This chapter focuses on the perspectives of a cohort of pre-service secondary school teachers of foreign languages in New Zealand on the value and use of tasks in their own classrooms. As part of their course requirements, the teachers were asked to design and implement a task in their classrooms, and subsequently reflect on its effectiveness. The chapter draws on aspects of those reflections, along with examples of tasks developed, to explore how those novice teachers interpreted the concept of task in action, how they worked with tasks in their classrooms, and the kinds of insights that they gained from the overall process of design, implementation, reflection and evaluation.
Article outline
Introduction
Background
Reflective practice
The present study
Background to the case
The case in question
Participants
Languages programme
Coursework assignments
Tasks in action
Task: Role-plays in groups of three. Languages: Chinese and French
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