TBLT2007 About TBLT

Teacher development and training in Task-Based Language Teaching

Autumn Demaine, Yoko Kusumoto, Chitchon Pratontep

The presentations on teacher development at TBLT 2007 covered a wide range of topics, with emphasis on both in-service and pre-service teachers. The primary themes which emerged in this conference included teachers' perceptions of TBLT, different understandings of task, and the training of in-service teachers. Teacher development is clearly important to TBLT—in order for teachers to implement a task based curriculum, they should be adequately trained in teaching with tasks and familiar with all that TBLT entails. Teachers must also want to use tasks as a unit of learning in their classes; if teachers do not want to teach in a certain way, they will not, so they need to understand the benefits as well as the difficulties of TBLT to make an informed decision. It is also imperative that educators can explain what TBLT is and why it is a valid way of teaching, so they can advocate for the use of tasks or task-based syllabi. Researchers can help in this area by figuring out the best ways to implement TBLT and the benefits that might accrue accordingly. They also can look into how teachers and administrators can be convinced that TBLT is worthwhile and important.

Presentations on pre-service teacher training raised several challenges to the implementation of TBLT (for example: Ogilvie & Dunn; Brandl; and Solares). Teachers’ existing beliefs about language pedagogy posed a major difficulty that many teacher trainers have to overcome. A common belief among pre-service language teachers, evident in several presentations, is that a typical language classroom should focus mostly on linguistic form. For example, Canadian pre-service teachers (Ogilvie & Dunn) initially commented that TBLT did not provide adequate emphasis on language form acquisition. Importantly, though, their attitudes towards learning language via tasks became more positive by the end of the training. This change was in part due to their increased familiarity with TBLT and tasks in general, but also in seeing the effectiveness of tasks in the classroom. Similar findings were apparent in Solares’ study, with teachers learning about TBLT by using tasks as units of learning.

In addition, the perception of what constitutes a task may vary among pre-service teachers, even after they have been exposed to TBLT through training. Xavier examined how pre-service teachers of English in Brazil perceive tasks and exercises. Even though pre-service teachers are aware of distinctions between task and exercise, designing a task on the basis of task-based principles was still a challenge for them.

To further underline the importance of teacher development in TBLT, a study by Brandl offered an example of a language class which relied mainly on a TBLT textbook. The study investigated novice teachers in introductory French classes with minimum TBLT training. Although the textbook assigned for the course had been designed based on TBLT principles, the ensuing instruction differed widely depending on pre-existing teaching skills, teachers’ confidence in the classroom, and external factors such as other textbooks and tests.

In-service teacher training for TBLT can be an even more challenging task. Solares proposed a practical solution by utilizing online tasks for teaching TBLT, which has proven to be particularly appropriate for the training of working teachers. In-service teachers in Mexico who took an online TBLT course found the course interesting, motivating, and useful, and they liked learning TBLT through tasks.

Across all the presentations in the area of teacher development, there emerged a common thread that teachers need to know the history of language teaching methods, from grammar-translation to current discussions of TBLT and communicative language teaching. Such a historical grounding provides them with a context for and better understanding of why current proposals have emerged. Other common threads included the idea that small classes are better for TBLT teacher training (as shown in the study by Solares). Furthermore, the importance of using tasks in TBLT teacher training was exemplified in all studies. Indeed, in the opening and closing plenaries of TBLT 2007, both Samuda and Van Den Branden addressed the need for teacher training; Samuda discussed how task design occurs and how teachers can be better trained to design more effective tasks, while Van Den Branden discussed how tasks and teachers interact in training and in practice.

TBLT teacher development presents a promising future. Teachers who learn through tasks seem to gain positive attitudes and a better understanding of utilizing tasks in their language teaching. However, one of the common challenges addressed in the presentations is that teachers often resort to more familiar teaching methods and use fewer tasks in their teaching even though they recognize the benefits and importance of TBLT.

One current gap in need of attention is that there are very few longitudinal studies on the effectiveness and process of teacher training in TBLT. It would be useful for more to be done in this vein, to see how teachers’ attitudes about TBLT change as they develop and also to see how teacher training changes as TBLT itself further develops. Changes in teachers’ ways of thinking, attitudes, and behavior toward TBLT, teaching follow-up studies, and students' learning outcomes in relation to teacher development can be fruitful areas for future research.

