Investigating Tasks in Formal Language Learning

This book contributes to the growth of interest in task-based language learning and teaching that has been seen in recent years. It brings together research that focuses on various aspects and effects of pedagogic task design and presents work that uses tasks to examine oral interaction, written production, vocabulary and reading, lexical innovation and pragmatics in different formal language learning contexts and in different languages (English as a second/foreign language, French/German/Italian/Spanish as foreign languages). It also provides guidelines for task classification, sequencing and design.

The book is addressed to both professionals and students interested in second language acquisition research. It will also be of use to professionals involved in language pedagogy and curriculum design.

Dr. María del Pilar García Mayo is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of the Basque Country (Spain). She has published widely on the L2/L3 acquisition of English morphosyntax and the study of conversational interaction in EFL. Her most recent edited volume is Learning Foreign Languages in Primary School: Research Insights(Multilingual Matters, 2017). García Mayo is the director of the Language and Speech (www.laslab.org) research group, highlighted by the Basque Government for excellence in research in the field, and the director of the MA program Language Acquisition in Multilingual Settings. She is also the editor of Language Teaching Research.