Task‐Based Language Learning: A Review of Issues

Abstract

Theoretically motivated, empirical research into task‐based language learning has been prompted by proposals for task‐based language teaching. In this review I describe early and more recent proposals for how task‐based learning can stimulate acquisition processes and the theoretical rationales that have guided research into them. I also describe taxonomies of task characteristics that have been proposed and claims made about the effects of task characteristics on interaction, attention to input, and speech production. I then relate the issues raised to findings described in the five empirical studies in this issue concerning the effects of pedagogic task design on the accuracy, fluency, and complexity of learner language; the influence of individual differences in cognitive and motivational variables on task performance; the extent to which tasks, and teacher interventions, promote the quantity and quality of interaction that facilitate L2 learning; and the generalizability of task‐based learning research in laboratory contexts to instructed classroom settings.