The purpose of this paper is to present a specific case of CALL task design adopting the patterns-based learning design approach. The approach provides a common framework/vocabulary for educational designers, particularly teachers, to systematically capture, articulate, make explicit, share and reuse expert knowledge of teaching and good design.…

East (2014) presented a largely qualitative study that uncovered how beginning teachers of languages other than English developed their understandings about task-based language teaching (TBLT) as they took part in a year-long initial teacher education programme in New Zealand. This paper reports a comparative re-production. It complements a recent…

The present investigation focuses on first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers' sensitivity to lexical fixedness and compositionality of Italian word combinations. Two studies explored language users' intuitions about three types of word combinations: free combinations, collocations, and idioms. In Study 1, Italian Verb+Noun…

Research has demonstrated that pronunciation teaching can be effective, but there have been very few classroom-based studies that have focused on the perception aspect of pronunciation. This article explains the theory and practical application of a conceptual approach and reports on its impact on perception of English word stress. The…

This research presents a virtual exchange project between two tertiary institutions in New Zealand and Finland with 26 participants who were intermediate German language students. During the project, the students used a closed Facebook group to post about given topics; the posts combined video, audio, and text that adhered to multimodal…

This study explores English for specific purposes learners' understanding of technical words in a previously-developed technical word list in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The principal aim was to estimate what kind of technical terms pose problems to TCM learners and might therefore merit special attention in instruction. Of particular…

This study investigated the comparative effects of strategic and unpressured within-task planning on second language (L2) Chinese oral production and the role of working memory in mediating the effects of the two types of planning. Twenty-nine L2 Chinese learners at a large New Zealand university performed a narrative task after watching a…

The idea that task-based learning can be facilitated through negotiated interaction has been a major object of research amongst scholars interested in task-based language teaching for at least 30 years. In this article, I focus largely on one particular type of negotiation--the negotiation of form (hereafter NoF). My purpose is not to cast doubt…

Ellis (2003) identifies four key criteria that distinguish a "task" from the types of situational grammar exercises that are typically found in the more traditional language classroom. This study investigates how well teachers were able to design tasks that fulfilled these four criteria (Ellis, 2003) at the end of a year-long…

Adult second language (L2) learners have often been found to produce discourse that manifests limited and non-native-like use of multiword expressions. One explanation for this is that adult L2 learners are relatively unsuccessful (in the absence of pedagogic intervention) at transferring multiword expressions from input texts to their own output…

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is an innovative learner-centred and experiential approach to modern foreign language (MFL) teaching and learning that is not without controversy in the secondary MFL classroom. This article considers one secondary-level initial teacher education programme in New Zealand in which, following school curriculum…

A frequent weakness of communicative approaches to foreign language teaching is a neglect of the intercultural dimension. Cultural knowledge is often treated as an addendum which focuses on learning facts about the target country. This article explores whether task-based language teaching (TBLT) can successfully address the intercultural…

This study examines whether the process of interacting in a second language, versus observing others interact, may differentially affect learner's awareness of language. This study involved 26 university students of intermediate-level French. Two experimental groups, Interactors and Observers, engaged in three sessions of dyadic task-based…

This study investigated the ways in which two groups of four adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) responded to unfamiliar words they encountered in four communication tasks and the effect that different levels of engagement with these words (including negotiation of form and meaning) had on subsequent recall of word meaning. Of the…

This paper reports on two projects which investigated graded readers (GRs) as meaningful input for learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). Project One examined the intentions of six writers of Japanese GRs. A focus group interview demonstrated that the writers had a genuine communicative intent in the writing process. Project Two…