Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has attracted a great deal of interest since its inception, as reflected in a large body of relevant literature; most of the literature deals with TBLT in in-person (IP) settings and a small number of TBLT applications in online settings. The shift from the traditional IP mode to the virtual classroom caused by COVID-19 has made the effective application of TBLT a concern. However, most of the past studies have been conducted from the researcher’s perspective, which cannot meet the urgent needs of language teachers from a practical standpoint. This study examined TBLT in virtual Chinese classroom from the perspectives of teachers and students. The action research was conducted to observe the challenges students encountered in online TBLT sessions. Surveys and interviews were conducted to collect data from participants to understand the students’ viewpoints towards online TBLT. The data were analyzed to determine how teachers made actions to improve the TBLT learning and whether these actions were effective. After six weeks of research, the data from the participants revealed that students encountered many problems in online TBLT session, such as difficulties of applying online TBLT including student’s lack of media literacy and the limitedness of Zoom affordance; the challenges of designing tasks for online L2 TBLT class such as teacher’s lack of attention on taking students’ task preferences, grouping methods and targeted prompts into consideration; as well as the challenges of peer collaboration in virtual TBLT for example the dis-connectivity, peer communication, and response distribution issues. In response to challenges that I observed in my study, I integrated and analyzed the following teacher actions to help improve students’ performance and the effectiveness of online TBLT sessions. I rewrote the prompts to provide students with multiple perspectives on the context and appropriate vocabulary in terms of the pre-task materials. Also, I selected relevant grouping patterns for each task type and grouped them appropriately. Moreover, I reduced the power imbalance between the teacher and students, intervened in the in-task discussions appropriately, provided students with guidance on specific Zoom classroom functions, and effectively managed the time spent on each cycle of the TBLT. Last but not least, I enhanced student meta-cognition, provided students with complete information about the TBLT process, explained the benefits and purpose of the assignment, encouraged interaction and collaboration among the students, and attempted to provide a safe and comfortable learning environment for students. To conclude, both students and teachers encounter challenges in this new online learning model environment; thus, we all need to adapt and learn how to learn and teach in this new situation. In this study, I tried different approaches to improve the observed problems and promote the effectiveness of teaching and the learning experience of students through a teacher action research approach. Feedback from participants indicated that the actions were effective. The study revealed that teacher should take the students’ needs into consideration when designing and implementing online TBLT in the future and make a difference through teacher actions. It is hoped that this study can offer some implications on applying TBLT in the virtual setting.

Det här examensarbetet utformas inom TBLT forskningsområdet, dvs. uppgiftsbaserad språkundervisning (Task-based Language Teaching) och utvecklingen av inlärares skriftliga målspråksperformans. TBLT-forskning har bevisat att kognitiv uppgiftskomplexitet manipulation har en tydlig påverkan på inlärares produktions. Detta visas i specifika aspekter i målspråksproduktionen. TBLT-forskning präglas dock av motstridiga studieresultat när det gäller hur den kognitiva manipulationen påverkar lingvistiska dimensioner. I syfte att undersöka effekten av uppgiftskomplexitets manipulation, presenteras detta examensarbete med empiriskt fokus på de lingvistiska dimensionerna korrekthet, komplexitet och flyt (CAF dimensions) i skolelevers skriftliga produktioner. Dessutom undersöker examensarbetet hur elevernas språkliga kompentens ytterligare kan påverka effekten av manipulationen. Examensarbetets bakgrund, diskussion och slutsats grundas på två teoretiska modeller, Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2003, 2005, 2007) och Trade-off Hypothesis (Skehan, 1998, 2015). Dessa förklarar manipulationseffekten i uppgiftskomplexitet på olika och kontrasterande sätt. I detta examensarbete undersöks 72 svenska gymnasieelevers skriftliga produktioner i engelska genom två versioner (enkel vs. komplex) av en argumenterande uppgift. Resultaten visar att den komplexa versionen bara har få skillnader och inom dessa visas en större effekt i lexikalisk komplexitet. Manipulationen av uppgiftskomplexitet visar ytterligare större effekt bland elever med högre språklig kompetensnivå. Sådana resultat innefattar betydelsefulla pedagogiska tillämpningar för klassrummets praktik, för uppgiftsutformning och val, samt för lärares arbete.

