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

What to do?Take social context

seriously in TBLL&T...

Strategy 1:Look to theories that

offer social re-specifications of our

phenomena

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

Strategy 2:At a minimum, contextualize

Contextualization =

“understanding and documenting the research context”

(Duff, 2006, p. 76)

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)

Strategy 3:Investigate diverse

contexts& populations

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)...

But...How exactly can social

context be theorized (in TBLL&T)?

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 Youlortega@hawaii.edu

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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