Using Tasks in Second Language Teaching

This book examines the use of tasks in second language instruction in a variety of international contexts, and addresses the need for a better understanding of how tasks are used in teaching and program-level decision-making. The chapters consider the key issues, examples, benefits and challenges that teachers, program designers and researchers face in using tasks in a diverse range of contexts around the world, and aim to understand practitioners’ concerns with the relationship between tasks and performance. They provide examples of how tasks are used with learners of different ages and different proficiency levels, in both face-to-face and online contexts. In documenting these uses of tasks, the authors of the various chapters illuminate cultural, educational and institutional factors that can make the effective use of tasks more or less difficult in their particular context.

Task-based instruction features the integration of theory, research, and practice. However, what is missing in the literature is 'practice', that is, how to effectively implement task-based instruction by taking into account various factors at the macro and micro level. Lambert and Oliver fill a significant gap through this timely initiative., This volume provides insights into teachers’ practices and challenges when introducing tasks in their classroom, covering a wide range of international educational contexts. Pre-service and in-service teachers will benefit from the concrete advice about practical issues in implementing tasks in different contexts. It is also useful for researchers and postgraduate students in that it considers the effects of tasks on L2 acquisition and performance., Lambert and Oliver have assembled an excellent variety of chapters on task-based instruction. They provide a huge breadth of coverage, of different age ranges and instructional contexts. Most distinctive are the wide geographical contexts and the range of ages which motivate the different studies. This is an important book for researchers and professionals alike, making important theoretical and practical contributions., Lambert and Oliver have done an admirable job of collating a rich and diverse collection of studies, all offering insights into how tasks can be used more effectively in real-world classrooms., Like the other volumes in this remarkable series, the chapters in this book not only reflect on key current theory, but also discuss useful and usable empirical findings [...] I would whole-heartedly recommend this book to any teacher, teacher educator, researcher, and decision maker with a stake in effective language education.

Craig Lambert is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics in the School of Education at Curtin University. His recent books include Task-Based Language Teaching: Theory and Practice (with R. Ellis et al., Cambridge, 2020) and Referent Similarity and Nominal Syntax in Task-Based Language Teaching (Springer, 2019).Rhonda Oliver is Professor and Head of the School of Education, Curtin University, Australia. Her publications include Teaching Through Peer Interaction (with R. Adams, Routledge, 2019) and Child Second Language Learning in Different Classroom Contexts (with B. Nguyen, Routledge, 2018).