Both in the research literature on tasks and second language learning and in the pedagogical literature on task-based language teaching (TBLT), the role of the teacher has received scant attention. In this article, the role of the teacher in TBLT is approached from three perspectives: (a) the teacher as mediator of the students’ language development, contributing to the effectiveness of TBLT as a pedagogical approach to second language education; (b) the teacher as a key figure in the implementation of TBLT, and thus as a change agent in the innovation of second language education; and (c) the teacher as researcher, and thus as an active contributor to the development and further refinement of TBLT as a researched pedagogy.

This study investigated the effectiveness of task-based and task-supported instruction in the acquisition of the English passive construction—a structure about which learners had limited prior knowledge. A total of 150 Chinese middle school English as a foreign language (EFL) learners were randomly assigned to five groups—one control group who only took the pretest and posttests and four experimental groups who attended a 2-hour treatment session where they performed two dictogloss tasks in groups, each including a reporting phase when the learners took turns to tell the narrative. Among the four experimental groups, one just performed the two oral tasks; a second group received explicit instruction before performing the tasks; a third group received within-task feedback but no explicit instruction; and the fourth group received both explicit instruction and within-task feedback. Treatment effects were gauged via a grammaticality judgment test (GJT) and an elicited imitation test (EIT). On the GJT, the conditions with explicit instruction and/or feedback led to significant gains with explicit instruction plus feedback showing the largest effects. On the EIT, there was no effect for any of the three treatment groups when the data were analyzed for the whole cohort. However, when the learners were subdivided into those with zero and some prior knowledge based on their pretest EIT scores, explicit instruction plus within-task feedback was more effective than the other treatment types for the latter.

The first aim of this article, addressed in section 1, is to define what is meant, and not meant, by task and task-based language teaching (TBLT). The second is to summarize and evaluate 14 criticisms that have been made of both. Section 2 responds to five alleged problems with TBLT's psycholinguistic rationale, section 3 to six at the classroom level, and section 4 to three claimed problems with implementing TBLT in specific contexts. A few of the criticisms touch on important matters, but most, I will suggest, are nonissues. The third aim of the article is to identify some genuine problems in need of resolution—real issues—and briefly to illustrate research programs under way to address them.

In this article we explore how oral and written modes may differentially influence processes involved in second language acquisition (SLA) in the context of task-based language teaching (TBLT). We first start by reflecting on the differences between spoken and written language. In what follows, we provide a general description of tasks in relation to the SLA processes. We then establish the links between the learning processes and task phases/features in the two modes. Concluding that the role of mode has been underresearched, we call for a more integrative and mode-sensitive TBLT research agenda, in which hybridness of discourse (i.e., mingling of the two modes within one communicative event/task) is taken into account.

As increasing numbers of research papers in applied linguistics, language learning, and assessment use discourse analysis techniques to assess accuracy in performance, it is timely to examine at a detailed level the wide variety of measures employed. Ideally, measures need to capture accuracy in as valid and reliable a way as possible, but this has proved elusive. In this article, we systematically review the variety of different measures in used in these fields, both global and local, before presenting a more finely tuned weighted clause ratio measure which classifies errors at different levels, that is, those that seriously impede communication, those that impair communication to some degree, and those that do not impair communication at all. The problem of reliably identifying these levels is discussed, followed by an analysis of samples from written and spoken second language performance data. This new measure, grounded in a comprehensive review of prior practice in the field, has the advantages of being relatively easy to use, measuring accuracy rather than error, and evaluating smaller increases in improved performance than have previously been possible.

To begin with some history, reflecting the breadth of the field, the 35 issues of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (ARAL) published since 1980 have covered a substantial range of topics. These have included broad surveys of the field of applied linguistics; language and language-in-education; identity; written discourse; literacy; bilingual communities worldwide; language and the professions; communicative language teaching; second language acquisition research; discourse analysis; issues in foreign language teaching and learning; language policy and planning; technology and language; multilingualism; foundations of second language teaching; applied linguistics as an emerging discipline; language and psychology; discourse and dialogue; language contact and change; advances in language pedagogy; lingua franca languages; neurolinguistics; cognitive aspects of language processing; language assessment; and formulaic language.

