In this chapter, we will focus on tasks as attainment goals (see also Chapter 1 in this volume). Determining and describing target tasks may be regarded as the first step in the process of task-based curriculum design (Long, 1985, 1997, 2005a; Richards, 2001). In describing target tasks for language education and evaluation, a balance will need to be struck between theoretical principles and practicability. What can be argued for theoretically may not always be realizable in real-life language education or assessment. How to deal with practicalities in applying the task-based approach to the description of target tasks will therefore be one of the key issues dealt with in this chapter.

Language learning needs from a societal perspective

When it comes to curriculum design for second language education, two basic questions are usually asked by teachers and syllabus designers: ‘What should language learners learn?’ and ‘How can language learners be stimulated to learn whatever they are supposed to learn?’ A third question which may be equally important from the learners' point of view, but which is very often overlooked except in the field of language education for specific purposes, is: ‘Why?’

Why do so many people all over the world go through the trouble of enrolling in second language courses, buying dictionaries and grammars, spending hours practising grammar rules, experimenting with new sounds and new words, acquiring new orthographic systems and taking nerve-racking exams?