Do we really know what a task is? Insights and from textbook analysis
Jonathan Newton
Victoria University of Wellington
Commercially published ELT textbooks are the mainstay of many language classrooms around the world, and especially in Asia. Growing awareness of, and policy mandates for some version of TBLT raise the question of what affordances for teaching with tasks are available in these textbooks. In this talk, I present findings from an analysis and coding of textbooks activities from a selection of widely used secondary school textbook series in China and Vietnam. The analysis drew on the four features of tasks proposed by Ellis (2018): a primary focus on meaning, a gap, learners relying on their own resources, and a communitive outcome. The analysis revealed complexities and fuzziness around these constructs which need to be addressed if they are to be of practical use to teachers. The talk focuses on how the problems encountered in coding textbook activities were resolved and on steps to develop a heuristic that teachers could use to identify and maximize affordances for TBLT in the textbooks they use.
Please join us for this talk by a distinguished figure in the TBLT community. Sign-ups are limited. You can register here.
And also check out our other talks in the TBLT Tuesdays 2022 series at TBLT Tuesdays 2022 | Task-based Learning Special Interest Group (tblsig.org)
