Tasks in Action: Task-Based Language Education from a Classroom-Based Perspective

Tasks in Action: Task-Based Language Education from a Classroom-Based Perspective

Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) has been gaining momentum around the world during the past twenty years. However, particularly lacking in the body of available publications on TBLT is empirical evidence of the actual activity, interaction and learning processes that tasks give rise to in real classrooms. This volume compiles a number of studies that describe what learners and teachers, in various educational contexts, actually do when they are asked to perform tasks as part of their regular classroom activity. As such, the volume provides valuable new insights into the implementation of task-based language teaching and vividly illustrates how classroom practice can inform future theory-building and research on TBLT.

All the chapters in this book are based on papers that were presented during the first International Conference on Task-Based Language Teaching, which was organised in Leuven in September 2005 by the Centre for Language and Education of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.


Kris Van den Branden is a Professor of Linguistics at the Faculty of Arts of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. At the same university, he is the current director of the Centre for Language and Education. He is also one of the directors of the Flemish government-subsidized Centre for Equity in Education. Kris Van den Branden’s main research interests are with interaction in second language acquisition, the implementation of task-based language teaching, the diffusion of educational innovation and the role of the teacher in language teaching. Kris Van den Branden has published a wide range of articles and books in Dutch and in English.

Machteld Verhelst is a staff member of the Centre for Language and Education. She conducted her Ph.d. research on the acquisition of Dutch as a second language by young infants in Brussels. She is the current supervisor of the research programme of the Centre for Language and Education, and has published a wide range of articles and syllabuses with regard to task-based language education. Her main research interests are with early second language acquisition (by young children) and the acquisition of second language vocabulary.

Koen Van Gorp is a staff member of the Centre for Language and Education. He is currently conducting a Ph.d. research into the classroom variables that have an impact on second language learning and school success. He has published a wide range of articles and syllabuses with regard to task-based language education. He also supervises the development of a new task-based syllabus for the teaching of Dutch at primary school level. His main research interests are with the impact of classroom variables on learning in general, and language learning in particular, on content-based language learning and on peer interaction.

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ISBN: 1-84718-243-7

ISBN13: 9781847182432

Release Date: 25th January 2008

Pages: 305

Price: £39.99

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