ERIC Number: EJ1129219
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0005-3503
EISSN: N/A
"New Tricks": Teachers Talk about Task-Based Language Teaching
Erlam, Rosemary
Babel, v50 n1 p4-11 2014
Over the past 20 years task-based language teaching (TBLT) has become a dominant approach to teaching in many contexts, including schools in New Zealand and the Flemish speaking region of Belgium (East, 2012; Van den Branden, 2006), but there are challenges for teachers in adapting their teaching to this approach. This paper reports on a study conducted with a group of primary and secondary school languages teachers (n = 48) who had completed a year-long professional learning program (TPDL) in New Zealand. During the program they had been introduced to TBLT in a second language acquisition pedagogy course. They had been encouraged by facilitators, observing in their classrooms and assisting them to evaluate their teaching, to incorporate language tasks in their classroom practice. In a telephone interview conducted the following year they were asked questions designed to gauge their understanding of and response to TBLT. They were also asked to describe any difficulties that they had experienced in implementing this approach. Results allow for some conclusions about how professional learning initiatives may best prepare teachers to adopt TBLT in a school-based languages teaching context.
Descriptors: Teaching Methods, Task Analysis, Language Teachers, Elementary Secondary Education, Faculty Development, Language Acquisition, Second Language Learning, Interviews, Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Barriers, Telephone Surveys, Definitions, Knowledge Level, Educational Practices, Instructional Innovation, Curriculum Implementation, Fidelity, Foreign Countries
Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations. Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Tel: +61-29351-2022; e-mail: president@afmlta.asn.au; e-mail: editor@afmlta.asn.au; Web site: http://www.afmlta.asn.au
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New Zealand
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A