Task-Based Language Education
From Theory to Practice

This book bridges the gap between the theory and practice of task-based language teaching through accounts of classroom-based research.

Kris van den Branden (Edited by)

9780521689526, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 5 October 2006

296 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.476 kg

"The book offers an excellent discussion of task-based language teaching and the ways in which it can be used in language classrooms...The chapters are well-organized and are well-written in clear and accessible language...I found this book highly informative."
Hossein Nassaji, The Modern Language Journal

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.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Task-based language teaching in a nutshell, Chapter 2 From needs to tasks: Language learning needs in a task-based approach, Chapter 3 Tasks for absolute beginners ... and beyond: Developing and sequencing tasks at basic proficiency levels, Chapter 4 Developing language tasks for primary and secondary education, Chapter 5 Task-based language teaching in science education and vocational training, 6 TBLT and ICT: Developing and assessing interactive multimedia for task-based language teaching, Chapter 7 Developing and introducing task-based language tests, Chapter 8 The role of the teacher in TBLT, Chapter 9 A box full of feelings: Promoting infants' second language acquisition all day long, Chapter 10 Teacher training: Task-based as well?

Subject Areas: Applied linguistics for ELT [EBAL]