This study set out to test the theoretical premise of the SSARC model of pedagogic task sequencing, which postulates that tasks should be sequenced for learners from cognitively simple to complex. This experiment compared the performance of three tasks differing in cognitive complexity in a simple-complex sequence versus in the absence of any…

Spelling is a language problem-space, not only a school subject. Successful spelling demands going beyond letter to sound mapping and gaining access to a full representation of the orthographic structure of words. We traced bilingual Catalan/Spanish speakers' spelling performance in Catalan across elementary school in two tasks: isolated words to…

Taking a psycholinguistic orientation within task-based language teaching scholarship, this study investigated the effects of mode (oral vs. written) and task complexity on second language (L2) performance. The participants were 78 Catalan/Spanish learners of English as a foreign language. Half of the participants performed the simple and complex…