Taking Technology to Task: Technology-Mediated TBLT, Performance, and Production

ABSTRACT

Over the last few decades, task-based language teaching (TBLT) has garnered increasing attention from researchers and educators alike. With a strong and growing body of research demonstrating the efficacy of tasks to support and facilitate second language development and performance (e.g., Keck, Iberri-Shea, Tracy-Ventura, & Wa-Mbaleka, 2006), TBLT has become a leading pedagogical approach. Similarly, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has also grown as a field, with the use and integration of technology in the classroom continuing to increase (Petersen & Sachs, 2015). As these fields have matured, a reciprocal relationship has developed (Lai & Li, 2011), with the literature on tasks and technology seeking to not only examine how technology might support and facilitate language learning, but how TBLT might serve as a framework to more thoroughly investigate CALL. In light of the expanding research on tasks and technology, this review article aims not only to provide a current state of the art of how technology-mediated TBLT facilitates and supports second language development and performance, but also to describe how technology can contribute to our understanding of how features of TBLT, such as task design features and task implementation, influence the success of second language acquisition. Suggestions for possible research agendas in technology-mediated TBLT are also made.