Using Tasks in Second Language Teaching

Practice in Diverse Contexts

Craig Lambert, Rhonda Oliver, Dr. Rhonda Oliver

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781788929431
• eBook ISBN: 9781788929462
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Education General
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

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.

Table of contents

• Frontcover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction: Tasks in Context
• Part 1: Issues in Using Tasks
• 2 Frameworks for Using Tasks in Second Language Instruction
• 3 Low-Proficiency Learners and Task-Based Language Teaching
• 4 Some Principles for Interactive Task Design: Observations from an EFL Materials Writer
• 5 Using Technology-Mediated Tasks in Second Language Instruction to Connect Speakers Internationally
• 6 Using Tasks within Neoliberal Educational Environments
• 7 Teacher-Preparation for Task-Based Language Teaching
• Part 2: Approaches to Using Tasks
• 8 A Task-Based Needs Analysis for US Foreign Service Officers: The Challenge of the Japanese Celebration Speech
• 9 Developing Authentic Tasks for the Workplace Using Needs Analysis: A Case Study of Australian Aboriginal Vocational Students
• 10 The Potential Use of Tasks in Post-Soviet Schools: Case Studies from Ukraine
• 11 Task Design and Implementation for Beginning-Level Elementary School Learners in South-Brazil: Challenges and Possibilities
• 12 Teachers’ Responses to an Online Course on Task-Based Language Teaching in Mexico
• Part 3: Research on Using Tasks
• 13 Metacognitive Instruction for Collaborative Interaction: The Process and Product of Self-Regulated Learning in the Chilean EFL Context
• 14 Collaborative L1 Planning and L2 Written Task Performance in an Iranian EFL Context
• 15 Collaborative Writing Tasks in an L3 Classroom: Translanguaging, the Quality of Task Outcomes and Learners’ Perceptions
• 16 The Role of Task-Based Interaction in Perceived Language Learning in a Japanese EFL Classroom
• 17 The Impact of Agency in Pair Formation on the Degree of Participation in Young Learners’ Collaborative Dialogue
• 18 The Accuracy of Teacher Predictions of Student Language Use in Tasks in a Japanese University
• 19 Conclusion: Future Directions for Research on Tasks in Second Language Instruction