Please cite as:
Ortega, L. (2007). Social context in task-based language learning: (How) Does it matter? Paper presented in the colloquium “Towards an educational agenda for research into task-based language teaching, Martin Bygate convener. Conference on Social and Cognitive Aspects of Second Language Learning and Teaching, University of Auckland, New Zealand, 12-14 April.
Copyright © Lourdes Ortega, 2007
Social Context in TBLL&T: (How) Does it Matter?
Lourdes OrtegaUniversity of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Social & Cognitive Aspects of Second Language Learning and Teaching
Conference University of Auckland, April 12-14, 2007
Challenge for TBLL&T:
Learner experience matters
Depending on their social, linguistic, and personal circumstances, learners do different things with words (i.e., they do different tasks) with different people in different places at different times... with important consequences for L2 learning.
TBLL&T: Learner experience matters...
... But little has been said about possible conceptualizations of social context and their relative value for TBLL&T.
Task-based research
1970s-1980s~Sociolinguistics into SLA: Ellis’s (1985) Variable Competence model; Tarone’s (1988) Capability Continuum model (also Adamson, 1990; Bayley and Preston, 1996; Young, 1991)
Goal: Connections between systematicity, variation, and change, as part of a coherent theory of IL development
e.g., Tarone & Parrish (1988), Yule & Macdonald (1990)
Context (linguistic & social)as a source for linguistic variation
Task-based research
1980s-1990s~The communicative turn: Long (1980), Gass & Varonis (1985), Pica, Kanagy, & Falodun (1993)
Goal: Connections between task communicative demands, variation, and opportunities for learning, as part of a coherent theory of task-based language learning
e.g., Pica (2005)
Task as a substitute for context
Task-based research
1990s~ The cognitive turn: Long (1996), Skehan (1998), Robinson (2001)
Goal: Connections between cognitive demands, variation, and opportunities for learning, as part of a coherent theory of task-based language learning
Research on the here-now/there-then; planning & rehearsal; reasoning demands; motivational tasks; working memory... R. Ellis (2003, 2005), Robinson (2001), Skehan (2003), etc.
Task as cognitive conditioning
Criticisms all along
Sociolinguistic caveats:Aston (1986), Ehrlich, Avery, & Yorio
(1989), Hawkins (1985), Yule, Powers, & Macdonald (1992), Lindemann (2002)
Caveats raised by the social turn:Duff (1993), Coughlan & Duff (1994),
Tarone & Liu (1995), Foster (1998), Nakahama, Tyler, & van Lier (2001), Mori (2002), Storch (2002), Foster & Ohta (2005), Seedhouse (2005), Markee (2006)
Tasks after the social turn
Task-basedL2 use & learning
(blurred boundaries)
Contingency Social context
(blurred boundaries)
Agency Variability
Contingentdata
•Generalization
•Particularization
(only options?)
Epistemology?
Ontology?
Inferences
Contingency:
cf. papers in Chahoulb-Deville, Chapelle, & Duff (2006)
AgencyIntentionality Identity
Power
ConsciousnessGoals
Regulation
Relations with othersSenses of self
Social and cultural worldsAffiliations / Imagination
DialogueResistance
Transformation
AgencyIntentionality Identity
Power
ConsciousnessGoals
Regulation
Relations with othersSenses of self
Social and cultural worldsAffiliations / Imagination
DialogueResistance
Transformation
VariabilityComplementary
Central
Random noise
PsychologicalSLA theories:
Learner-externalvariables
learner-internal IDs
Sociocultural theory:Constitutive of
human experience &
Complexity & DSTheories:
Site of development
Formal linguisticSLA theories
VariabilityComplementary
Central
PsychologicalSLA theories:
Linguistic environmentTasks demands
IDs, learner-externalIDs, learner-internal
Only peripherally donein TBLT research so far
Sociocultural theory:Constitutive of
human experience &
Complexity & DSTheories:
Site of development
Only recently begun asa line of TBLT research
Some theories offering social re-specifications of phenomena:
L2 interaction:Conversation Analysis
L2 grammar:Systemic-Functional
Linguistics
L2 cognition:• Vygotskian theory
• Dynamic Systems theory
L2 learning:Language socialization
L2 self:Identity theory
Contingentdata
Epistemology?
Ontology?
Inferences
Contextualization is a must
Continuum of options:Generalization
[demands well-defined populations, cross-context replication]
Analytic generalization
[generalization to theories, not populations; Duff
(2006, after Firestone, 1993)]Particularization
[understanding singularities the goal]
cf. papers in Chahoulb-Deville, Chapelle, & Duff (2006)
How much TBLL&T research on:
Second & foreignlanguage contexts
Disparate social milieuswith varying L2 use needs
L1 semiliterate/L1 oralpopulations of L2 learners
Varying ages
Heritagelanguage contexts
Big changes in findings and theories would accrue just if diverse contexts & population were investigated (cf. Bigelow & Tarone, 2004; Ortega, 2005; Siegel, 2003; Sridhar, 1994; Valdés, 2005)...
Theories offer a theoretical continuum that ranges from externally documented experience to lived experience in physical, inter-personal, social, political, and cultural-historical context.
Metaphor OntologyEpistemology Methodology
raw - perceived
etic - emic
general – particular
homogeneous – variable
quantitative
qualitative
naturalistic data
elicited data
positivist
constructivist
Critical pragmatic
container
resource
source
Site of struggle, to be transformed
Social context, external or lived?
To me, the importance for L2 learning of diverse experiences in TBLL&T resides less in externally documented experience or fixed environmental encounters and more in experience that is lived, made sense of, negotiated, contested, and claimed by learners in their physical, interpersonal, social, cultural, and historical context.
So, yes, there are options, but...
(Ortega, 2006)
TBLL&Treclaimed
Context Lived, not raw
ContextualizationA must
Diverse contextsA must
Epistemology Diverse
Methodology Range of choices &
continua
Ethics Critical pragmatism
Education
Prioritize: students, teachers, programs
Research
Negotiate: values, social impact, research
choices
How does social context matter in TBLL&T?
What we think we’d like to see:
Tasks as education events Reclaiming the discourse of
TBLL&T
Martin, Gin, John, & Lourdes
The unbearable ineludibility of the social context
“[Studying L2 learning] is in many ways similar to painting a chameleon. Because the animal’s colors depend on its physical surroundings, any one representation becomes inaccurate as soon as that background changes.”
Adapted from Tucker (1999, pp. 208-209),who found it in Donato (1998),
who took it from Hamayan (n.d. given)... And it could also have been written by Tarone!
Thank [email protected]
Chamaleon and books in Kafue National Park, Zambia. Photo from http://www.knoware.co.uk/Travelogues/Zambia%20and%20Botswana/Day%2001.htm
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