Over the last few decades, task-based language teaching (TBLT) has garnered increasing attention from researchers and educators alike. With a strong and growing body of research demonstrating the efficacy of tasks to support and facilitate second language development and performance (e.g., Keck, Iberri-Shea, Tracy-Ventura, & Wa-Mbaleka, 2006), TBLT has become a leading pedagogical approach. Similarly, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has also grown as a field, with the use and integration of technology in the classroom continuing to increase (Petersen & Sachs, 2015). As these fields have matured, a reciprocal relationship has developed (Lai & Li, 2011), with the literature on tasks and technology seeking to not only examine how technology might support and facilitate language learning, but how TBLT might serve as a framework to more thoroughly investigate CALL. In light of the expanding research on tasks and technology, this review article aims not only to provide a current state of the art of how technology-mediated TBLT facilitates and supports second language development and performance, but also to describe how technology can contribute to our understanding of how features of TBLT, such as task design features and task implementation, influence the success of second language acquisition. Suggestions for possible research agendas in technology-mediated TBLT are also made.

The majority of empirical studies that have so far investigated task features in order to inform task grading and sequencing decisions have been grounded in hypothesis-testing research. Few studies have attempted to adopt a bottom-up approach in order to explore what task factors might contribute to task difficulty. The aim of this study was to help fill this gap by eliciting teachers’ perspectives on sources of task difficulty. We asked 16 English as a second language (ESL) teachers to judge the linguistic ability required to carry out four pedagogic tasks and consider how they would manipulate the tasks to suit the abilities of learners at lower and higher proficiency. While contemplating the tasks, the teachers thought aloud, and we also tracked their eye movements. The majority of teachers’ think-aloud comments revealed that they were primarily concerned with linguistic factors when assessing task difficulty. Conceptual demands were most frequently proposed as a way to increase task difficulty, whereas both linguistic and conceptual factors were suggested by teachers when considering modifications to decrease task difficulty. The eye-movement data, overall, were aligned with the teachers’ think-aloud comments. These findings are discussed with respect to existing task taxonomies and future research directions.

Tasks are frequently used to elicit learner language in second language (L2) research. The purposes for doing so, however, vary widely, covering a range of theoretical models, designs, and analyses. For example, task-based researchers have examined a range of linguistic and interactional features (e.g., accuracy, language-related episodes) that are found in learner production and that vary as a function of task conditions (e.g., +/− complex), modes (oral, written, computer-mediated), and settings (second vs. foreign language). This article presents a synthesis of substantive interests and methodological practices in this area. We first collected a sample of 85 primary studies of task-based language production published from 2006 to 2015. Each study was then coded for the target features it analyzed as well as other contextual and demographic variables. We also coded for methodological features related to study designs, sampling, analyses, and reporting practices. The results indicate a strong preference toward analyses of grammar, vocabulary, accuracy, and different features of L2 interaction, and very little interest in task-induced pronunciation, pragmatics, and the quality of task performance. More fundamentally, this domain may be hindered by a lack of theoretical and operational consistency. The data also point to a number of concerns related to research and reporting practices (e.g., low statistical power; missing data). Based on our findings, we outline a number of pointed recommendations for future research in this domain.

This chapter explores the contrast between the effects on second language performance of tasks and task characteristics, on the one hand, and the conditions under which tasks are done, on the other. The first major section explores the evidence on this issue and proposes that the impact of conditions such as pretask planning, task repetition, and posttask activities is greater and more consistent than the impact of tasks and features such as time perspective or number of elements. The second major section explores the theoretical accounts that have been proposed regarding tasks and conditions. It is suggested that deductive accounts have, so far, only had limited success regarding the use of tasks, but that psycholinguistic models of speaking do provide a looser but more useful framework to account for the effects of conditions. It is also suggested that an important difference between tasks and conditions concerns the tension between constraint and flexibility in performance and that the flexibility provided by task conditions is an important component in the more dependable results they have generated. Finally, pedagogic implications are discussed linking task conditions to the methodological choices that are available to teachers.

This article explores how learners engage in tasks in the context of language classrooms. We describe engagement as a multidimensional construct that includes cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional dimensions of engagement among second and foreign language learners in the classroom. We discuss key concepts and indicators of engagement in current research on task-based interaction and outline some of the issues in researching engagement in this context.

