Abstract
The current chapter explores what opportunities exist theoretically and empirically for two of the currently most popular approaches in language pedagogy to work together: Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and translanguaging. The chapter begins with an overview of research in TBLT, examining where more of the full linguistic repertoire, instead of just the target language, is brought into focus. Through this examination, we make the argument that there is room for translanguaging in TBLT research, but it has for the most part been filtered out in TBLT research to date. We then look to the guiding principles of translanguaging pedagogy and TBLT to see what differences and similarities exist between the two. Following this analysis of theory, we illustrate how TBLT research can make room for translanguaging by applying this interwoven analysis to data from a TBLT English language class in Vietnam. Finally, we follow this illustration with a discussion of what can be gained through joining translanguaging and TBLT moving forward.
Could it be that all our current pedagogic methods in fact make multilingual development more difficult than it need be, simply because we bow to dominant political and ideological pressures to keep languages pure and separate?
-Lemke, 2002, p. 85
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Notes
- 1.
considering both language pedagogy and the influence of larger social structures on language practices, ideologies, and identities in language learning
- 2.
Although we are aware that Long (2015) argues for a rather more precise definition of TBLT.
- 3.
It should be noted that in the present study, the data on L1/L2 use were gathered in the context of task rehearsal in preparation for the subsequent performance of the same task, which was different from all the studies cited here where there was no rehearsal and only a single task performance (cf. Swain & Lapkin, 2001). Another note was that student groups varied greatly in amounts of L1 use and this also found support in previous studies (Storch & Aldosari, 2010; Storch & Wigglesworth, 2003; Swain & Lapkin, 2000).
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Seals, C.A., Newton, J., Ash, M., Nguyen, B.T.T. (2020). Translanguaging and Task Based Language Teaching: Crossovers and Challenges. In: Tian, Z., Aghai, L., Sayer, P., Schissel, J.L. (eds) Envisioning TESOL through a Translanguaging Lens. Educational Linguistics, vol 45. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47031-9_13
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