Task-Based assessment: Valuable insights and a promising future

Larry Davis, Yoonah Seong

Assessment is a key aspect of a task-based language teaching program (Long & Norris, 2000), and performance tasks have long been of interest to the language testing community as well. Accordingly, assessment was a major strand within the TBLT 2007 Conference, where assessment-related presentations filled three half-day sessions of contributed papers (N = 11) as well as a colloquium. The presentations represented a broad variety of assessment issues, contexts, and approaches, but on the whole several broad themes seemed to emerge.

The first of these themes was expressed in the title of the colloquium: “Tasks and the integrated assessment of language and content.” Douglas began the session by pointing out that successful completion of a task does not necessarily require knowledge of language, and highlighted the need for both language and context of language use to be included in the test task and assessment construct. Norris and O’Sullivan further extended this point by arguing that the basis for all assessment is (or should be) the intended use(s) of the assessment. Both content and context are key features of this approach, where negotiation with assessment users ultimately leads to a specification of which content and context features are included in the assessment. An example of the integration of language and content was presented by Byrnes, who described the use of genre as a basis for constructing tasks and evaluating performance. Byrnes provided both a conceptual foundation for the use of genre as an organizing concept, as well as a brief account of how this approach was implemented in writing assessment in the German program at Georgetown University. Finally, Mohan described the use of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) as a framework for combining language and content in assessment. Mohan used the example of causal discourse to demonstrate how SFL might inform an approach that gives attention to both form and meaning within the context of classroom formative assessment.

Implementation of task-based assessment was another theme in evidence at the conference. In addition to Byrnes’ account, Gysen et al. described the use of generalized “type tasks” as the basis for both designing test tasks and ensuring consistency across administrations of the Certificate of Dutch as a Foreign Language (CNaVT) examination. A type task was defined as a particular set of parameters and parameter values (derived from models of speaking proficiency) that in turn describe a family of test tasks that should be expected to elicit similar language performances. Consistency across test tasks was also of concern to Härmälä, who used analysis of difficulty parameters as an approach for equating items in a Finnish assessment of vocational English.

A classroom perspective on implementation was provided by Paredes and Munné, who described an assessment that, among other tasks, required students to produce a web page promoting a tourist destination. One challenge was that some students produced web pages that were effective in accomplishing the task goal but did not elicit the language of interest, thereby making evaluation difficult. On a hopeful note, Roppe et al. reported that ratings for content and language were similar on the CNaVT examination, suggesting that domain and language need not be in conflict. Moreover, Roppe et al. suggested that the task-based CNaVT examination was congruent with the Common European Framework of Reference, indicating that content and language and task may be combined in effective assessments that reflect contemporary language learning values in Europe.

In addition to the practical concerns of assessment implementation, several other papers examined theoretical constructs, particularly the notions of task difficulty and performance as conceived by Skehan (1996). Iwashita compared the relative difficulty of an integrated task, consisting of orally recounting a brief lecture or written passage, to a stand-alone task consisting of giving opinions. Although the integrated task was thought to be more cognitively demanding and would therefore influence production, few differences in proficiency were actually observed. In a similar vein, Brindley et al. demonstrated that, as a practical matter, it can be quite difficult to predict the difficulty of a given test item; both teachers and test-takers consistently underestimated the difficulty of items on a reading test (where item difficulty was measured in terms of score). The difficulty of tying task parameters to performance was further highlighted by Vongpumivitch, who found that prompts consisting of very different types of writing (e.g. narrative, description, comparison) seemed to have little effect on scores for content and language outcomes in a written summary task. On a somewhat different track, Sheppard examined the parameters needed to describe task-based language performance. In contrast to the three parameters proposed by Skehan (accuracy, complexity, and fluency), Sheppard suggested that as many as six parameters might be needed to describe performance on an oral narrative task.

A final area of interest to presenters included the traditional testing concerns of validity and reliability. Wijnants et al., also working with the CNaVT examination, described how differential item function (e.g., cultural bias) was addressed within the context of an international standardized examination. Rater bias was examined by Ross, who used Rasch analysis to determine that rater bias in ‘before’ and ‘after’ speaking tests could have considerable effects on measures of improvement over time. The influence of personality was the focus of Ockey’s study, where structural equation modeling was used to measure the effect of personality factors on scores within a group speaking test. Of the many factors examined, higher assertiveness was found to convey a small but significant advantage, and Ockey suggested that personality may in fact function as part of the construct of this particular test.

