TASK - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2025

This interview with Marije Michel, Professor of Second Language Acquisition at the University of Groningen, explores key developments and challenges in Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT). Drawing on her extensive experience in both research and practice, Michel discusses the integration of psycholinguistic constructs in task design, drawing examples from priming effects in written and oral interaction. She also emphasizes the importance of researching task sequences and post-task reflection as key sites of language development and describes some challenges of implementing TBLT across diverse educational contexts. Michel’s insights highlight the evolving nature of TBLT as it adapts to technological innovations while maintaining its core principles of meaningful communication and learner empowerment. The interview also highlights contemporary issues in (task-based) language education, including the research-practice relationship, the potential role of artificial intelligence in language learning, and the need for more inclusive approaches to language teaching research. We conclude with perspectives on future directions for TBLT, particularly emphasizing the importance of longitudinal research and teacher development in advancing the field, as well as highlighting unique features of the 11th International Conference on Task-Based Language Teaching in Groningen, NL (April 2–4, 2025).

This study addressed a distinct gap by conducting a needs analysis for a highly diverse population of young Dutch as a Foreign Language learners. The original methodological framework proposed by Long (2005) was applied. Insights from different perspectives were garnered in expert interviews and surveys. The results were validated with a member check. Long’s framework proved relevant for this young and heterogeneous population but posed a few challenges. The obtained findings yield crucial insights into prevalent clusters within this diverse population. This enabled the distinction between overarching needs applicable to most young DFL learners worldwide and those relevant exclusively to specific subpopulations. The population’s heterogeneity necessitated compromises in tailoring the exam to individual contexts, but common ground was found in a B1 level exam set in the educational and personal domain.

This study examines the criteria that pre-service teachers (PSTs) use to evaluate collaboratively designed technology-mediated interaction tasks. The paper presents PSTs’ reflections on tasks as part of a telecollaborative task design seminar conducted within the ERASMUS+ project DIGITASK4IC. During the seminar, PSTs from three universities collaborated using the DIGITASK Web App to create interaction tasks for EFL learners. The study utilizes two datasets: transcribed recordings of group discussions and written end-of-term reports. Qualitative content analysis was employed to investigate specific criteria that PSTs rely on when evaluating technology-mediated tasks. The results suggest that PSTs evaluate tasks based on criteria related to digital tools, task instructions, outcome, and interaction that only partially overlap with task criteria in theoretical models.

Two conceptual models of Task Complexity, Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2001, 2007) and Limited Attentional Capacity (Skehan, 1998, 2003, 2018) have been proposed and widely debated in the task-based language teaching (TBLT) literature. However, little empirical evidence exists to suggest either of the models is based on teacher input or being used by teachers for classroom use. Drawing on pre-service teacher analysis of task difficulty, the study aimed to develop an in-depth understanding of task features they consider when evaluating task difficulty. Participants, 127 pre-service teachers at the end of their one-year MA TESOL program in Ontario, Canada, evaluated two sets of sample tasks, ranking them according to their degree of difficulty and identifying the features that contributed to this difficulty. 727 pieces of raw data, extracted from the task difficulty analysis, were categorized. Five main categories of task difficulty were identified, namely (1) linguistic demand, (2) cognitive operational demand, (3) design features, (4) informational demand, and (5) communicative demand. Learner related factors, external to task design, were also suggested as issues related to difficulty. We propose a set of task difficulty features that can be used in replication and validation studies to help with the development of a teacher evidence-based model of task difficulty.

This paper illustrates how the description of tasks and task performances can benefit from a methodological and interpretative framework called the Register Functional (RF) approach. The paper first discusses research goals, conceptions of context and linguistic interpretation of task performances in TBLT and the RF approach and then provides a sample study that analyzes two different tasks with respect to methods used in some TBLT research and an RF approach to task description and performance. We then illustrate how the RF approach can be used to functionally interpret lexico-grammatical variation by reference to specific situational characteristics of tasks that allow for linguistic interpretation. The paper ends with a discussion of how the RF approach can aid TBLT issues such as language development, task as process vs. task as workplan, and communicative adequacy.