K. Van den Branden

KU Leuven | ku leuven · Faculty of Arts

This interview with Jonathan Newton explores key issues in task-based language teaching (TBLT), focusing on the relationship between TBLT and textbooks, and the potential for TBLT teacher development building on existing practices and materials. Newton challenges the wholesale rejection of textbooks in TBLT, arguing for “taskification” of existing...

In this interview, Kris Van den Branden (TASK Co-Editor) and Matt Coss (TASK Editorial Assistant) invited international experts Dr. Roger Gilabert and Dr. Aleksandra Malicka to discuss their scholarship and recent thinking on areas of TBLT including needs analysis, syllabus design, task sequencing, and task design.

Studies on on-line planning have been based upon the same definition in the past few decades, and they have operationalized on-line planning in similar ways. Drawing upon theories in cognitive psychology, the present study sets out to propose a revised definition of on-line planning that aims at capturing a greater variety of on-line planning behav...

Research shows that infants and preschoolers can learn novel words equally well through addressed speech as through overhearing two adults. However, most of this research draws from samples of ethnic majority children. The current study compares word learning in preschoolers (M age = 5;6) with an ethnic minority and an ethnic majority background (N...

This study contributes to the explicit implicit debate by investigating to which extent adult learners of Hungarian develop knowledge of new grammar rules, and the proficiency to use them, through listening activities complemented with explicit grammar instruction or not. In a quasi-experimental study, we compared the acquisition of three specific...

Recent studies in the field of language education policy (LEP) have emphasized the agency of educators in language policy implementation, which considerably influences the policy outcome. These studies, however, often focus on LEP measures for newcomers or ethnic minority students, and on the language used for instruction as the main LEP indicator....

This study investigates the differential effects of a task-based inside-school intervention and an outside-school project intervention on the development of speaking skills of 56 beginner second language (L2)-learners. The study extends previous research by looking at development across multiple occasions instead of two (i.e., a pretest and posttes...

This book provides a comprehensive, research-based account of how people learn a second/foreign language and shows how classroom practice can be organised around research-based principles. In the first part, the book provides up-to-date insights into the cognitive, motivational, and emotional dimensions of learning an additional language. In the se...

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is an innovative approach to language teaching which emphasises the importance of engaging learners' natural abilities for acquiring language incidentally. The speed with which the field is expanding makes it difficult to keep up with recent developments, for novices and experienced researchers alike. This handbo...

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is an innovative approach to language teaching which emphasises the importance of engaging learners' natural abilities for acquiring language incidentally. The speed with which the field is expanding makes it difficult to keep up with recent developments, for novices and experienced researchers alike. This handbo...

This study investigates whether participation in classroom interaction and a specific type of affective priming using parents’ pictures had positive effects on ethnic minority children’s L2 vocabulary acquisition. A quasi-experimental study was set up in which preschoolers-at-risk were engaged in a task-based intervention with different types of af...

This article provides a critical analysis of the language policy measures that were taken by the Flemish government (Belgium) to improve the quality of the teaching of the national language (Dutch) in compulsory education in Flanders and in the Flemish education system in Brussels. It builds on Van den Branden (2006a) , which documented the impleme...

School-based language policies (SLP) are expected to have a positive effect on student achievement. To date, few studies have empirically examined the impact of such policies on student outcomes. This study investigates to what extent SLPs are related to pupils’ reading performance from an educational effectiveness perspective. In addition, the stu...

Governmental education policies provide vague, general confines in which local actors have to design concrete policies tailored to their needs. Such policies rely on the local capacities of schools for implementing them. Recently, qualitative studies reveal that a great deal of variation in policy enactment should be attributed to school contextual...

In language classrooms, listening is considered a problematic skill for various reasons. The uncontrollable nature of speech’s speed of delivery plays a major role in these issues. Tight teacher control over the audio input creates even more unfavorable conditions for listeners to sufficiently absorb input. This study explores the positive effects...

This study explores socio-cognitive functions of mother tongue use during group work of bilingual pupils (Turkish-Dutch) in two mainstream primary schools in Flanders (Belgium). In each school, a group of four children performed three different tasks, related to different subjects of the curriculum in order to explore functions of mother tongue use...

