Product Description: This volume brings together contemporary position statements and research reviews which were originally presented as Plenary Addresses to the Biennial International Conference on Task-Based Language Teaching, between 2005 and 2013...read more

The book seeks to enlarge the theoretical scope, research agenda, and practices associated with TBLT in a two-way dynamic, by exploring how insights from writing might reconfigure our understanding of tasks and, in turn, how work associated with TBLT might benefit the learning and teaching of writing. In order to enrich the domain of task and to advance the educational interests of TBLT, it adopts both a psycholinguistic and a textual meaning-making orientation. Following an issues-oriented introductory chapter, Part I of the volume explores tenets, methods, and findings in task-oriented theory and research in the context of writing; the chapters in Part II present empirical findings on task-based writing by investigating how writing tasks are implemented, how writers differentially respond to tasks, and how tasks can contribute to language development. A coda chapter summarizes the volume’s contribution and suggests directions for advancing TBLT constructs and research agendas.

Understanding how second language task-based performance can be raised is vital for progress with task-based approaches to instruction. The chapters in this volume all attempt to advance this understanding, and do so within a viewpoint which assumes limited attentional capacities and accounts for second language speaking based on Levelt's model of first language speaking. Six empirical chapters present original studies. They explore the topics of task planning, familiarity of information in a task, task repetition, task characteristics, and the effects of using post-task transcription. The studies interweave with and build upon each other, reflecting their conjoint focus on how second language learning memory and attention limitations shape their performance in using the target language. In the concluding chapter the accumulated findings across these studies are discussed in terms of the nature of preparation for a task, the role of task structure, the respective claims of the Tradeoff and Cognition Hypotheses, the role of selective attention, and the implications of the studies for pedagogy. The book is a central reference for students in psycholinguistics, second language acquisition, and task-based language teaching.

Product Description: This volume extends the Task-Based Language Teaching: Issues, Research and Practice books series by deliberately exploring the potential of task-based language teaching (TBLT) in a range of EFL contexts. It is specifically devoted to providing empirical accounts about how TBLT practice is being developed and researched in diverse educational contexts, particularly where English is not the dominant language...read more

Product Description: This book brings together research that makes use of tasks to examine oral interaction, written production, vocabulary and reading, lexical innovation and pragmatics in different formal language learning contexts and in different languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish)...read more

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been attracting the attention of researchers, curriculum developers, teacher trainers and language teachers for many years. However, much of the available literature and research has been from a psycholinguistic perspective, driven by the desire to understand how people acquire a second language. Far less research has been carried out as to whether TBLT works for real teachers and real learners in a classroom environment. This book aims to offer a unique contribution by uniting a discussion of task-based pedagogical principles with descriptions of their application to real life language education problems. It provides an account of the many challenges and obstacles that the implementation of TBLT raises and discusses the different options for overcoming them. The book contains a substantial body of research from Flanders, where the implementation of TBLT has been a nationwide project for fifteen years in primary, secondary and adult education.

Product Description: The field of task-based language teaching has developed considerably since the publication of Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom (Nunan, 1989), a book which helped to set the research agenda in teaching methodology for the following decade...read more

(view table of contents)

Task Analysis Methods for Instructional Design is a handbook of task analysis and knowledge elicitation methods that can be used for designing direct instruction, performance support, and learner-centered learning environments. To design any kind of instruction, it is necessary to articulate a model of how learners should think and perform. This book provides descriptions and examples of five different kinds of task analysis methods: *job/behavioral analysis; *learning analysis; *cognitive task analysis; *activity-based analysis methods; and *subject matter analysis. Chapters follow a standard format making them useful for reference, instruction, or performance support. (view table of contents)

Product Description: These books are concerned with the task as it has developed in the context of language learning. The first deals with how different tasks influence the kind of language which learners produce and ultimately how language output relates to acquisition...read more

Product Description: These books are concerned with the task as it has developed in the context of language learning. The first deals with how different tasks influence the kind of language which learners produce and ultimately how language output relates to acquisition...read more

(view table of contents)