Introduction

Tasks can involve varying degrees of reciprocity. Reciprocal tasks are tasks that require a two-way flow of information between a speaker and a listener; they are speaking tasks. Non-reciprocal tasks require only a one-way flow of information from a speaker to a listener. This distinction, however, is best viewed as reflecting a continuum rather than a dichotomy as the extent to which the participants in a task are required to interact can vary. At one end of the continuum are tasks that are entirely non-reciprocal in that they do not permit learners any opportunity to interject whatsoever even if they do not understand (e.g. a non-interactive lecture), whereas at the other end are reciprocal tasks that can only be successfully accomplished if the participants interact to ensure mutual understanding (e.g. an information-gap task where the information has been split among the learners). In between, there are tasks that provide the learners with some negotiation rights but these are restricted (e.g. an interactive lecture where students have the opportunity to interrupt the lecturer occasionally). This chapter is concerned with tasks that are either entirely non-reciprocal or that allow relatively limited opportunities for two-way interaction. Where the learner is the addressee, such tasks are, in fact, listening tasks. Where the learner is responsible for communicating the information, they are speaking tasks.

There are two good reasons for examining non-reciprocal tasks. The first is that, in general, they have been somewhat neglected in the pedagogic literature on tasks. For example, the tasks described in Klippel (1984) or in Nunan (1989) are all reciprocal tasks. So too are the tasks typically referred to in the task-based research literature (e.g. Crookes & Gass, 1993; Skehan, 1998b). It would appear, therefore, that both teachers and researchers assume that a 'task' must involve speaking. Such an assumption, however, is not warranted by common definitions of a ‘task’ such as Ellis and Shintani’s (2014) definition presented in Chapter 1. Such a definition is as applicable to listening tasks as it is to speaking tasks.