The purpose of this study was to deepen the knowledge about factors that influence students’ willingness and ability to oral interaction in a target language, in this case French. It also aimed to achieve a clearer picture of the tasks the students work with and would like to work with in classroom situations. The study was based on two theoretical frameworks, Willingness to Communicate, which looks into the social and affective factors enhancing the will to communicate, and Task Based Language Teaching investigating how tasks can be designed to promote oral interaction between students in a classroom or in a digital environment. Based on the purpose of the study three research questions were formulated. The first question was about the importance of cognitive factors to promote oral interaction. The second focused on the role Willingness to Communicate and other affective factors play to make students willing to communicate in the target language. The third question aimed at investigating to what extent task-based language teaching occurs in teaching to create opportunities for students to interact in the target language. The design of the study was made up of qualitative personal interviews with students from upper secondary schools in the Stockholm area. In total seven students were interviewed, six of them studying French 4, one of them French 3.  All students highlighted cognitive and linguistic factors as being the most important to interact orally, foremost vocabulary and pronunciation and also the ability to express themselves orally. The students did not consider grammar as an important factor to their willingness and ability to communicate in French. Self-confidence, self-efficacy and the teacher’s attitude are the most important social and affective factors influencing the willingness to communicate. The ones that were considered the least important were anxiety, knowing your speaking partner and the topic of the conversation. The students’ opinion of the least important factors differed from research and empirical studies, which rate these factors higher. The students reported that the teaching did not include Task Based Language Teaching as defined in the theory and that limited use of computer mediated communication was used in the classroom. All students express a desire to communicate and interact with each other more than they do at present as well as to work with tasks and tools both face-to-face and digital enabling this to happen.

This study is a longitudinal study that investigated the development of English oral proficiency—complexity, accuracy, and fluency—under the pre-task and on-line planning conditions with task repetition among Japanese high school students. This study is unique because it is longitudinal and includes qualitative data. The participants were 15 Japanese high school students whose English proficiency level is categorized as low proficiency. Narrative tasks, post-task questionnaires, journals, and interviews were used in this study. In the narrative tasks, they were asked to describe a four-picture story three times with two minutes planning time, when they were allowed to listen to an ALT (assistant language teacher) tell the story and take notes. They completed a post-task questionnaire and a journal after completing the task. Interviews were conducted two times to further investigate their questionnaire responses and what they wrote in their journal entries. The results showed that low proficiency learners increased oral fluency, syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, and syntactic accuracy through repeating the same task within a single session, and syntactic complexity and lexical complexity through repeating the same type of task during the academic year. The aural input between the first, second, and third performance can lead them to draw their attention to form-meaning connections, resulting in increased oral performance. In addition, low and intermediate beginners benefited in increasing oral fluency, syntactic complexity, and syntactic accuracy, while high beginners benefited in improving oral fluency and lexical complexity under pre-task and on-line planning conditions with repetition during the academic year. The study suggests that the combined use of pre-task planning, on-line planning, and task repetition have a cumulative effect and can facilitate the development of oral fluency, syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, and syntactic accuracy for low proficiency high school learns of English. If learners are given the opportunity to plan before and during task performance with repetition, and to make the condition that draws their attention to both form and meaning, it is the most effective strategy to improve oral fluency, syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, and syntactic accuracy in task-based teaching in the classrooms. / Language Arts

Thesis (MA (African Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / The purpose of this study is to apply existing theories with regard to second language acquisition in a South African context, in order to address specific needs of Sepedi second language learners in the South African Police Service, with specific focus on the Community Service Centre and within the guidelines of the Batho Pele principles. The study presents an overview on Universal Grammar and the roles it played within second language acquisition as well as the principles and parameters it presented for language development. It further analysed the acquisition processes of languages and the roles the learner plays as individual and part of a social interacting group. Form-meaning connections utilised by learners is defined as a fundamental aspect for both first and second language acquisitions are discussed broadly in the study, inclusive of the psycholinguistic consequences as well as other input factors that may influence form-meaning connections. The specific role of language instruction is also reviewed in this study. Specific focus is placed on the roles of implicit and explicit instruction and the effectiveness thereof in second language acquisitioning and noticing. Task-based theories were also evaluated, with the accent on the definition of tasks, task characteristics, task grading and other factors relating to tasks such as procedural factors. The role of tasks was further explored in second language acquisition, inclusive of the variables that need to be addressed. The definition of tasks into focussed and unfocused tasks are also scrutinized against the learner interaction in the acquisition process. The implementation of tasks and the impact thereof on comprehension and language acquisition is also reviewed. Different models of methods to design a focussed task are discussed. The successful acquisition of a second language will also be based on the correct collation of data and the sequencing thereof in such manners to allow learners the opportunity to comprehend it as sufficiently as possible. The study further focuses on the methodology of task-based teaching and the use of communicative tasks in second language acquisition. Finally the interviews between the community and the police officials are then analysed in respect of complexity models, against the cognitive and syntactic complexity for specific purposes as well against the genre-approach to second language teaching. The characterizing of such interviews will allow the defining and grading of tasks to ensure sound development of teaching models for second language learning.

