Task-Based Language Learning - Insights from and for L2 Writing

325 Pages·2014·1.903 MB·

by  Heidi Byrnes, Rosa M. Manchón

Task-Based Language Learning – Insights from and for L2 Writing
Task-Based Language Teaching:
Issues, Research and Practice (TBLT)
Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) is an educational framework for the
theory and practice of teaching second or foreign languages. The TBLT book
series is devoted to the dissemination of TBLT issues and practices, and to
fostering improved understanding and communication across the various clines
of TBLT work.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
http://benjamins.com/catalog/tblt
Editors
Martin Bygate John M. Norris Kris Van den Branden
University of Lancaster Georgetown University KU Leuven
Volume 7
Task-Based Language Learning – Insights from and for L2 Writing
Edited by Heidi Byrnes and Rosa M. Manchón
Task-Based Language Learning –
Insights from and for L2 Writing
Edited by
Heidi Byrnes
Georgetown University
Rosa M. Manchón
University of Murcia
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Task-Based Language Learning – Insights from and for L2 Writing / Edited by Heidi Byrnes and
Rosa M. Manchón.
p. cm. (Task-Based Language Teaching, issn 1877-346X ; v. 7)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Language and languages--Study and teaching. 2. Task analysis in education. 3. Academic
writing--Study and teaching. I. Byrnes, Heidi, editor. II. Manchón, Rosa, editor.
P53.82.T27 2014
418.0071--dc23 2014022870
isbn 978 90 272 0729 6 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 0730 2 (Pb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 6971 3 (Eb)
© 2014 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other
means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
List of contributors vii
Series editors’ preface to Volume 7 ix
chapter 1
Task-based language learning: Insights from and for L2 writing
An introduction 1
Heidi Byrnes & Rosa M. Manchón
part i. Tenets, methods, and findings in task-oriented theory and research:
The case of writing
chapter 2
The internal dimension of tasks: The interaction between
task factors and learner factors in bringing about learning through writing 27
Rosa M. Manchón
chapter 3
Reframing task performance: The relationship between tasks,
strategic behaviour, and linguistic knowledge in writing 53
Ernesto Macaro
chapter 4
Theorizing language development at the intersection
of ‘task’ and L2 writing: Reconsidering complexity 79
Heidi Byrnes
part ii. Empirical findings
chapter 5
Task repetition and L2 writing development: A longitudinal
study from a dynamic systems perspective 107
Ryo Nitta & Kyoko Baba
chapter 6
Planning and production in computer-mediated
communication (CMC) writing 137
Rebecca Adams, Sara Amani, Jonathan Newton, &
Nik Aloesnita Nik Mohd Alwi
vi Task-Based Language Learning
chapter 7
Task complexity and linguistic performance in advanced
college-level foreign language writing 163
Marcela Ruiz-Funes
chapter 8
Differences across modalities of performance: An investigation
of linguistic and discourse complexity in narrative tasks 193
Judit Kormos
chapter 9
Storyline complexity and syntactic complexity in writing
and speaking tasks 217
Parvaneh Tavakoli
chapter 10
Linking task and writing for language development: Evidence
from a genre-based curricular approach 237
Heidi Byrnes
part iii. Coda
chapter 11
Task, task performance, and writing development:
Advancing the constructs and the research agenda 267
Heidi Byrnes & Rosa M. Manchón
About the authors 301
Author index 305
Subject index 309
List of contributors
Rebecca Adams, Northcentral University and University of Auckland
Sara Amani, University of Auckland
Kyoko Baba, Kinjo Gakuin University in Nagoya
Heidi Byrnes, Georgetown University
Judit Kormos, Lancaster University
Ernesto Macaro, University of Oxford
Rosa Manchón, University of Murcia
Jonathan Newton, Victoria University of Wellington
Nik Aloesnita Nik Mohd Alwi, Universiti Malaysia Pahang
Ryo Nitta, Nagoya Gakuin University in Nagoya
Marcela Ruiz–Funes, Georgia Southern University
Parvaneh Tavakoli, University of Reading

Series editors’ preface to Volume 7
One fundamental premise of TBLT is that tasks create a need to mean both in terms
of creating a semantic space and a demand or reason for meaning-making. In the
process, tasks lead learners to engage in exploring and elaborating familiar form-
meaning mappings, and in making new ones. Moreover, these form-meaning map-
ping processes are embedded within a functional challenge: Performing tasks requires
language users to communicate functional messages to a specified listener/reader in
order to attain a particular goal. This also implies that the listener/reader has a need
to listen or read and, in the process, that the user abides by the genre-s pecific and
social conventions at hand while doing so. Tasks then are intended to have a mate-
rial impact on the kinds of meaning-making processes that students engage in, at
the same time contextualising and motivating the language features they work with.
It follows from this fundamental idea that written as opposed to oral tasks can be
expected to open up distinct meaning-making spaces—textual and interpersonal,
as well as semantic—for teaching and learning. Yet, as the editors of this volume,
Heidi Byrnes and Rosa Manchón, point out, so far the overwhelming focus of TBLT
research has been on tasks undertaken in the oral modality. If only for this reason,
the series editors welcome with particular warmth this new collection of papers that
bring written tasks to centre stage.
In doing so, this volume leads to an inevitable reappraisal of the reasons for the
historic emphasis on oral tasks. In their opening chapter, Byrnes and Manchón rightly
point out that, owing to deeply engrained assumptions about the psycholinguistics of
second language acquisition and about the immediacy of oral language processing,
SLA as a field has generally privileged oral language as a site both for studying and for
promoting language learning. In this respect, TBLT research has largely incorporated
those same assumptions into empirical approaches to task-based learning. But on
exploring closely the role of writing tasks and their rich potential for fostering second
language learning and use, it may start to appear less axiomatic that the oral mode
should be the privileged site for second language learning and hence for TBLT. At the
same time it could also be argued that prevailing socio-cultural perspectives—n otably
an emphasis on the personal and interpersonal dimensions of language—have in some
ways also helped to orientate scholars to oral tasks. Yet, if it is indeed true that a focus
on the design of tasks is likely to be an effective route to mobilising the development of
oral interpersonal language skills, then by the same token, a focus on the role of tasks
in the light of the nature and demands of writing will likely also offer a valuable route
towards the development of L2 writing skills and language more generally.