Overall, presentations provided valuable insights into a wide variety of issues related to task-based assessment, yet opportunities for additional research remain abundant. Although several presentations discussed implementation of task-based assessments, the majority of these presentations examined large-scale tests; development of classroom and formative assessments has yet to receive the same level of attention. Other papers raised the point that task difficulty is still a challenging concept to operationalize in actual assessments, which might suggest that further interaction between empirical and theoretical domains will continue to prove profitable. Finally, we note that the term ‘task-based assessment’ literally asserts the primacy of ‘task’ as the basis of assessment; it was therefore somewhat disappointing that the assessment task was in some cases presented as little more than a prompt for eliciting data. In order to take full advantage of the strengths of the task-based approach, one might hope that future work will recognize the highly contextual nature of tasks and pause to consider the question “why this task?”

Curriculum and TBLT

Nick Chudeau, Leon Potter

Presentations on curriculum development and innovation at the TBLT 2007 conference covered both micro and macro viewpoints as well as diverse educational settings. The mixture of topics and approaches suggests that the area of curriculum inquiry continues to play an important role in TBLT. Indeed, there was a noticeable increase in the number of curriculum-specific presentations (at least eight papers and two poster presentations) compared with some three curriculum-specific presentations given at TBLT 2005 conference (www.tblt.org). In addition, this year’s TBLT conference featured a full colloquium on “Developing a Task-based Language Program for Advanced L2 Learners: from Needs Analysis to Program Evaluation”, which included curriculum-focused presentations. Across the curriculum-related presentations, the aspects which seemed to be of primary interest included curriculum design, curriculum implementation, and curriculum as experienced (by learners and teachers).

Curriculum design was addressed in two presentations which also focused on computer-mediated instruction. First, Hill and Tschudi developed curriculum for conversational Chinese, drawing upon TBLT elements such as fostering student interaction, “chunking,” and authentic input. Additionally, this project was directed by extensive needs analysis data as well as the gathering of actual discourse on which to model their tasks. Along similar lines, Bañados discussed an extensive curriculum (more than 400 hours of instruction) designed for ESL/EFL settings in Chile and implemented through CALL tasks and online multimedia. Elements of task-based curriculum design included working on tasks individually and in groups, scaffolding of information, and a focus on interesting topics (e.g., finding information as a spy, “Lord of the Rings”). Again, these foundational choices reflect the curriculum developers’ intent regarding language learning via tasks. Interestingly, both presentations emphasized approaches which would have learners interact with each other as a key component of task-based learning, despite the technology-mediated nature of the curricula.

Curriculum implementation was also addressed, for example, in a class level pilot-project by Markee, who examined subject-specific task-based learning in U.S. college ESL classes over a semester. Hildén, by contrast, explored task-based curriculum at the national level in Finnish public schools over a three-year implementation period. Both of these presentations highlighted that it was necessary for teachers to adapt to the students’ needs in the classroom, thereby emphasizing that the implementation of task-based curriculum should always be responsive to the actual learners.

Perhaps one of the most unique presentations addressed the implementation of a new task-based curriculum for the specific uses of the U.S. Border Patrol. This presentation was delivered by Burwell, Rodriguez, González-Lloret, and Wickham and explained the challenges of ‘taskifying’ Spanish language instruction for Border Patrol officers. As this project is changing the teaching practices that have been utilized for a hundred years, the resulting data from this project will prove insightful regarding the effectiveness of tasks for language learning. For example, the curriculum will be applied uniformly across many classes to address the broadly common needs of this particular law-enforcement organization. Such uniformity can rarely be achieved in more traditional education environments, and the findings regarding outcomes of instruction should serve to illuminate the effectiveness of large-scale TBLT innovation.

Several presentations addressed the curriculum as experienced, that is, the (re)interpretation of task-based curriculum from a teacher’s or student’s perspective. This aspect was investigated thoroughly by Cobb and Lovick as they examined the challenges and concerns of implementing a task-based curriculum in the Defense Language Institute. In a similar vein, Carless presented on some similar and some unique challenges for implementing task-based curriculum for secondary education in Hong Kong, especially in terms of how teachers’ perceptions dictate what is and is not feasible for implementation. Based on their findings, both of these presentations stressed that the strongest resistance to TBLT came from teachers, due to: (a) lack of understanding about what constitutes task; (b) perceived loss of classroom control; (c) misinterpretation of task-based instructional processes by instructors; and (d) concern with the amount of time required to prepare task-based lessons.

