In TBLT research, there is a noticeable lack of attention to the use of tasks with whole classes. This study seeks to address this gap by investigating the discourse of whole-class task-based teacher-student interaction compared to other types of teacher-student interaction in EFL classrooms in a primary school in China. A total of 223 pedagogic sequences from 16 EFL lessons taught by Chinese teachers to Grade 1 to 5 primary school student were recorded, transcribed, and coded as tasks or non-tasks using the four defining features of tasks proposed by Ellis and Shintani (2014. Exploring language pedagogy through second language acquisition research. London: Routledge ). The analysis revealed that 95 sequences were task-based, 44 were non-task-based (i.e. they contained none of the four task features) and a further 84 sequences were also non-task-based but contained some but not all the four task features. In terms of the discourse features of task versus non-tasks sequences, task sequences had a higher ratio of teacher talk to student talk, a higher frequency of IRF exchanges, a lower frequency of teacher-class interaction, a lower frequency of teacher-initiated exchanges, a higher frequency of FoM exchanges and a lower frequency of FoFs exchanges, and a higher frequency of both display and referential questions. Overall, the findings provide process-oriented evidence for the distinctiveness of task-based teacher-student interaction.

Language teacher cognition concerning second language (L2) pragmatics is an under-researched sub-field in language teacher cognition research. L2 pragmatics is also overlooked in many L2 teacher education programs. To address these gaps, this study adopted a within-site case study design to investigate the knowledge, beliefs and teaching practices of 14 Vietnamese teacher educators of English about how to teach L2 pragmatics and their actual teacher education practices. Data was collected through a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and classroom observations. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that the teacher educators fell into two broad and equally sized groups differentiated by the extent to which they were able to articulate what L2 pragmatics is, why it is of value, and how they addressed it in their teacher education. The findings offer insight into how to improve the quality of English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher education in Vietnam and similar contexts regarding L2 pragmatics and teacher training.

Teacher research (TR) has become popular as a transformative continuing professional development (CPD) activity for in-service teachers. In Vietnam, English as a foreign language teachers carry out TR through a top-down national scheme called ‘ Sang kien kinh nghiem’ (‘initiatives–experiences’ (I-E)) to explore and attempt to resolve classroom issues through the application of ‘innovative solutions.’ This paper reports a part of a larger study which examines I-E scheme implementation. It focuses on the narratives of two teachers who engaged with the I-E scheme. The narratives, constructed through narrative analysis from narrative frames, semi-structured interviews, and the teachers’ I-E reports, reveal the affordances and hindrances in the experience of the teachers when engaging with the I-E scheme. The paper offers insights into TR for teachers’ CPD in Vietnam and has implications for effective implementation of TR for teachers’ CPD elsewhere.

While it is widely accepted that language teachers require knowledge of second language acquisition (SLA) (Richards, 2010), what about content teachers, who are increasingly required to help develop their learners' academic language proficiency? How much do they need to know about SLA theories and how can they acquire such knowledge and expertise? This article proposes P. Nation's (2007) four strands framework as a straightforward and accessible model for content and language integrated learning (CLIL) teachers to address the challenge of balancing content and language instruction, a common concern within CLIL programs. The article begins by looking at two well-known CLIL teacher competence frameworks. It then raises questions about the extent to which CLIL teachers need to master aspects of pedagogical content knowledge about SLA. The authors argue that while CLIL teachers do indeed need knowledge of how languages are learned and of SLA-informed approaches to developing learners' second language (L2) proficiency, questions about just how much SLA knowledge CLIL teachers need and how they can be equipped with this knowledge remain unanswered. By delineating language learning opportunities into the four strands framework-meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development-the authors illustrate how this framework offers a practical guide for integrating language and content education effectively in CLIL and bilingual education contexts. The article ends with a presentation of three principles to help CLIL teachers achieve both the content and language teaching objectives of CLIL.