Thesis (DLitt (African Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This study explores how focus on form can be included by means of computer within a task-based approach to the teaching of as specific purposes isiXhosa course for student teachers ...

Um dos principais objetivos da pesquisa em aquisição da linguagem tem sido a compreensão da forma como os processos de aprendizado ou aquisição ocorrem, assim como a elaboração de alternativas metodológicas que consigam promover a comunicação autêntica em sala de aula, habilitando os aprendizes a participar das mais diversas situações comunicativas encontradas no cotidiano. Dentre os enfoques comunicativos, o ensino de línguas por tarefas tem sido fortemente aceito como sendo uma abordagem que permite o desenvolvimento de uma desejável habilidade comunicativa, através da prática autêntica e do foco nos significados, e que, concomitantemente, abre espaço para a ocorrência de momentos ou etapas durante a tarefa em que a atenção do aluno seja temporariamente dirigida a aspectos formais da língua-alvo, sem que haja uma inversão de prioridades no aprendizado, isto é, sem que o foco principal das tarefas seja preterido em relação ao foco excessivo em aspectos estruturais. A presente pesquisa investigou um projeto de elaboração de um guia de críticas de filmes. O projeto ocorreu em um curso livre de idiomas, no qual 22 alunos adultos de inglês como língua estrangeira foram divididos em três grupos e realizaram atividades que visavam a aumentar sua atenção sobre elementos relevantes ao gênero textual crítica de filme, assim como sobre aspectos gramaticais e lexicais, durante os encontros que ocorreram em meio à produção escrita de 3 críticas por cada participante. Os procedimentos adotados visaram a verificar de que maneira os aprendizes obtiveram ganhos de produção escrita no que se refere aos elementos de gênero e aos aspectos gramaticais. A análise dos dados obtidos demonstrou que as atividades de aumento de atenção e consciência trouxeram resultados bastante positivos. Além disso, o projeto demonstrou que os dois enfoques metodológicos tomados como base para os procedimentos adotados – o Ensino de Línguas por Tarefas e a proposta de Sequências Didáticas com gêneros textuais - são bastante compatíveis e que podem ser muito produtivos para aplicações futuras no ensino de língua estrangeira. / One of the main goals of the research in language acquisition has been to understand in which ways the learning or acquisition processes occur, and to propose methodological alternatives which are able to promote authentic communication in classroom, enabling learners to take part in a range of communicative situations found in daily life. Among the communicative approaches, the task based-language teaching has strongly been regarded as an option that permits both the development of desirable communicative skills, through authentic practice and a focus on meaning, and which also provides room for moments or steps during the task when the learner’s attention be temporarily focused on formal aspects of the target language, without any kind of inversion on the learning priorities, that is, keeping the main focus on the tasks, instead of an excessively strong focus on structural aspects. The present research investigated a project involving the production of a movie review guide book. The project took place in a free language course, where 22 adult participants, learners of English as a foreign language were split into three groups, and were assigned activities that intended to enhance their attention to both text genre-relevant elements and to grammar and lexical aspects during the meetings which happened in midst of the production of 3 reviews by each participant. The chosen procedures sought to investigate in which ways learners had gains in their writing production in relation to those elements and aspects. The data analysis shows that the attention and consciousness-raising activities brought about significantly positive results. In addition, the project has demonstrated that both methodological approaches used to design the task sequence adopted in the research – the task based-language teaching and the use of text genres in didactic sequences – are quite compatible and that they can be very productive in similar future applications in foreign language teaching.