Task-based language assessment (TBLA) has generated interest since the early 1990s, primarily in conjunction with the ongoing development of task-based language teaching (TBLT) and the pursuit of developing appropriate testing models for this approach to pedagogy (Norris, 2002, 2009). However, tasks also offer considerable advantages for language assessment, beyond their obvious relevance within TBLT classes and programs. In fact, major innovations in the general domain of language assessment over the past two decades have occurred in conjunction with the introduction of tasks into assessment design, largely in response to the need for tests that better represent examinees’ abilities to use the language (Mislevy, Steinberg, & Almond, 2002), but also because tasks offer a meaningful space for language teachers, testers, learners, and others to examine, understand, and improve language learning endeavors (Van Gorp & Deygers, 2013). This article reviews the considerable range of current uses for TBLA, illustrating different types of assessment with concrete examples and highlighting distinct roles for tasks as a basic unit of analysis in test design, interpretation, and intended consequence. Ultimately, it argues that tasks offer a fundamental, though not exclusive, foundation for useful language assessment, and that task-based assessment, though challenging, is probably worth the effort.

Digital communication technologies both complexify and help to reveal the dynamics of human communicative activity and capacity for identity performance. Addressing current scholarship on second language use and development, this review article examines research on identity in digital settings either as a design element of educational practice or as a function of participation in noninstitutionally located online cultures. We also address new frontiers and communication in the digital wilds, as it were, and here we focus on cultural production in fandom sites and the processes of transcultural authoring and community building visible in these settings.

This article reviews recent scholarship in language, identity, and education. It critically reflects on developments in sociolinguistics as researchers have engaged with the dynamics and complexity of communication in superdiverse societies where people from an increased number of territories come into contact with one another, and where people have access to an increased range of online resources for communication. The authors focus in particular on recent scholarship on “translanguaging,” examining research that has viewed identities as socially constructed in interaction and considering the relationship between language and identities in contexts where communication is mobile and complex. This article offers a critical summary of the implications of these developments for education in the 21st century. In order to illustrate these theoretical points, the authors present an empirical example of the performance of language and identity in education from their recent research.

Variation in voice quality has long been recognized to have functions beyond the grammatically distinctive or phonetically useful roles it plays in many languages, indexing information about the speaker, participating in the construction of stance in interaction, or serving to identify the speaker as a unique individual. Though the links between voice quality and identity have been studied in phonetics, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, forensic linguistics, and speech technology, considerable work remains to be done to problematize the ways in which the voice is taken as covering privileged, immediate meanings about the speaker's body and to break apart the ideologies that construct it as an inalienable, unitary, and invariant facet of a speaker's identity. We point out promising directions in recent research on the voice and bring up ideas for where this important area of research should be taken.

This article provides an overview of theoretical and research issues in the study of writer identity in written discourse. First, a historical overview explores how identity has been conceived, studied, and taught, followed by a discussion of how writer identity has been conceptualized. Next, three major orientations toward writer identity show how the focus of analysis has shifted from the individual to the social conventions and how it has been moving toward an equilibrium, in which the negotiation of individual and social perspectives is recognized. The next two sections discuss two of the key developments—identity in academic writing and the assessment of writer identity. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the implications and future directions for teaching and researching identity in written discourse.

This review article is concerned with the construction of identity in academic discourse. It examines recent journal articles and monographs in applied linguistics and considers various perspectives on the issue. After a brief introduction and review of the theoretical background relating to identity, followed by a characterization of academic discourse and how it relates to identity theory, the article explores the following topics: linguistic resources for audience engagement; voice and academic identity; disciplinary identity; identity in peripheral academic genres; academic identity development over time; academic identity and English as a lingua franca; power, ideology, and critical language awareness in academic identity construction; language reuse, intertextuality, and academic identity; pedagogically oriented studies and academic identity construction; and methodological diversity and innovation in the study of academic identity. The article concludes with suggestions for future work in the field of academic identity research.

Applied linguistics is a field concerned with issues pertaining to language(s) and literacies in the real world and with the people who learn, speak, write, process, translate, test, teach, use, and lose them in myriad ways. It is also fundamentally concerned with transnationalism, mobility, and multilingualism—the movement across cultural, linguistic, and (often) geopolitical or regional borders and boundaries. The field is, furthermore, increasingly concerned with identity construction and expression through particular language and literacy practices across the life span, at home, in diaspora settings, in short-term and long-term sojourns abroad for study or work, and in other contexts and circumstances. In this article, I discuss some recent areas in which applied linguists have investigated the intersections of language (multilingualism), identity, and transnationalism. I then present illustrative studies and some recurring themes and issues.