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8 - Exploring the Nuts and Bolts of Task Design

from Part III - The Task Syllabus and Materials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2021

By
Virginia Samuda  and
Martin Bygate
Edited by
Mohammad Javad Ahmadian  and
Michael H. Long
Mohammad Javad Ahmadian
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Michael H. Long
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
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Summary

This chapter presents two complementary sets of parameters for task design. These are contextualized within a dynamic collaborative process involving designers, teachers and learners, requiring both specialist knowledge, and specialist skill. To illustrate, we draw on accumulated insights from a range of empirical studies, including research into learner performance on tasks, research into the process of design, and classroom studies of teachers and learners working with tasks. We highlight relationships between design and implementation, and tensions between the task ‘on paper’ and what happens in the classroom, suggesting ways of addressing these through the preparation for task design that teachers might receive.

Keywords

Task designtask-as-workplantask-as-processde-taskre-taskknowledge/skillsspecialist/non-specialisttask designertask design featurestask design frameworkdesign awarenessfocus on formuser perspectivepedagogic framing.
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Task-Based Language Teaching , pp. 262 - 289
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Erlam, R. (2016). I’m still not sure what a task is: Teachers designing language tasks. Language Teaching Research, 20(3), 279–99.Google Scholar
González-Lloret, M. and Nielson, K. B. (2015). Evaluating TBLT: The case of a task-based Spanish program. Language Teaching Research, 19, 525–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, K. (2003). Designing language teaching tasks. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, Chapter 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, B. T., Newton, J., and Crabbe, D. (2018). Teacher transformation of textbook tasks in Vietnamese EFL high school classrooms. In Samuda, V., Van den Branden, K. and Bygate, M., eds. TBLT as a researched pedagogy. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 51–70.Google Scholar
Samuda., V. (2015). Tasks, design, and the architecture of pedagogical spaces. In Bygate, M., ed. Domains and directions in the development of TBLT: A decade of plenaries from the international conference. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 271–302.Google Scholar

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