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Part of
TBLT as a Researched Pedagogy
Edited by Virginia Samuda, Kris Van den Branden and Martin Bygate
[Task-Based Language Teaching 12] 2018
► pp. 23–50

Chapter 1
How do beginning teachers conceptualise and enact tasks in school foreign language classrooms?

| University of Auckland

This chapter focuses on the perspectives of a cohort of pre-service secondary school teachers of foreign languages in New Zealand on the value and use of tasks in their own classrooms. As part of their course requirements, the teachers were asked to design and implement a task in their classrooms, and subsequently reflect on its effectiveness. The chapter draws on aspects of those reflections, along with examples of tasks developed, to explore how those novice teachers interpreted the concept of task in action, how they worked with tasks in their classrooms, and the kinds of insights that they gained from the overall process of design, implementation, reflection and evaluation.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background
  • Reflective practice
  • The present study
    • Background to the case
    • The case in question
    • Participants
    • Languages programme
    • Coursework assignments
  • Tasks in action
    • Task: Role-plays in groups of three. Languages: Chinese and French
    • Task: Oral presentation. Language: Spanish
    • Task: Whole class survey. Language: Spanish
    • Task: ‘Missing Person’. Language: Japanese
    • Task: Board game. Language: Japanese
    • Task: Problem-solving discussion. Language: Spanish
  • Discussion
  • Limitations and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tblt.12.02eas
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[no author supplied]
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