Winner - British Council Innovation in English Language Teaching Award 2006 This book was written for language teachers by language teachers, with a view to encouraging readers to use more tasks in their lessons, and to explore for themselves various aspects of task-based teaching and learning. It gives insights into ways in which tasks can be designed, adapted and implemented in a range of teaching contexts and illustrates ways in which tasks and task-based learning can be investigated as a research activity. Practising language teachers and student professionals on MA TESOL/Applied Linguistics courses will find this a rich resource of varied experience in the classroom and a stimulus to their own qualitative studies.
About the Contributors List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements INTRODUCTION; Aims and Explorations into Tasks and Task-based Teaching; J.Willis Task-based Language Learning and Teaching: Theories and Applications; A.Shehadeh PART 1: IMPLEMENTING TASK-BASED LEARNING: CONTEXTS AND PURPOSES Developing from PPP to TBL: A Focused Grammar Task; L.Loumpourdi Integrating Task-based Learning Into a Business English Programme; P.Pullin-Stark Language as Topic: Learner-teacher Investigation of Concordances; R.Sheehan Storytelling with Low Level Learners: Developing Narrative Tasks; P.Kiernan Adding Tasks to Textbooks for Beginner Learners; T.Muller Using Language-focused Learning Journals on a Task-based Course; J.Moser PART 2: EXPLORING TASK INTERACTION: HELPING LEARNERS DO BETTER Exam-oriented Tasks: Transcripts, Turn-Taking and Backchanelling; M.Leedham Training Young Learners in Meaning Negotiation Skills: Does it Help?; S-M. Lee Task Repetition with 10-year-old Children; A.Pinter Collaborative Tasks for Cross-cultural Communication; D.Coulson PART 3: EXPLORING TASK LANGUAGE: LEXICAL PHRASES AND PATTERNS Interactive Lexical Phrases in Pair Interview Tasks; J.Hobbs Multi-word Chunks in Oral Tasks; M.Baigent Can We Predict Language Items for Open Tasks?; D.Cox PART 4: INVESTIGATING VARIABLES: TASK CONDITIONS AND TASK TYPES Fighting Fossilization: Language at the Task Versus Report Stages; C.Johnston Story-telling: Effects of Planning, Repetition and Context; W.Essig The Effect of Pre-task Planning Time on Task-based Performance; A.Djapoura Balancing Fluency, Accuracy and Complexity Through Task Characteristics; G.Birch Quality Interaction and Types of Negotiation in Problem-solving and Jigsaw Tasks; G.Poupore EPILOGUE: Teachers Exploring Research; C.Edwards References Index
