Insights into Task-Based Language Teaching

Insights into Task-Based Language Teaching

The last few decades have seen an exponential growth in the use of task- based language teaching (TBLT) around the world. Departing from the traditional approaches to language teaching, TBLT offers the opportunity for natural language learning in instructional contexts through the use of authentic and meaning-oriented tasks. This book aims to offer a unique contribution to the expanding literature on TBLT by reflecting current progress in the domain as well as underlining future directions in research and theory. Essential reading for learners, teachers and researchers, the book provides comprehensive coverage on the key elements of TBLT. A fairly wide range of topics such as the rationale for using TBLT, task design, task implementation, and task evaluation is covered in this book. Thus, it is designed to enhance pre-service and practicing teachers' knowledge about TBLT and outline some new directions in which the field should move if it is to fulfill its purposes.

Sima Khezrlou received her PhD in TESOL from Urmia University, Iran. Her research interests include SLA, TBLT, form-focused instruction, and CALL. In addition to a number of publications in these fields, her recent studies include a co-authored article in System (2017, with Rod Ellis and Karim Sadeghi) and studies that appear in RELC, ELT Journal, Journal of Second Language Studies, Language Awareness, The Language Learning Journal, IRAL, and Computer Assisted Language Learning.

Language Teaching Insights Series

Series Editors: David Nunan & Glenn Stockwell

Burston & Arispe: Mobile-Assisted Language Learning and Advanced-level Second Language Acquisition

Eginli: Insights into Emotional Well-Being of Language Teachers

Farrell:Insights into Professional Development in Language Teaching

Horwitz:Becoming a Language Teacher (2nd ed.)

Khezrlou: Insights into Task-Based Language Teaching

Lai: Insights into Autonomy and Technology in Language Teaching

Leis: Insights into Flipped Classrooms

Mohebbi (Ed.): Insights into Teaching and Learning Writing

Tanaka-Ellis: Insights into Teaching and Learning with Technology

More information about titles in this series can be found at

https://www.castledown.com/academic-books/book-series/language-teaching-insights/

Copyright © 2022 Sima Khezrlou

4th Floor, Silverstream House, 45 Fitzroy Street Fitzrovia, London W1T 6EB United Kingdom

Ground Level, 470 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3004, Australia

2nd Floor Daiya Building, 2-2-15 Hamamatsu-cho, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0013, Japan

447 Broadway, 2nd Floor #393, New York NY, 10013 United States​

First published 2022 by Castledown Publishers, London

Information on this title: www.castledown.com/academic-books/view-title/?reference=9781914291074

DOI: 10.29140/9781914291074

Insights into Task-Based Language Teaching

© Sima Khezrlou, 2022

All rights reserved. This publication is copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licencing agreements, no reproduction, transmission, or storage of any part of this publication by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise may take place without prior written permission from the author.

Typeset by Castledown Design, Melbourne

ISBN: 978-1-914291-07-4 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-914291-08-1 (Digital)

ISBN: 978-1-914291-14-2 (epub)

Contents

Insights into Task-Based Language Teaching

Language Teaching Insights Series

Copyright

List of Tables

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

PART I

1. Introduction to Task-Based Language Teaching

PART II

2. Types of Tasks in a Task-Based Course

3. Task Selection

4. Task Complexity and Task Sequencing

PART III

5. Explicit Instruction in TBLT

6. Task Repetition

7.  Planning

8. Building on Task Performance

PART IV

9. Task-based Language Assessment

PART V

10. Conclusion

References

Index

List of Tables

Table 2.1. Definitions of task as language learning goals

Table 2.2. Definitions of task as an educational activity

Table 4.1. Ellis’s criteria for sequencing tasks

(Ellis, 2003, pp. 217-228)

Table 5.1. The place of explicit instruction in the TBLT framework

List of Figures

Figure 4.1.   Prabhu’s task complexity criteria (1987, p. 47)

Figure 4.2. Resource-directing versus resource-dispersing dimensions of cognitive task complexity (Robinson, 2000)

Acknowledgements

I would like to give a heartfelt thank you to the series editors, David Nunan and Glenn Stockwell, for inviting me to write this book and for their generous encouragement and enthusiasm for this project from its earliest days through its completion. Their expertise and insightful advice were invaluable in developing my thinking and bringing the book together. Thanks also to the editorial team at Castledown Publishers for their amazing support.

As an English language teacher and researcher, the impact of past and present students and colleagues as well as my professors on my thinking and practice has been immense. Among the many people whose ideas I have drawn upon in this book and in my career more generally, Rod Ellis has particularly inspired and shaped my ideas about TBLT. I am forever grateful to you, Rod Ellis, for your inspirational vision.

I dedicate this book to myself and every little dreamer in the whole world who has a dream so big and so exciting. Believe in your dreams and do whatever it takes to achieve them—the best is yet to come for you!