Although teachers have access to a great deal of scholarship on teaching academic vocabulary (AV), much less is known about the experiences and perceptions of English language learners regarding AV. To address this gap, we used an online metaphor elicitation survey and follow-up interviews to collect data from 432 undergraduates at a Hong Kong university on their experience of learning AV. For this paper, we focus on the 199 students whose metaphors related to difficulties or challenges. A thematic analysis of this data showed that about two-thirds of this subgroup perceived AV to be inherently difficult, while for the other third, the challenge primarily concerned their negative perceptions of their experience or abilities. We conclude by arguing for the value of understanding learner perspectives and proposing specific teaching strategies for addressing each of the perceived challenges.

This paper reports on the implementation of a 6-month collaborative teacher education project (CTEP) in China, designed to help teachers adopt CLIL in response to new primary school curriculum requirements. A multi-site case study was conducted to track two focal teachers' changes in CLIL implementation and its sustainability. Adopting ecological theory, the study investigated how teachers' interactions with university-based, district-based, and school-based teacher educators in the project contributed to their professional development. Our research focused on an innovative dimension of the project, namely, close collaboration among university researchers, teacher educators, and primary teachers who all contributed to the CTEP ecosystem. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews at the pre-stage, while-stage, post-stage, and delayed post-stages of the project, classroom observation notes, lesson study minutes, field notes, informal exchanges, and project documents. Our data analysis revealed that although both teachers had a positive attitude towards CLIL, they exhibited different trajectories of changes in their pedagogical practices. The teachers' interactions with teacher educators within and across the four sub-contexts in the CTEP ecosystem played a significant role in their professional development. Notably, the school-based teacher educators contributed by establishing a collaborative teaching study group (TSG) that ensured sustainable professional development for the teachers. The findings of this study have important implications for educational policymaking and for designing and implementing collaborative teacher education programmes that offer an alternative to traditional top-down modes of language teacher professional development.

Abstract 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 materials as a pragmatic approach for teachers. He discusses the utility and limitations of task criteria (Meaning, Gap, Own Resources, Outcome — “MGOO”) as a heuristic for teachers, emphasizing the need for clearer conceptualization and application across different task types. The interview highlights the importance of building on teachers’ existing practices when introducing TBLT principles, rather than approaching TBLT from a highly theoretical angle. Newton reflects on TBLT implementation in Asian contexts, noting the diversity of educational settings and the potential of TBLT to enhance student motivation and agency. The interview underscores the value of teacher-researcher collaboration in developing practical, context-appropriate TBLT approaches.

This study reports on a six-month collaborative teacher education programme designed to support the implementation of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in the Chinese primary education context. ‘Activity theory’ was used as an analytical framework to investigate the changes in cognition regarding CLIL experienced by two teacher educators – one at district level and the other at school level – and the factors that contributed to shifts in their cognition. Thematic analysis was conducted on data consisting of semi-structured interviews, field notes, a reflective report, and project meeting minutes. Results indicate that for both teacher educators, the programme functioned as an activity system that facilitated the emergence of advanced cognition of CLIL over the six months of the project, and did so along two distinct trajectories, one focusing on pedagogical applications of CLIL tenets and the other centring on implementing CLIL as an educational policy. The results also show how the collaborative nature of the teacher education programme fostered the expression of diverse views as well as shared motives through frequent interaction and co-construction of knowledge. As such, it offers a viable alternative to more traditional top-down approaches that are used to foster the professional development of teacher educators.

In Cambodia, the shift to on-line learning due to Covid-19 reinforced an already overly teacher-centric approach to education, leading to the risk of greater learner disengagement. To address this problem, I3 embarked on a research project involving the redesign of the on-line delivery of a final year English teacher education course on ‘School and Society’, in which all lectures were replaced with jigsaw reading (JR) and peer teaching (PT) tasks. To track the impact of this innovation, I recorded class sessions, kept observation logs, and obtained data from students’ reflective journaling, interviews, and a focus group. This paper reports on the design principles behind the innovation and its impact on student motivation and engagement. The research has implications for on-line teacher education and the introduction of learner-centered pedagogies in global south contexts.

