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1 - The Psycholinguistics of Task-Based Performance

from Part I - The Rationale for Task-Based Language Teaching

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2021

By
Peter Skehan
Edited by
Mohammad Javad Ahmadian  and
Michael H. Long
Mohammad Javad Ahmadian
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Michael H. Long
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
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Summary

This chapter explores how tasks connect with psycholinguistic perspectives. Two preliminary sections will explore the nature of learning (and the contrast between explicit and implicit approaches) and the general options available in task-based instruction (tasks themselves, and then task conditions). Then the two areas, learning and task-based instruction, will be related to one another, to explore whether a task-based approach is more consistent with explicit or implicit learning. The general conclusion is that a task-based approach is extremely flexible, and consistent with either. The chapter then moves on to consider second language task-based performance, and its measurement, describing and contrasting the Limited Attention Capacity Hypothesis and the Cognition Hypothesis/SSARC model.

Keywords

Psycholinguistic approachesexplicit and implicit learningtask characteristicstask phasessecond language performance
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Task-Based Language Teaching , pp. 3 - 26
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Doughty, C. (2001). Cognitive underpinnings of a focus on form. In Robinson, P., ed. Cognition and second language instruction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ellis, R., Skehan, P., Li, S., Shintani, N., and Lambert, C. (2020). Task-based language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Long, M. H. (2015). Second language acquisition and task-based language teaching. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Robinson, P., ed. (2011). Second language task complexity: Researching the Cognition Hypothesis of language learning and performance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, P. (2015). The Cognition Hypothesis, second language task demands, and the SSARC model of pedagogic task sequencing. In Bygate, M., ed. Domains and directions in the development of TBLT. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 87–122.Google Scholar
Skehan, P. (2015). Limited attentional capacity and cognition: Two hypotheses regarding second language performance on tasks. In Bygate, M, ed. Domains and directions in the development of TBLT: A decade of plenaries from the International Conference. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 123–55.Google Scholar
Skehan, P. (2016). Tasks vs. conditions: Two perspectives on task research and its implications for pedagogy. In A. Mackey, ed. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 34–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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