Um dos principais objetivos da pesquisa em aquisição da linguagem tem sido a compreensão da forma como os processos de aprendizado ou aquisição ocorrem, assim como a elaboração de alternativas metodológicas que consigam promover a comunicação autêntica em sala de aula, habilitando os aprendizes a participar das mais diversas situações comunicativas encontradas no cotidiano. Dentre os enfoques comunicativos, o ensino de línguas por tarefas tem sido fortemente aceito como sendo uma abordagem que permite o desenvolvimento de uma desejável habilidade comunicativa, através da prática autêntica e do foco nos significados, e que, concomitantemente, abre espaço para a ocorrência de momentos ou etapas durante a tarefa em que a atenção do aluno seja temporariamente dirigida a aspectos formais da língua-alvo, sem que haja uma inversão de prioridades no aprendizado, isto é, sem que o foco principal das tarefas seja preterido em relação ao foco excessivo em aspectos estruturais. A presente pesquisa investigou um projeto de elaboração de um guia de críticas de filmes. O projeto ocorreu em um curso livre de idiomas, no qual 22 alunos adultos de inglês como língua estrangeira foram divididos em três grupos e realizaram atividades que visavam a aumentar sua atenção sobre elementos relevantes ao gênero textual crítica de filme, assim como sobre aspectos gramaticais e lexicais, durante os encontros que ocorreram em meio à produção escrita de 3 críticas por cada participante. Os procedimentos adotados visaram a verificar de que maneira os aprendizes obtiveram ganhos de produção escrita no que se refere aos elementos de gênero e aos aspectos gramaticais. A análise dos dados obtidos demonstrou que as atividades de aumento de atenção e consciência trouxeram resultados bastante positivos. Além disso, o projeto demonstrou que os dois enfoques metodológicos tomados como base para os procedimentos adotados – o Ensino de Línguas por Tarefas e a proposta de Sequências Didáticas com gêneros textuais - são bastante compatíveis e que podem ser muito produtivos para aplicações futuras no ensino de língua estrangeira. / One of the main goals of the research in language acquisition has been to understand in which ways the learning or acquisition processes occur, and to propose methodological alternatives which are able to promote authentic communication in classroom, enabling learners to take part in a range of communicative situations found in daily life. Among the communicative approaches, the task based-language teaching has strongly been regarded as an option that permits both the development of desirable communicative skills, through authentic practice and a focus on meaning, and which also provides room for moments or steps during the task when the learner’s attention be temporarily focused on formal aspects of the target language, without any kind of inversion on the learning priorities, that is, keeping the main focus on the tasks, instead of an excessively strong focus on structural aspects. The present research investigated a project involving the production of a movie review guide book. The project took place in a free language course, where 22 adult participants, learners of English as a foreign language were split into three groups, and were assigned activities that intended to enhance their attention to both text genre-relevant elements and to grammar and lexical aspects during the meetings which happened in midst of the production of 3 reviews by each participant. The chosen procedures sought to investigate in which ways learners had gains in their writing production in relation to those elements and aspects. The data analysis shows that the attention and consciousness-raising activities brought about significantly positive results. In addition, the project has demonstrated that both methodological approaches used to design the task sequence adopted in the research – the task based-language teaching and the use of text genres in didactic sequences – are quite compatible and that they can be very productive in similar future applications in foreign language teaching.

Um dos principais objetivos da pesquisa em aquisição da linguagem tem sido a compreensão da forma como os processos de aprendizado ou aquisição ocorrem, assim como a elaboração de alternativas metodológicas que consigam promover a comunicação autêntica em sala de aula, habilitando os aprendizes a participar das mais diversas situações comunicativas encontradas no cotidiano. Dentre os enfoques comunicativos, o ensino de línguas por tarefas tem sido fortemente aceito como sendo uma abordagem que permite o desenvolvimento de uma desejável habilidade comunicativa, através da prática autêntica e do foco nos significados, e que, concomitantemente, abre espaço para a ocorrência de momentos ou etapas durante a tarefa em que a atenção do aluno seja temporariamente dirigida a aspectos formais da língua-alvo, sem que haja uma inversão de prioridades no aprendizado, isto é, sem que o foco principal das tarefas seja preterido em relação ao foco excessivo em aspectos estruturais. A presente pesquisa investigou um projeto de elaboração de um guia de críticas de filmes. O projeto ocorreu em um curso livre de idiomas, no qual 22 alunos adultos de inglês como língua estrangeira foram divididos em três grupos e realizaram atividades que visavam a aumentar sua atenção sobre elementos relevantes ao gênero textual crítica de filme, assim como sobre aspectos gramaticais e lexicais, durante os encontros que ocorreram em meio à produção escrita de 3 críticas por cada participante. Os procedimentos adotados visaram a verificar de que maneira os aprendizes obtiveram ganhos de produção escrita no que se refere aos elementos de gênero e aos aspectos gramaticais. A análise dos dados obtidos demonstrou que as atividades de aumento de atenção e consciência trouxeram resultados bastante positivos. Além disso, o projeto demonstrou que os dois enfoques metodológicos tomados como base para os procedimentos adotados – o Ensino de Línguas por Tarefas e a proposta de Sequências Didáticas com gêneros textuais - são bastante compatíveis e que podem ser muito produtivos para aplicações futuras no ensino de língua estrangeira. / One of the main goals of the research in language acquisition has been to understand in which ways the learning or acquisition processes occur, and to propose methodological alternatives which are able to promote authentic communication in classroom, enabling learners to take part in a range of communicative situations found in daily life. Among the communicative approaches, the task based-language teaching has strongly been regarded as an option that permits both the development of desirable communicative skills, through authentic practice and a focus on meaning, and which also provides room for moments or steps during the task when the learner’s attention be temporarily focused on formal aspects of the target language, without any kind of inversion on the learning priorities, that is, keeping the main focus on the tasks, instead of an excessively strong focus on structural aspects. The present research investigated a project involving the production of a movie review guide book. The project took place in a free language course, where 22 adult participants, learners of English as a foreign language were split into three groups, and were assigned activities that intended to enhance their attention to both text genre-relevant elements and to grammar and lexical aspects during the meetings which happened in midst of the production of 3 reviews by each participant. The chosen procedures sought to investigate in which ways learners had gains in their writing production in relation to those elements and aspects. The data analysis shows that the attention and consciousness-raising activities brought about significantly positive results. In addition, the project has demonstrated that both methodological approaches used to design the task sequence adopted in the research – the task based-language teaching and the use of text genres in didactic sequences – are quite compatible and that they can be very productive in similar future applications in foreign language teaching.

