Tasks and Language Learning: Integrating Theory and PracticeGraham Crookes, Susan M. Gass This book is centrally concerned with the concept of task, particularly as it has developed in the context of language learning. It deals with the ways in which different tasks influence the kind of language which learners produce and ultimately with the ways in which language output relates to acquisition. Readers will find work aimed at developing the beginnings of a taxonomy of communication task types which deals explicitly with issues of classroom pedagogy and learning theory. Other chapters consider issues such as task participants' familiarity with each other, task participants' familiarity with the task type, interactional direction, source of the input prompt, content of the input prompt, task complexity and the extent to which there is shared information about the content. These issues are investigated to determine their effect on language production. Yet another chapter argues that despite the general orientation of the task line in materials and syllabus development to a communicative approach and away from a structural emphasis, there is a role for tasks in structurally-oriented second language learning and teaching. The book also shows how tasks can offer an opportunity for second language learners to be exposed to and learn from their practice of the syntactic features of language. |
Contents
Effects on Interactional | 35 |
An SLA Research | 57 |
The Effects of Task | 96 |
Copyright | |
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actants activities analysis Applied Linguistics argue back channel cues Cambodian Cambridge clarification requests classroom Clevedon code-switch cognitive psychology communication tasks communicative language teaching comprehension tasks confirmation checks context conversation dative dependent variables discourse discussion Doughty elicited example familiarity feedback foreigner talk frequency Gass & Varonis grammatical guage hypothesis information gap tasks input interactant relationship interlanguage interlocutor interview Japanese JDB's kuki Language Learning language teaching language transfer learners lego meaning modification native speakers negotiation negotiation of meaning Newbury House NNS dyads NNSs non-native speakers NS-Low NNS NS-NNS NS-NS Nunan opinion exchange outcome option overlaps participants Pedagogical Pica picture prehension problem processing proficiency psycholinguistic restructuring role Rowley Second Language Acquisition speech structure structure-based Studies in Second subjects T-units Table target Tarone task designer task types task-based task-naturalness teachers TESOL tion topic unfamiliar pair utterance variation verbs