Learner Perception of Learning Tasks

Kumaravadivelu, B.

doi:10.1075/itl.152.06kum

Article published In: Task-Based Language Teaching:
Edited by Kris Van den Branden and Machteld Verhelst
[ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics 152] 2006
► pp. 127–149

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Learner Perception of Learning Tasks

B. Kumaravadivelu | San Jose State University, California

Published online: 1 January 2006

https://doi.org/10.2143/ITL.152.0.2017866

Abstract

In the context of task-based language teaching, a challenge facing the language teaching profession is to determine how learners perceive and treat the formal and functional properties of language learning tasks. The preliminary study reported here presents the interplay between teacher objectives, task input, peer interaction and learner perception of transactional tasks. The study shows that the formal, functional and interactional dimensions of a task seem to operate in tandem when learners perform a task in order to get business done in the classroom and, by extension, in the outside world. The study also suggests that the boundaries of the three dimensions are blurred in the learners' mind, and that the degree of attention to the three dimensions is determined largely by learners themselves. This finding has implications for the study for task development, task complexity and also for larger issues of syllabus and methodology.

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