Sima Khezrlou

PART I

BACKGROUND

1. Introduction to Task-Based Language Teaching

Introduction

This introductory chapter lays out the definition, context, and rationale for TBLT. Against this backdrop, I provide a preview of the structure and contents of the book. All chapters of this book cover both pedagogic and research perspectives that inform the design, implementation, and assessment of task-based courses.

The rationale for TBLT

TBLT is an educational framework for the theory and practice of teaching second and foreign languages, which places meaning-based, communicative tasks at the center of language procedures in the classroom (Van den Branden et al., 2009). Distinct from the traditional approaches to language teaching, TBLT regards language as a tool for meaning-making rather than as an object to study (Ellis, 2003). This book offers a lively overview of the current developments in the field of TBLT, and provides researchers, learners and language practitioners with both the theoretical insights and practical means required to understand and research key elements of TBLT.  A fairly wide range of topics such as task design, task implementation, and task-based assessment is covered in this book.

Task-based language teaching is a broadly defined approach to language teaching research and practice that is based on the use of task as its core unit. The term task has emerged from a body of research that views communicative interaction as substantial to language learning. TBLT has been grounded within experiential learning by doing educational philosophy espoused by Dewey and others (Long, 2015; Samuda & Bygate, 2008). The rationale for TBLT as a teaching approach is rooted in theories of language acquisition that stress the effect of meaningful language use together with opportunities to notice the target language on language learning (e.g., Long, 1996; Skehan, 1998). Based on such theories, opportunities for communicative language use and noticing form-meaning mappings provide the conditions under which communicative competence in a second language (L2) can most effectively be developed (Willis & Willis, 2007). Translated into classroom practice, TBLT is materialized as weak and strong versions. The weak version, or what Ellis (2003) refers to as task-supported language teaching, uses tasks in addition to another unit, such as linguistic forms, functions, skills, lexis, or concepts. The strong version, regarded by Ellis as task-based language teaching, on the other hand, uses task as the only unit of analysis for syllabus design. The tendency for teachers to adapt TBLT into their instructional contexts in the form of task-supported language teaching is a topic addressed in a number of sections in this book.

Over the past three decades, TBLT has attracted the interest of second language acquisition (SLA) researchers, curriculum devel- opers, teacher trainers, teachers, and practitioners. This is evidenced by abundant journal articles including special issues in prominent journals, symposiums, seminars, colloquiums, academic sessions, and conference presentations. Indeed, the International Consortium on Task-based Language Teaching (ICTBLT) was formed in 2005 which holds a biennial international conference on the topic, now transformed into a professional association, named International Association for Task-Based Language Teaching (IATBLT). More recently, a new journal has been specifically dedicated to the topic, TASK: Journal on Task-Based Language Teaching and Learning, the first volume of which appeared in 2021. There is also a dedicated book series on topics in TBLT published by John Benjamins. The persistently rising popularity of TBLT as an approach to language teaching may be ascribed to its emphasis on meaning-making and engagement with real-world language needs. TBLT is based on the use of tasks, typically selected by the authentic needs of the learners, and the resulting linguistic forms, as the basis of language curricula, syllabi, instruction, and assessment (Long, 2015). The approach is notably different from the traditional language teaching, which is centered on discrete grammatical forms, vocabulary, or structures, and generally instructed in the order prescribed by a textbook. In recent years, educators and governments around the world have moved progressively towards different versions of TBLT as a potential solution for curricula that do not bring about authentic and meaningful engagement with L2 learning and fail to effectively motivate learners as a result. Thus, no wonder many teachers around the world are switching their pedagogy toward TBLT in accordance with the strong belief that TBLT enhances SLA and makes L2 learning and teaching more fruitful and more rewarding. In fact, it is now well-established that TBLT represents an innovative approach to L2 learning and teaching at both theoretical and methodological levels. Theoretically, TBLT perceives SLA as a process not directly impacted by formal instruction, but which is cultivated through the meaningful use of language. And methodologically, TBLT views learners as language users rather than learners, with the explicit examination of linguistic features and structures arising from difficulties experienced during the performance of tasks (Bygate, 2016; Long, 2015).

Prior research in TBLT has been mainly rooted in cognitive-interactionist and pedagogical traditions that are interested in exploring how tasks relate to cognitive variables, how they lead to varied language production, and how they are designed and implemented in authentic classroom contexts. These paradigms constitute the most fruitful, yet most disputed, areas of research in TBLT and, as a result, deserve more attention in order to move the field forward. A number of areas where our knowledge about TBLT is still limited include: (a) how and which task features give rise to more effective interaction and L2 acquisition particularly in the long run, (b) how the task design features and task implementation conditions can be effectively manipulated to suit learners with different levels of linguistic capabilities, (c) how the TBLT curricula can be implemented or adapted in different instructional contexts, and (d) how task-based language assessment (TBLA) can be effectively designed, organized, and implemented to help enhance student learning and motivation. In keeping with these central themes, the subsequent chapters’ focus will provide accounts of a range of approaches to task design, task implementation, and task-based language assessment that are of relevance to practitioners and researchers alike.

