
You’ll get six variations. Each variation highlights the parameters that have changed, helping you further fine-tune your task.
I’ve included the options of copying or saving each variation.
The tool can also be a great teaching aid for teacher educators, supporting discussions and planning with trainee teachers.
No, it won’t do anything a skilled teacher couldn’t do. But sometimes, a little external inspiration is all we need.
Repetition doesn’t have to be boring, does it?
Let’s repeat our experiment. Say repetition. Now say iteration. Say fresh. Say meaningful.
You can try Task Tweaker on my blog here https://eltcation.com/task-tweaker/.
I’d be happy to hear your thoughts!
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