The Ginger Marcus Foreign Language Learning Speaker Series at WUSTL

Dr. Claudia R. Fernández, Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago

Lecture: Monday, November 6, 2023, 4-5pm in Simon 1

Making it happen: Achieving true communication in the target language through Task-Based Language Teaching

As one of the most researched pedagogies, Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT)  has the potential to transform our current understanding of what communication is about in language learning. A student-centered, action-oriented framework, TBLT impacts not only communicative ability but also language acquisition as it engages students in the types of experiences needed to achieve both. This is because tasks are the vehicles par excellence to create truly acquisition-oriented and communicative experiences; they serve to evaluate language proficiency and for learners to show accomplishment of meaningful communicative goals. Based on her own experience implementing a Spanish basic program within a task-based framework, the speaker will present TBLT’s theoretical foundations and guiding principles that helped her design her curriculum in hopes of being an inspiration for other language programs.

Workshop: Tuesday, November 7, 9 – 10am in Busch 100

Guided by communicative goals: How to create an engaging task-based sequence module for language learning and communicative development

In this workshop, participants will first identify a communicative goal that is likely to be desired, interesting, or useful for their students according to their contexts. Then, they will be guided to design a real-world target task that reflects this communicative goal. Participants will also identify the evaluation criteria with which to measure students’ accomplishment of this target task. Finally, participants will have the information to create, select, or adapt a sequence of pedagogic tasks that would serve as stepping stones for the accomplishment of the target task. The goal is for participants to leave the workshop with a solid draft of a task-based module that can be implemented in their own classes.

*The Ginger Marcus Foreign Language Learning Speaker Series at Washington University in St. Louis is sponsored by the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures; the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures; the Department of Jewish, Islamic and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures; Applied Linguistics Program; the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.