Overview of the book

This book is broken into five parts: background, design, implementation, and assessment. This introductory chapter served to present background information on TBLT. The second part of the book describes the various design elements in TBLT. Chapter 2 reviews different approaches to the definition of task. In the past two decades, tasks have been defined in a variety of ways. Nevertheless, although characteristics of language tasks have been summarized in different ways in the TBLT literature, there is a lot of common ground shared in these definitions which are all illuminated in this chapter. Chapter 2 further describes different task types including target tasks and pedagogical tasks, input-based and output-based tasks, focused and unfocused tasks, open and closed tasks, one-way and two-way tasks, convergent and divergent tasks, and monologic and dialogic tasks. Chapter 3 overviews the pedagogical components—how the tasks are selected and situated in task-based lessons based on different frameworks. The approach presented by Long (1985, 2015), building on a needs analysis, underscores the importance of learners’ ability to enact tasks that are likely to be faced by learners in the real-world. And, whereas Robinson’s (2011a) approach to task-based syllabus design requires the specification of the cognitive and affective demands of tasks, Ellis (2018) adopts a similar approach as Prabhu (1987) in underlining the role of teachers in selecting tasks based on their knowledge of their learners. The last chapter in Part II is related to task complexity and task sequencing. Chapter 4 reviews the early TBLT proposals that specify several factors that impact the complexity of a task as well as the theories of task complexity and the research they have produced on the issue of grading tasks. This chapter offers recommendations for teachers to have an idea about the complexity of a specific task and to determine its suitability for their groups of learners based on a list of variables that can help them sharpen their intuitions.

Part III of the book turns towards the task implementation variables which are argued to be more likely to exert a much greater effect on task performance than design variables and be of greater importance for achieving a balanced and effective L2 learning (Skehan, 2016). Part III includes critical discussion and reviews empirical studies that discuss foundational constructs related to task-based performance and pedagogy such as the role of explicit instruction in TBLT, task repetition, task planning, and post-task focus on form strategies. Chapter 5 opens this Part by describing the role of explicit instruction in TBLT—how form-focused instruction is situated at different parts of the TBLT cycle: pre-task, during-task, and post-task. This chapter also presents Ellis’s (2018) proposal for a modular curriculum that combines TBLT and traditional approaches in case the implementation of TBLT becomes difficult in some educational contexts. Chapter 6 is a review of task repetition, a prominent task implementation option in the TBLT literature. This chapter addresses the theoretical basis for repetition research, namely Skehan’s limited attention capacity model or trade-off hypothesis, and Levelt’s speech production model. The chapter further attends to key methodological issues in task repetition research such as type of repetition, number of repetitions, and interval of repetition. Other topics that have been more recently attended to in the task repetition literature and are covered in Chapter 6 include the comparative effectiveness of repeated performances in L2 speaking versus writing tasks as well as the role of form-focused intervention between repeated task performances to reinforce the focus on form potential of task repetition. In Chapter 7, the nature of task planning, types of planning, and the importance of planning processes are discussed as a precursor to a review of studies in each section. Within the task planning literature there is a dearth of research on what actually happens when learners plan for the task. Thus, to understand better why and how task planning can enhance output, it is necessary to look into how learners behave during their planning time, and what strategies they employ to help them address the task demands in language that is accurate, fluent and suitably complex. These issues are also dealt with in Chapter 7.  This chapter concludes by emphasizing the role that training learners to use effective pre-task planning strategies plays in transferring the planned speech/writing to the actual task performance. Part III ends with Chapter 8 which presents an overview of the utilization of post-task activities with a focus on form function. Numerous activities such as transcription, task modeling, reflection, and corrective feedback which are argued to promote attention and consolidation of linguistic structures are included in this chapter.

Task-based language assessment (TBLA) is the focus of Part IV. TBLA is an approach to language assessment that focuses on what learners can do with language in contrast to what they know about language (Van Gorp & Deygers, 2013). It, thus, stands in contrast with what is described as a test or instrument administered as an evaluator rather than an enabler of student learning. Through focusing on how TBLA can be effectively implemented by clarifying its purpose, characteristics, and components as well as the measurement of assessment outcomes, this chapter aims at providing teachers with guidance to implement TBLA as a practice to transform their traditional approach into effective language pedagogy. However, in spite of the pedagogic benefits associated with the task-based approach to assessment, it remains a domain that faces several challenges in its implementation. The remainder of Chapter 9 discusses how adopting formative assessment in TBLT and the provision of necessary training for teachers can crucially affect the practice of TBLA in the classroom. Lastly, Part V encompasses the concluding chapter (Chapter 10) which summarizes the main insights obtained in the book and articulates new directions for further discussion and exploration.

Closing commentary

As noted at the outset, the current book pursued the aim of providing theoretical and methodological accounts for the place of TBLT in language education and presenting cutting-edge empirical research that can help advance research agendas. Hence, the book is intended as a contribution to theory and research on TBLT and L2 pedagogy and one of its