From these and other presentations, TBLT curriculum seems to be growing in importance as a topic of investigation, reflecting perhaps the core principle that TBLT is programmatic in nature (i.e., not just the use of tasks in language classes). Clearly, however, there are still areas in need of attention in the field. One gap is between the curriculum as it is experienced by students and teachers, and the curriculum as it is designed by educationalists often in response to policies. This area is perhaps the most important for future research, in order for “on the ground” experiences with tasks to be able to respond to policy and inform materials/pedagogy development. The diversity of settings for curriculum implementation reported on at the TBLT conference 2007 is also encouraging and informative. This trend towards diverse exploration of task-based curricular innovation and implementation will hopefully continue for the TBLT conference in 2009.

Attitudes and perspectives on the implementation of TBLT

Elisa Chan, Jung Min Lee, Masaki Seo, Mi Yung Park

Within the current field of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), a growing area of interest is teachers’, students’, and even administrators’ attitudes toward TBLT. Are they positive or negative? What affects individuals’ attitudes concerning the use of TBLT? By comparing the various perspectives represented in the presentations at the TBLT 2007 conference, several key themes in this area emerged. As indicated by many of the presenters, it is important and interesting to study this area, as the level of acceptance, comfort, and willingness to engage (i.e., attitudes) by students, teachers, and others can be a major hurdle towards implementation of TBLT methodological principles and approaches.

A first prominent theme focused on students who have been learning the language via a variety of traditional approaches but are subsequently introduced to task-based teaching. Such students initially tend to have negative attitudes toward TBLT; however, upon using and experiencing tasks, they may overcome their original judgments and react more favorably towards TBLT practices. For instance, Hood, Elwood, and Falout reported that after using TBLT in their university EFL classes, Japanese students’ showed more preference for TBLT over the traditional teaching methods (e.g., Grammar Translation and Audiolingual Method). In a similar vein, Suzuki and Collins showed that students found TBLT to be difficult, but fun as well as valuable for their language development. Furthermore, Zannirato reported that Ph.D. candidates in one Italian Literature department did not feel a need to improve their Italian and were reluctant to enroll in the task-based Italian course. However, after engaging in cognitively demanding tasks, students found such further study to be enlightening and useful.

A second theme addressed teachers who have not been given adequate training or support in TBLT and are therefore inclined to hold generally negative attitudes towards it. As Feryok explained, a group of Malaysian secondary math and science teachers, who were not trained in TBLT methods, were required to use a TBLT approach. This requirement led them to lose their sense of control and to give task materials to students with no sense of how to use them; not surprisingly, negative views toward TBLT from teachers and students ensued. By contrast, instructors who have a supportive TBLT system, as in Moser’s study, reported that they enjoyed the TBLT approach. Another important consideration is that new teachers generally have more positive outlooks on TBLT, while established teachers tend to hold negative views toward switching to a TBLT approach. As Cobb and Lovick discovered, established teachers (versus the newer instructors) were not as enthusiastic in creating tasks or using TBLT, and in some cases even pressured the newer teachers to be less eager in their implementation of TBLT. Lastly, attitudes toward TBLT may depend highly on the type of institutional setting, such as private versus public. For example, Wistner, Sakai, and Kikuchi interviewed four Japanese high school teachers who concluded that if teachers must prepare students for university entrance exams, they might not view TBLT as very useful.

Though the attitudes of teachers and students were not always the main focus of a presentation, there were many cases where their attitudes were mentioned in passing. This prevalence suggests that attitudes affect various aspects of TBLT, and more research is needed that specifically investigates attitudes and reactions towards TBLT. In addition, no studies at TBLT 2007 addressed attitudes at the administration level or higher, such as the governmental/policy level, signifying another potential area of exploration. By looking at these different levels, more interest may be garnered for TBLT teacher training and in-service support. Additionally, in order to see more empirically-driven effects of learner attitudes on second language acquisition and instructional outcomes, future research should be conducted in terms of the degree to which positive attitudes toward TBLT and self-perceptions may actually influence language development. In closing, students commonly have positive attitudes toward TBLT, once they become familiar with how it works in the classroom. However, if teachers are constrained, either by exams, lack of training, or lack of support, their attitudes toward TBLT have a tendency to be more negative. In addition, if instructors are already used to one method of teaching and are required to switch, they are inclined to have unenthusiastic reactions toward TBLT, especially without receiving sufficient assistance. Therefore, it would seem that if teachers are provided TBLT training and in-service help, positive attitudes toward TBLT may spread accordingly.

