Time & Location
25 Jun 2015, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm GMT+9
University of the Ryukyus
1 Senbaru, Nishihara, Nakagami District
Okinawa 903-0129, Japan
About the Event
Distinguished Professor Rod Ellis
English Language Teaching Seminar
Date and Time: Thursday, 25 June – 19:00 – 21:00
Speaker: Distinguished Professor Rod Ellis (University of Auckland)
Location: University of the Ryukyus, Houbun Shintou, Room 114
JALT members: Free
Non-members: 1,000 yen
Seminar 1 (19:00~19:45) Q&A 1 (19:45~19:55)
Using Tasks in Language Teaching
In the first part of my talk, I will define what a task is and illustrate how tasks differ from exercises. In the second part, I provide a classification of tasks with examples to illustrate different task characteristics and also suggest which types of tasks are best suited to different groups of learners. The third part will then consider how tasks can be incorporated into language lessons in terms of task-supported and task-based language teaching, the rationale for these two ways of using tasks, and the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. The final part of the talk will then consider how teachers can tell if a task has worked. This involves defining what is meant by ‘worked’ and then evaluating whether a task has achieved what it was designed to achieve. The talk will conclude with an example of how a teacher set about evaluating a task.
Seminar 2 (20:05~20:50) Q&A 2 (20:50~21:00)
Consciousness-Raising Tasks for Grammar Teaching
What is ‘implicit knowledge’ of a language? What is ‘explicit knowledge’? Why is it important to develop both types of knowledge when learning English? This talk will provide answers to these questions and then describe an interesting way of teaching and learning explicit knowledge through consciousness-raising tasks. Students will have the opportunity to perform a number of such tasks in order to discover how English grammar works for themselves. The talk will also consider the advantages and limitations of such tasks.
Professor Rod Ellis is currently a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics in University of Auckland, New Zealand. He received a doctorate from the University of London. He has been a leading theorist of task-based language learning and authored more than 30 books and 100 articles on second language acquisition, language teaching, and teacher education.
His books include Understanding Second Language Acquisition (BAAL Prize 1986), The Study of Second Language Acquisition (Duke of Edinburgh prize 1995), Task-Based Learning and Teaching early (2003), Analyzing Learner Language (with Gary Barkhuizen) (2005), Implicit and Explicit Knowledge in Language Learning, Testing and Teaching (2009), and Language Teaching Research and Language Pedagogy (2012).
