Task-based learning in teaching is where an activity has been designed to help achieve a particular learning goal. This volume brings together a series of studies by different researchers on the impact of tasks in second language teaching, testing and development. It reviews a number of issues which include recent research into task-based learning: the effect of tasks on speaking, listening and oral interaction, the role of the teacher in exploiting tasks and the nature of the task based curriculum.
Researching Pedagogic Tasks brings together a series of empirical studies into the use of pedagogical tasks for second language learning, with a view to better understanding the structure of tasks, their impact on students, and their use by teachers. The volume starts with an introduction to the background and key issues in the topic area and is then organised into three sections:
- the first section focuses on the language and learning of students on tasks
- the second on the use of tasks in the language classroom
- the third on the use of tasks for language testing
Each section begins with a succinct section introduction, and the volume concludes with an afterword relating the theme of the volume to issues in curriculum development. The chapters include both experimental and qualitative approaches to the topic, some providing original accounts of specific studies, others offering overviews of linked series of studies.
Reviews
'This volume presents a plethora of detail on conducting studies and investigating pedagogic tasks. It raises though-provoking and insightful issues and research questions in task-based teaching and testing.' Hameed Esmaeili, Modern Language Centre, OISE/UT
List of contributors ix Publishers Acknowledgements x Introduction 1(20) Martin Bygate Peter Skehan Merrill Swain PART I: Tasks and Language Processing 21(74) Effects of task repetition on the structure and control of oral language 23(26) Martin Bygate Non-reciprocal tasks, comprehension and second language acquisition 49(26) Rod Ellis Rules and routines: A consideration of their role in the task-based language production of native and non-native speakers 75(20) Pauline Foster PART II: Studies of Tasks in Language Classrooms 95(68) Focus on form through collaborative dialogue: Exploring task effects 99(20) Merrill Swain Sharon Lapkin Guiding relationships between form and meaning during task performance: The role of the teacher 119(22) Virginia Samuda `A case of exercising: Effects of immediate task repetition on learners performance 141(22) Tony Lynch Joan Maclean PART III: Task-based Approaches to Testing 163(66) Tasks and language performance assessment 167(19) Peter Skehan Influences on performance in task-based oral assessments 186(24) Gillian Wigglesworth Task-based assessments: Characteristics and validity evidence 210(19) Micheline Chalhoub-Deville Afterword: Taking the Curriculum to Task 229(15) Christopher N. Candlin Index 244
Martin Bygate is a Senior Lecturer in TESOL at the School of Education, University of Leeds. He has written extensively in the past, including the volumes Speaking (1987) and Grammar and the Language Classroom (1994). Peter Skehan is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the School of Education, King's College, London. His previous publications are in the areas of individual differences in second language learning, second language acquisition, and language testing. Merrill Swain is a Professor in the Second Language Education Program of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. She is a Past President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, and is currently a Vice-President of the International Association of Applied Linguistics.