It is vital to understand the listening problems students face in a foreign language (FL) classroom. In the current study, students were provided with options to identify these problems. Twenty-eight A1 level Turkish secondary school students worked in pairs and had autonomy to control the audio while listening. While dialogic exchanges illustrated...

This volume presents a comprehensive view on the major challenges educators face in the 21st century, and the ways in which schools can make a difference. It describes key principles that can serve as guidelines for tackling those challenges in an effective and manageable way, looking both at what children should learn, and what they want to learn....

Bringing together experienced classroom researchers and teacher educators from different countries where tasks are playing an influential role in language education, this collected volume critically explores how TBLT research can engage with pedagogy, and how TBLT pedagogy can engage with research. A defining part of the TBLT project has always bee...

University entrance language tests are often administered under the assumption that even if language proficiency does not determine academic success, a certain proficiency level is still required. Nevertheless, little research has focused on how well L2 students cope with the linguistic demands of their studies in the first months after passing an...

Nowadays, pupils bring a variety of languages to school. This study focuses on how school teams perceive the linguistic composition of pupil populations and how this influences their teaching practices regarding multilingualism. The mixed-method design combines a multilevel regression analyses (of data from 1255 teachers in 67 schools) with focus g...

This study investigates the effects of a collaborative multimodal writing intervention in different settings on the development of writing skills of beginner learners of Dutch as a second language. The study extends previous research by using multiple measures to assess writing development and by comparing the impact of different settings, i.e., a...

This study compares the results of three groups of participants on the writing component of a centralised L2 university entrance test at the B2 level in Flanders, Belgium. The study investigates whether all Flemish candidates have a B2-level in Dutch upon university entrance, and whether L1 test takers outperform L2 candidates who learned Dutch at...

Behaviour-tracking technology has been used for decades in SLA research on focused practice with an eye toward elucidating the nature of L2 automatization (e.g. DeKeyser, 1997; Robinson, 1997). This involves longitudinally capturing learners' judgments or linguistic production along with their response times in order to investigate how specific ski...

Scientific research clearly states that people only learn a language after long and repeated practice in a variety of contexts. In reality, however, adult migrants trying to master the language of their new country often lack opportunities to practise their language skills outside the classroom. In this paper we will discuss six guiding principles...

This study explores language choice patterns during group work of bilingual pupils (Turkish–Dutch) in two mainstream primary schools in Flanders (Belgium). In each school, a group of four children performed eight different tasks, related to different subjects of the curriculum. During task performance, they were exceptionally invited to use their m...

Both in the research literature on tasks and second language learning and in the pedagogical literature on task-based language teaching (TBLT), the role of the teacher has received scant attention. In this article, the role of the teacher in TBLT is approached from three perspectives: (a) the teacher as mediator of the students’ language developmen...

While the available research literature appears to support the implementation of task-based language teaching (TBLT) in Western countries, few studies have been conducted to investigate its impact on classroom practice in Asia, especially in comparison with the presentation-practice-production (PPP) approach which many Asian teachers still favour....

This study presents a qualitative analysis of two students’ learning opportunities drawn from a larger, quasi-experimental intervention reported in Van Gorp, De Maeyer and Van den Branden (2009a, 2009b). It focuses on the learning of content and language by two pupils in two primary school classrooms, and on the role of the teacher in enhancing the...

In this article, "sustainable education" is reconceptualized, drawing on the insight that education runs on the energy of students, teachers and all other stakeholders involved. Sustainable education systems are defined as systems in which students' natural energy for learning is renewed (rather than depleted) and no talent gets wasted. Students' e...

In recent years, the student population enrolling in Flemish higher education has become increasingly diverse. Whereas teacher training institutes used to attract mainly students with a diploma of general secondary education, the proportion of students with a technical or vocational educational background has grown substantially over the past ten y...

This article introduces the guiding principles of sustainable education. It starts from the observation that many education systems around the world have launched ambitious programs aiming to raise academic standards and to reconcile concerns for excellence with concerns for equity. However, many of these programs have failed to reach their ambitio...

This collection of original articles provides a state-of-the-art overview of key issues and approaches in contemporary language teaching. Written by internationally prominent researchers, educators, and emerging scholars, the chapters are grouped into five sections: rethinking our understanding of teaching, learner diversity and classroom learning,...

