Keynote speakers

Naoko Taguchi - Rick de Graaff - Parvaneh Tavakoli - Detmar Meurers

Naoko Taguchi - High-immersion virtual reality for pedagogic task development: Potentials and challenges

Northern Arizona University (United States)

Naoko Taguchi is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Northern Arizona University where she teaches courses in TESOL and linguistics. Her research interests include L2 pragmatics, technology-enhanced language learning, and intercultural communication. Her recent book publications include Teaching and learning pragmatics in the globalized world (special issue with the Modern Language Journal, 2021), Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics Pragmatics Volume (co-edited with Daniel Kadar, in press), and Task-based interaction and learning in L2 pragmatics (special issue with Language Teaching Research; co-edited with YouJin Kim, in press). She is currently the co-editor of Language Learning and Applied Pragmatics, and serves on the editorial/advisory board for 11 journals and book series including the Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and Language Teaching.

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has gathered much interest in recent years as a promising technology to boost L2 learning. High-immersion VR, or VR that provides a 360° view of virtual surroundings through a headset, provides unique affordances for language learning, including heightened sense of presence, embodied learning, and learner autonomy (Chun et al., 2022; Kaplan-Rakowski, 2024). These affordances are considered to enhance learners’ language use and learning outcomes. Specifically, interactions occurring in a VR space are deemed realistic and relevant to learners because they are situated in a lifelike environment and contextualized with sensory-rich, multimodal input. In this presentation, I will first discuss how affordances of VR can leverage pedagogic task development. I will then present my recent study exploring the potential of a social VR task for developing interaction abilities in L2 Spanish. Learners’ perceptions of the VR task examined through survey and interview data, along with their learning outcomes, will be presented and evaluated according to the characteristics of pedagogic tasks under the TBLT framework. I will conclude my presentation with implications and future directions for the task-based leveraging of the immersive VR technology.

Rick de Graaff - What makes successful task based language teacher training?

Utrecht University (the Netherlands)

Rick de Graaff is a professor of foreign language pedagogy and multilingual education at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. After obtaining his PhD from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, he has worked at Utrecht University as a curriculum development consultant, language teacher educator and foreign language acquisition researcher. He supervises PhD research by language teachers in designing, improving and evaluating their own teaching practices.

Abstract

Task based language teaching aims at creating authentic opportunities for language learning. Over the past thirty years, researchers, teacher educators and fellow teachers have inspired teachers to create and apply tasks as a means and a goal for communicative language development. However, for many teachers TBLT is still a challenging endeavor. What if testing practices focus on a structural syllabus? What if textbooks hardly facilitate or support task-based approaches? What if students or parents complain that the learning gains are not sufficient? I will address these challenges and concerns, and discuss contexts, approaches and limitations for successful task based language teacher training, taking into account current language curriculum proposals in the Netherlands.

Parvaneh Tavakoli - Task performance across assessed levels of proficiency: Using CALF measures to generate insight into L2 assessment

University of Reading (United Kingdom)

Parvaneh Tavakoli is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Reading. Parvaneh’s main research interest lies in the interface of second language acquisition, task-based language teaching and language assessment. She is specifically interested in performance across levels of proficiency and in different task designs. Parvaneh has led several international research projects investigating second language performance, acquisition, assessment, and policy in different contexts. She has disseminated her research in the form of articles in prestigious journals (e.g., The Modern Language Journal, SSLA and Language Learning), policy reports (e.g., Report to Welsh Government), and books by key publishers (e.g., Cambridge University Press and Equinox).

Abstract

Research in TBLT and language assessment are interconnected as they have converging interests in second language (L2) ability and performance. The core of this common interest is linked to concepts such as the use of tasks in teaching and assessment, development of communicative L2 ability, and identifying measures and criteria that represent L2 ability and its development. This plenary talk will focus on the relationship between the two disciplines and investigates the extent to which they can inform one another in order to develop a better insight into characterising performance in different tasks and levels of ability.

Detmar Meurers - Connecting AI-supported individual practice to a task-supported classroom

IWM Leibniz Institute & Tübingen University (Germany)

Detmar Meurers is a professor of computational linguistics at the University of Tübingen, where he is active on the steering board of the LEAD Research Network in Empirical Educational Science and was recently appointed to the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM) as head of the new "Language and AI in Education" research group there. His research focuses on computational linguistic methods in second language acquisition research, and he likes to investigate basic research questions through the development of AI-based tools supporting real-life education needs. This includes linking linguistic complexity analysis to the adaptive provision of developmentally proximal input to learners, or investigating the link between practice in an intelligent tutoring system and authentic task performance.

Abstract

In current foreign language teaching practice in German schools, there is a common disconnect between the generally shared goal of fostering functional language use in tasks and the use of workbooks and examinations with exercises that are unconnected to this goal. The focus on exercise-based practice is shared by Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), which in principle can support individual language learners by adaptively selecting appropriately complex exercises on developmentally proximal learning targets and by provide feedback on learner answers to scaffold their learning. While this helps address some of the substantial heterogeneity of students, this will only become effective and enable more students to actively participate in class if the individualized practice is meaningfully connected to the functional language use in the classroom. In this talk, I present our ISLA research on the ITS FeedBook and its use in real-life school education. I focus on how the individualized practice is organized as pre-task activities and the learner is informed and motivated through criterial information displayed in a learner dashboard to link their mastery of curricular language means to functional language tasks in class. The setup supports systematic research into the characteristics of practice facilitating transfer-appropriate processing, i.e., the transfer of skills proceduralized through practice to other activities and tasks. I discuss results from several randomized, controlled field studies fully embedding the system use in authentic school contexts.