Cette recherche s'inscrit dans le domaine de la didactique des langues étrangères et porte sur l'apprentissage du français oral soutenu par la technologie mobile. En nous appuyant sur la recherche-action, nous avons créé un dispositif de formation destiné à des apprenants coréens de FLE leur permettant de s'entraîner à prendre la parole librement. La culture coréenne étant influencée par la philosophie confucéenne, l'enseignement-apprentissage des langues est caractérisé par une relation hiérarchique entre le « maître savant » et « son disciple » et souvent centré sur l'écrit. Notre scénario didactique prévoyait un travail de la langue en dehors d'un cours formel et soutenu par un tuteur à distance. Deux expériences ont été menées en 2008 et 2010 avec deux groupes d'apprenants coréens de FLE résidants en Corée auxquels nous avons demandé de réaliser des tâches langagières par enregistrement vidéo. Les apprenants ont été amenés à réaliser leurs productions orales en réponse à une vidéo enregistrée par un locuteur natif vivant en France. Grâce au recours à la téléphonie mobile intégrant l'accès à Internet et l'utilisation d'un réseau social en ligne coréen (Cyworld), les apprenants pouvaient échanger avec l'interlocuteur en temps différé leur permettant de s'enregistrer à plusieurs reprises et ainsi s'entraîner à la prise de parole tout en étant accompagnés par un tuteur. L'analyse des discours et des stratégies de réalisation des vidéos ainsi que les résultats des entretiens semi-directifs menés en amont et en aval avec les apprenants-participants, nous ont permis de répondre à nos questions de recherche, à savoir de quelle manière le tutorat en ligne, les tâches communicatives réalisées avec un outil mobile et la communication asynchrone sur un réseau social en ligne influent sur la production orale et l'autonomisation des apprenants coréens de FLE. / This research is in the field of foreign language didactics. It is particularly about learning spoken French via mobile technology. We carried out a research action while we elaborated a training device which would allow Korean learners of French to practice oral speech. As Korean culture is influenced by Confucian philosophy, teaching-learning foreign languages is characterized by a hierarchical relationship between the "master" and his "disciple" and is often focused on writing. Our didactic scenario included language learning tasks outside of formal learning and supported by distance tutoring. A couple of experiments were conducted in 2008 and 2010 with two Korean sets of French language learners living in Korea who were asked to perform language tasks using video recording. The learners were asked to perform oral productions in response to videos recorded by a native French speaker living in France. Through a mobile phone connected to the Internet and an Korean online social network (Cyworld), learners could exchange with the French native asynchronically. This allowed them to record themselves several times and practice speaking skills by the way, benefiting from advice given by a tutor. We analyzed discourse, video-implemented strategies and semi-directed interviews conducted upstream and downstream with the learners. This brought us to find out to which extent online tutoring, communicative tasks performed with a mobile device, and asynchronous communication via an online social network may influence oral production and autonomy of Korean learners of French.