This study investigated the early second language acquisition of Dutch by young Moroccan and Albanian children aged 2;6. The study aimed to identify features of the classroom input that enhanced the children's acquisition of second language vocabulaiy. During the first fifteen weeks the children went to school, all the Dutch input that they were ex...

This semi-longitudinal study examined the development of narrative writing quality of young Turkish second language learners in mainstream Dutch-only education, and the impact of student-level and classroom-level predictors of narrative writing quality, using hierarchical linear modelling. Writing samples of 106 third graders and 111 fourth graders...

IntroductionWhat Is an Innovation?The Central Role of Teachers' ConcernsSupporting Teachers throughout the Implementation ProcessInnovation and Language AssessmentConclusions References

Tasks are not blueprints for action. A number of empirical studies carried out in authentic classrooms have shown that teachers and students reinterpret the tasks they are offered by syllabus developers in ways that suit their own purposes, learning needs, and interaction styles. This observation has raised fundamental questions about the degree to...

Educational priority policy schools differ in the learning outcomes they achieve with second language learners. School effectiveness research suggests that teachers can make a difference, but fails to make clear exactly how they can do so. This quasi-experimental study combines a comparison group design with a control group design to answer the res...

In task-based language teaching (TBLT), defining and manipulating the complexity of language tasks has been claimed to be of crucial importance, in view of sequencing tasks in a task-based syllabus, manipulating tasks to meet specific learners' needs, and assessing language learners' current level of language proficiency. The theoretical literature...

This new volume of work highlights the distinctiveness of child SLA through a collection of different types of empirical research specific to younger learners. Characteristics of children’s cognitive, emotional, and social development distinguish their experiences from those of adult L2 learners, creating intriguing issues for SLA research, and als...

Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) has been gaining momentum around the world during the past twenty years. However, particularly lacking in the body of available publications on TBLT is empirical evidence of the actual activity, interaction and learning processes that tasks give rise to in real classrooms. This volume compiles a number of studies...

Practice as a necessity for learning a second language has been a tacit assumption among language teachers for quite some time; however, the concept has not been widely considered from a theoretical perspective until now. This volume of twelve original articles focuses on the topic, with attention to the four skill areas of reading, writing, listen...

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been attracting the attention of researchers, curriculum developers, teacher trainers and language teachers for many years. However, much of the available literature and research has been from a psycholinguistic perspective, driven by the desire to understand how people acquire a second language. Far less res...

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been attracting the attention of researchers, curriculum developers, teacher trainers and language teachers for many years. However, much of the available literature and research has been from a psycholinguistic perspective, driven by the desire to understand how people acquire a second language. Far less res...

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been attracting the attention of researchers, curriculum developers, teacher trainers and language teachers for many years. However, much of the available literature and research has been from a psycholinguistic perspective, driven by the desire to understand how people acquire a second language. Far less res...

This article describes the development of a task-based test, Taaltoets Instroom Beroepsopleiding (TIBO), designed to measure whether nonnative adult speakers of Dutch possess the level of Dutch language proficiency that is minimally required to enter vocational training in the industrial sector. The test aims to measure functional language proficie...

During the past decade, a body of empirical evidence has become available showing that negotiation of meaning promotes the comprehension of oral input. However, to what extent negotiation of meaning can be useful in reading instruction in order to make written input comprehensible remains an open question. A quasiexperimental study was carried out...

In Flemish secondary schools, non-indigenous pupils underachieve. This is pardy due to the way teachers use Dutch as a medium of instruction. In the past, various pedagogical solutions have been put forward to address this problem. However, none of these appears to be successful, basically because they leave the 'instruction paradigm' unchallenged....

This quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of various types of negotiation on learners' output. Three groups of 16 child learners of Dutch (NSs and NNSs) participated in the study, which asked them to orally describe a series of pictures to a partner in a communicative context. The results showed that the extent to which, and the ways i...

Negotiation of meaning is thought to promote language acquisition in various ways. Paradoxically, both the quantity and quality of negotiation of meaning in the multicultural classroom has been shown to be poor. Particularly non-indigenous pupils with a lower level of language proficiency receive few opportunities to negotiate the meaning of input...