Teachers often repeat language learning tasks and materials with students year after year. Although some tasks do not render satisfactory outcomes, students' performances can serve as valuable historical autoethnographic data that teachers can reflect on to improve their teaching materials and language learning tasks. In this article, using…

Second language (L2) writing researchers have enthusiastically adopted task complexity frameworks in their examination of the effects of complex task features on L2 written performance. However, such research often overlooks the effect(s) of such features on general L2 development as well as L2 writing development. Drawing from Manch?n and…

Mastering the phonological aspects of a second language (L2) poses significant challenges for adult learners, often affecting their intelligibility in acquiring that language (Derwing, Munro, & Wiebe, 1998). McAllister (1997) has highlighted L2 learners' struggles in perceiving and producing novel segmental features, which is corroborated by…

As language programs are endangered in K-16 contexts due to low enrollments, and for budgetary reasons, it is more important than ever to find enduring ways to help promote the study of languages and to make studying languages enjoyable for everyone. For sustainable language education, we need to focus on and promote the true purpose of…

In this dissertation, I will present social-cognitive frameworks that support the use of mental imagery for possible self enhancement; and articulate and evaluate a pedagogical intervention designed for the foreign language class. This intervention will allow students to explore and develop prominent and vivid mental representations (self-schemas)…

Learning a second language is a complex task. Adopting the innovative use of a multimodal literacies approach provides young second language (L2) learners with expanded opportunities to immerse themselves in the target language. This study explored how participants utilized their multimodal literacies along with the level of investment…

Exploring the underinvestigated area of instruction during study abroad, this article offers a quantitative study of linguistic development among second language university learners of Chinese during a semester in China. A comparison is made between learners following task-based language teaching and a comparison group following a traditional…

This paper explores the implementation of task-based language teaching (TBLT) at a military institution in the United States after face-to-face instruction transitioned to virtual mode with the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. The institution implemented TBLT before the pandemic. With the transition to the online mode, an online collaboration…

The learning effects of task-based interaction is an emerging topic in the field of instructed pragmatics for ESL learners. Specifically, researchers are exploring the impact of different task features on pragmatics learning. This article reports a review of the extant research. First, the review aimed to identify specific task design and…

This study aims to provide a comprehensive profile of collocational competence, a key component of one's overall linguistic competence. For the maximum of ecological validity, we elicited naturalistic oral/written production data from 84 Chinese intermediate EFL learners and performed a 2×2 fashion of analysis on their performance in each of the…

Touted as the future of language teaching, task-based pedagogy is grounded in current Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories, and is in line with the trend of learner-centeredness in general education. However, the method has yet to be fully embraced by the language teaching community due to the lack of 1) clear delineation of pedagogical…

The acquisition of communicative competence in second and foreign languages requires the incorporation of verbal and non-verbal elements. Notwithstanding, few studies have performed empirical research into the acquisition of non-verbal signs. This research studies the learning of emblematic gestures for students of Spanish in the USA using an…

The development of new forms of technology has resulted in new methodologies and approaches in pedagogical practices, particularly within the field of foreign language education. This is especially useful in foreign language teaching because it allows students geographically distant to interact remotely. Moreover, the integration of task-based and…

Peer collaboration benefits second language (L2) learning and is a cornerstone of effective classroom instruction. It is, therefore, essential for teachers to consider how tasks work to promote peer collaboration and thus maximize learning. These considerations concern the task type, a task's inherent characteristics, and possible ways of task…

While Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) has been widely researched and accepted as a potentially powerful teaching method in language education around the world, research examining the teachers' beliefs about the impacts of a training on TBLT to date has remained limited. In Vietnam, studies on this topic were scarce (Nguyen & Jaspaert,…