Using Tasks In Second Language Teaching

This book examines the use of tasks in second language instruction in a variety of international contexts, and addresses the need for a better understanding of how tasks are used in teaching and program-level decision-making. The chapters consider the key issues, examples, benefits and challenges that teachers, program designers and researchers face in using tasks in a diverse range of contexts around the world, and aim to understand practitioners’ concerns with the relationship between tasks and performance. They provide examples of how tasks are used with learners of different ages and different proficiency levels, in both face-to-face and online contexts. In documenting these uses of tasks, the authors of the various chapters illuminate cultural, educational and institutional factors that can make the effective use of tasks more or less difficult in their particular context.

Tasks in Second Language Learning aims to re-centre discussion of the ways in which language learning tasks can help offer a holistic approach to language learning, and to explore the research implications. It relates the broad educational and social science rationale for the use of tasks to the principles and practices of their classroom use. The authors provide a balanced review of research as a basis for exploring a broader research agenda. Throughout, the book offers telling illustration of the contributions of a range of specialists in research, teaching methodology and materials development, and of the authors' own argument.

This book offers an in-depth explanation of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and the methods necessary to implement it in the language classroom successfully. Combines a survey of theory and research in instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) with insights from language teaching and the philosophy of education Details best practice for TBLT programs, including discussion of learner needs and means analysis; syllabus design; materials writing; choice of methodological principles and pedagogic procedures; criterion-referenced, task-based performance assessment; and program evaluation Written by an esteemed scholar of second language acquisition with over 30 years of research and classroom experience Considers diffusion of innovation in education and the potential impact of TBLT on foreign and second language learning

This book examines the use of tasks in second language instruction in a variety of international contexts, and addresses the need for a better understanding of how tasks are used in teaching and program-level decision-making. The chapters consider the key issues, examples, benefits and challenges that teachers, program designers and researchers face in using tasks in a diverse range of contexts around the world, and aim to understand practitioners’ concerns with the relationship between tasks and performance. They provide examples of how tasks are used with learners of different ages and different proficiency levels, in both face-to-face and online contexts. In documenting these uses of tasks, the authors of the various chapters illuminate cultural, educational and institutional factors that can make the effective use of tasks more or less difficult in their particular context.

A comprehensive account of the research and practice of task-based language teaching.

Deeper learning, dialogic learning, and critical thinking are essential capabilities in the 21st-century environments we now operate. Apart from being important in themselves, they are also crucial in enabling the acquisition of many other 21st-century skills/capabilities such as problem solving, collaborative learning, innovation, information and media literacy, and so on. However, the majority of teachers in schools and instructors in higher education are inadequately prepared for the task of promoting deeper learning, dialogic learning, and critical thinking in their students. This is despite the fact that there are educational researchers who are developing and evaluating strategies for such promotion. The problem is bridging the gap between the educational researchers’ work and what gets conveyed to teachers and instructors as evidence-based, usable strategies. This book addresses that gap: in it, leading scholars from around the world describe strategies they have developed for successfully cultivating students’ capabilities for deeper learning and transfer of what they learn, dialogic learning and effective communication, and critical thought. They explore connections in the promotion of these capabilities, and they provide, in accessible form, research evidence demonstrating the efficacy of the strategies. They also discuss answers to the questions of how and why the strategies work. A seminal resource, this book creates tangible links between innovative educational research and classroom teaching practices to address the all-important question of how we can realize our ideals for education in the 21st century. It is a must read for pre-service and in-service teachers, teacher educators and professional developers, and educational researchers who truly care that we deliver education that will prepare and serve students for life.

In addition to the approaches and methods covered in the first edition, this edition includes new chapters, such as whole language, multiple intelligences, neurolinguistic programming, competency-based language teaching, co-operative language learning, content-based instruction, task-based language teaching, and The Post-Methods Era.

This book documents how teachers, working in school foreign language learning contexts and teaching beginner learners of languages other than English, learn about and use tasks. It first presents a pedagogically researched account of how teachers learn about, design and evaluate tasks, after being introduced to TBLT during an in-service programme. The authors then go into classrooms to explore ways in which teachers continue to use tasks, as part of their regular ongoing classroom language programmes, following their in-service education. The book documents how the teachers use tasks to open up opportunities for language learning for students and investigates how teachers understand and position tasks and TBLT as relevant and of value to their teaching contexts. The challenges that teachers face in incorporating TBLT into their practice are also explored. The book suggests how the use of the task as a pedagogic tool may contribute to ongoing understanding about TBLT.