TBLT and SLA: A deeper understanding

Dan Brown, John Davis, Jee Hyun Ma, Munehiko Miyata

While the educational framework of TBLT has shown success in preparing language learners for effective target language use, questions remain to be answered regarding how learners' interaction with/via tasks affects second language development. Several presentations at this year's conference approached TBLT from the perspective of second language acquisition, illuminating several key issues in a diversity of contexts (e.g., adult language programs, K-12 schooling, and higher education in Europe, East-Asia, the US, and South America). A growing body of research is clearly emerging in terms of the language acquisition opportunities that TBLT might present for learners and how tasks can best be used as tools to promote language learning.

Largely sharing a common theoretical grounding in cognitive approaches to SLA, presenters explored a variety of issues situated primarily within instructional settings. Focus on form and the role of corrective feedback in the acquisition of L2 grammar drew considerable attention, with presentations exploring the nature of feedback students receive during tasks and the effectiveness of feedback type and source (Adams, Bowles, Revesz, Toth). Learner variables, such as prior grammatical and lexical knowledge and L2 proficiency, were shown to interact with the efficacy of learner feedback while engaging in tasks. Other variables that were studied included types of interaction (between NNS-NNS and NS-NNS), and the role of the teacher during tasks. Findings in this area suggested the importance of focusing on morphosyntactic elements of students' output that might not otherwise be confronted in communication of meaning with other students during task completion. Pedagogical implications from these studies were diverse and reflected quite distinct educational perspectives. Adams and Toth emphasized that the teacher role in scaffolding and giving feedback on linguistic form during the task is crucial for effective learning to take place. Bowles emphasized considering learners’ perceptions of feedback and other learner variables as key factors that may moderate effectiveness.

Several presentations also shed light on task-based learning and the acquisition of vocabulary. Studies investigated the kinds of lexical production and learning that result across different task types, levels of task complexity, and learner proficiency levels. Different task types were found to elicit particular kinds of vocabulary production. For example, the degree to which new vocabulary is recalled is related to the amount of ‘generative language use’ a task elicits, with some tasks more likely than others to induce learners to engage in detailed analysis and discussion of a given lexical item (Newton). Studies suggested that different kinds of tasks will produce different rates of lexical production and ‘richness’, an important indicator for lexical learning (Schmitt), and that learners at different proficiency levels will vary in lexical output based on the kind of task undertaken (Huang). Finally, task complexity affects vocabulary learning in important ways. Narrative task complexity, for example, affects learner interaction and ‘learning opportunities’; that is, task complexity will determine the degree to which learners use recasts, clarification requests or metalinguistic talk during task discourse (Kim). Overall, papers contributed to an increased understanding of lexical learning within a TBLT framework, particularly the extent to which various dimensions of a given task help or hinder vocabulary acquisition.

Robinson's Cognition Hypothesis was put to the test in quite a few papers, with particular emphasis on the effects of task type (task complexity and task conditions) on learners’ oral language output. Choong and Han explored the relationship between task complexity and output complexity, and they claimed the need for differentiating between content complexity and form complexity, thus problematizing Robinson’s conceptualization of task complexity. Michel et al. showed that increased task complexity led to positive effects on accuracy and lexical complexity, while interactivity resulted in higher accuracy and fluency but lower linguistic complexity. Van Daele et al. showed the effects of planning time on language output from long- as well as short-term perspectives.

The cognitive paradigm of conceptualizing language learning within TBLT did not go unchallenged. Some presenters argued that the current TBLT cognitive theorizations do not explain certain socio-cultural/language-use aspects of language learning during task interactions. Jaespert's paper, for example, argued for this position, showing how varying frequency/learning of certain Dutch grammatical morphemes could not be accounted for by any cognitive model. In addition, though, it may be that more work needs to be done in order to more fully understand how cognitive variables (and theories) interact with task-based learning. Peter Robinson and Peter Skehan’s cognitive paradigms are informative places to start, though much remains unknown. Work from other cognitive theories such as connectionism, emergentism, and constructivism might help shed light on other relevant cognitive aspects of task-based language learning. It will also be informative to explore how TBLT stimulates acquisition in other areas of language use, such as genre-specific skills in discourse management or pragmatics.

Overall, it is encouraging to see that presentations on SLA-TBLT focused on a diversity of contexts, including several languages (Dutch, French, Spanish, etc.) other than English. While the majority of studies directly related to SLA focused on oral communication tasks, there was some attention given to diverse modalities (Koestner, Loucky, D. Schmitt, Vatz, Vongpumivtch). Finally, though there were few longitudinal studies on SLA within the TBLT framework this year (one exception was Van Daele, et al.), we are looking forward to seeing more longitudinal studies examining learners’ language developmental processes from diverse perspectives (e.g., including potentially socio-cultural approaches) in TBLT education by the 2009 conference.

