Everyone seems to talk about tasks. Task-based language teaching (TBLT) may well be the strongest empirically supported teaching approach around. However, for many instructors, TBLT is still an innovative approach that deviates from more familiar structure-based or form-focused teaching methods. They find it difficult to incorporate strong tasks in their teaching practices.

This talk will focus on tasks, on what makes a task different from an activity or exercise, on how classroom tasks can be used to support language learning at different proficiency levels. This talk aims to provide you with the foundational principles of TBLT so you can make tasks work for you and your students.

 Dr. Koen Van Gorp is an Assistant Professor in the Applied Linguistics program, and Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) Coordinator in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at Michigan State University. He is also Head of Research for the National LCTL Resource Center (NLRC) and serves as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Language and Education (KU Leuven, Belgium). His research interests are task-based language teaching and assessment, language-in-education policy, multilingual awareness and multilingualism. He is founding Co-Editor (together with Kris Van den Branden) of TASK. Journal on task-based language teaching and learning and Treasurer of the International Association for Task-Based Language Teaching and learning (IATBLT).

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Sponsor(s): Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Council of Teachers of Southeast Asian Languages (COTSEAL)