Task-Based Language Teaching in a Japanese University

要旨

This case study describes the planning, implementation and evaluation of a two-year task-based language teaching (TBLT) strand within an English major curriculum at a Japanese university. The project took place over a five-year period between 2001 and 2006 in a relatively challenging context for TBLT. The prevailing opinion was that learners did not have specific needs for English, necessitating general language instruction. With the purpose of providing more focused, goal-oriented instruction, the project incorporated a task-based needs analysis (Long, 2005) that triangulated information from employment records, interviews and a sequence of surveys to build a consensus on the critical second language tasks faced by graduates (Lambert, 2010). This information fed into the design, implementation and evaluation a two-year TBLT program. The case study describes the project as input for TBLT projects in similar contexts.

主題