Incorporating technology into TBLT

Samtha Ng, Jason Sung

Presentations on TBLT and technology at the 2007 conference were informative and insightful, particularly because both TBLT and technology on their own (and of course as a package) are relatively new (and rapidly developing) fields in language education. These presentations leverage on state-of-the-art research, cutting-edge practice and delivery, and the information distilled to date to give us a much clearer idea as to how TBLT can be used through, and with the help of, technology. What has also emerged is how popular the use of technology is, not only in relation to TBLT, but also how it has caught the eye of both learners and scholars in the field. There are challenges to be sure, but also plenty of advantages in utilizing technology to deliver language courses, whether in part or in whole, and whether synchronously or otherwise. Such advantages include a reduction in spatial and time limitations, as well as the possibility of on-demand access suiting the needs of many adult learners. Presentations also successfully showed how the use of technology might help tasks and TBLT become more real and interesting to language learners.

The incorporation of technology into TBLT can be a difficult process due to the nature of tasks. In TBLT, language skills are acquired by “doing” an activity or “task”; therefore, how the interaction and the ‘reality’ of task-doing can be created online is a crucial aspect of technology-mediated TBLT courses. Along these lines, Bañados provided an excellent example of how technology could be incorporated into TBLT. One of the salient advantages of technology is that it can provide a variety of visual inputs and create a virtual ‘real-world’ environment. The software that Bañados presented took full advantage of technology in this aspect; each task, regardless of its type, was designed with numerous multimedia files to create a simulated real-world environment that is impossible to replicate in traditional chalkboard classroom settings.

Another exemplary approach to technology-mediated TBLT was created by Zhang-Hill and Tschudi. Unlike the software that Bañados presented, their course was created with just $3,000, by incorporating free software (such as Google Earth) to provide the multimedia settings. In contrast to the notion that the adoption of technology or the development of software always necessitates plush funds, their work evidences an alternative way of providing a task-based course online.

Rich multimedia inputs and multiple tasks are, of course, useless unless learners are able to access them, or at the very least, know how to. Tuzi elaborated on the issues related to offering technology-based TBLT courses, proposing the fundamental need to investigate the technological limitations learners face such as internet accessibility, computer skills, and even funding. For example, some of the students in his class did not know what are generally considered basic terms on the keyboard, such as “tab” or “enter”, something that many students and teachers might take for granted.

Fancy technology can, however, alter the course so that it deviates from TBLT principles. To prevent such deviations, TBLT instructors should be faithful to the process of TBLT and base the course on the theoretical constructs and principled approaches of TBLT. Loucky’s presentation, like Hill and Tschudi’s, provided a clear guide on how to offer an online task-based course. In both presentations, TBLT principles prevailed, such as incorporating a needs analysis and following pre-task, during-task, and post-task procedures, and use of task-based assessments, all key aspects that were not as salient in other presentations. These presenters clearly showed how to implement TBLT principles within technology-mediated environments.

Aloesnita and Adams reported on an offline technology-related experiment where English was taught to engineering students in Malaysia in order to raise their communication skills in text chat format. The medium of text chat was chosen because those particular students had to help their clients resolve technological problems through text chat or e-mail. The hypothesis of the experiment was that the group that was exposed to language support such as modeling and grammar explanation on certain areas would produce fewer errors during the text-chat communication, but the result was at least partially controversial. The group that received language support made more errors overall, although they did make fewer errors in the areas where they received the language support. Finding out the reasons why will be the next step of their study.

Based on these and similar presentations, areas for further attention in technology-mediated TBLT might include what types of tasks are better (in which situations and under what conditions) and why, insofar as the use of technology is concerned. The field is definitely still under development, with considerable interest still paid to demonstrating the potential of programs and software, and less to the process of applying theory to practice, or investigating and understanding how certain instructional (including technological) conclusions may be drawn. Perhaps the seeming predilection to create sophisticated (expensive and time-consuming) software has resulted in less attention as yet to core TBLT principles. Meanwhile, people popping up on the screen, showing actual pictures of buildings, and mapping out real streets using Google Earth, for example, are all good ideas, though potentially very taxing (especially time- and cost-wise) to actually create or implement.