School children in China’s remote Northwestern region are generally from poor farming villages where English language education presents significant challenges, particularly since the implementation of China’s 2001 English curriculum innovation requiring tasked-based language teaching (TBLT). This one-month field study, set in a typical rural secondary school, investigated the degree to which the curriculum aspirations for TBLT were reflected in classroom practices in the school. Participants were ten 7th-grade teachers of English. Data included lesson observations, interviews, and field journals. Findings showed that classroom practices did not conform to the principles of TBLT, though some efforts in using task-like activities were observed. The contributing factors influencing classroom practices were multifaceted with teacher education the most salient. This result indicates that teacher preparation for TBLT needs to be tailored for the rural context if it is to have any chance of gaining a foothold in this context.

This article provides an account of how presentation-practice-production (PPP) textbook lessons were turned into task-based lessons which were then implemented in three Grade 4 classrooms in primary schools in Vietnam. This account seeks to address a topic of considerable practical value for teachers interested in teaching with tasks, namely, how PPP lessons can be adapted for task-based teaching. The article outlines lesson redesign and key steps in the process. Reflections on the lesson design and implementation provide implications for teachers and teacher educators.

This chapter brings a classroom-based, teacher-oriented perspective to the topic of teaching second language (L2) speaking. It explores the practical classroom realities, contingencies and challenges experienced by teachers, and draws on research related to these issues. This approach reveals the maze of deep-seated educational, sociocultural, and learner-internal issues that, in many educational contexts, make teaching L2 speaking uniquely challenging to teach. Giving credence to the practical factors teachers face in teaching L2 speaking is a crucial step in building bridges between the lived experience of teachers and the concerns of SLA theory-building and research. A step in bridge-building, as illustrated here, is teacher research, which takes as its starting point real world issues experienced in specific educational ecologies, and which offers tangible, workable innovations with transformational potential.

The Effect of Topic on EFL Writing by Vietnamese Tertiary Students: Insights from Combining a Lexical Richness Analysis with Student Self-Reports

Research on the acquisition order of inflectional morphemes in English has shown that third-person singular –s (3SG–s) is challenging to acquire and acquired later than be copula by both L1 and L2 learners of English. In a departure from the usual practice of controlled elicitation, the current study investigated the production of these two forms by Vietnamese EFL learners in oral communication tasks performed in intact classrooms. Vietnamese L1 does not inflectionally mark 3SG–s although the construction of be copula in Vietnamese and English shares some features. These differences motivated the selection of the two target forms. Nine pairs of Vietnamese EFL university students were recorded performing five communicative tasks generated contexts for use of 3SG–s. over three weeks in their normal classes. Performance data were transcribed and analyzed for frequencies of production and omission of the two target forms in obligatory contexts. After completing the tasks, the students were interviewed about what they attended to when performing the tasks. Interview transcripts were analyzed thematically. Results show that the learners omitted 3SG–s in most obligatory contexts and across all tasks. They were better at accurately producing be copula than 3SG–s but accuracy rates varied between learners. Interview data revealed the conscious decisions learners made concerning the accuracy of their language production. The findings are discussed with reference to different theoretical models. The study advances understanding of acquisition of 3SG–s and be copula by EFL learners and offers pedagogical implications for how a focus on inflectional forms can be managed in oral communicative task performance.

The presentation-practice-production (PPP) approach is used in primary schools in Vietnam to teach speaking skills. However, there is disagreement about the theoretical validity and practical efficacy of PPP (Ellis, 2018; Willis & Willis, 2007) and little research evidence for how teachers actually implement PPP and their views of this approach. The current study addresses this gap. Seven teachers from six primary schools in Vietnam were observed teaching 11 PPP speaking lessons and were then interviewed on their experience of teaching the lessons. Analysis of the observation data showed that all seven teachers followed all three phases of the PPP sequence in their lessons. However, they frequently added interactive activities to the presentation phase and adapted production activities to make them more communicative. The teachers held mixed views of PPP: Three spoke positively of its value for lower level classes, another teacher was somewhat neutral while the remaining three teachers were dismissive of it and actively sought to adopt a more communicative approach. Overall, findings from the study reveal limitations of the PPP approach as it is practiced in this context and highlight affordances for making PPP more communicative, including drawing on principles of effective task design.