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 Ortega
University 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
Context (linguistic & social)
as a source for linguistic variation
e.g., Tarone & Parrish (1988), Yule & Macdonald (1990)
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
Task as a substitute for context
e.g., Pica (2005)
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 taskbased language learning
Task as cognitive conditioning
Research on the here-now/there-then; planning & rehearsal;
reasoning demands; motivational tasks; working memory... R. Ellis
(2003, 2005), Robinson (2001), Skehan (2003), etc.
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
Contingency
Social context
(blurred boundaries)
Task-based
L2 use & learning
(blurred boundaries)
Agency
Variability
Contingency:
Contingent
data
Ontology?
Inferences
•Generalization
•Particularization
(only options?)
Epistemology?
cf. papers in Chahoulb-Deville, Chapelle, & Duff (2006)
Intentionality
Consciousness
Goals
Regulation
Agency
Power
Dialogue
Resistance
Transformation
Identity
Relations with others
Senses of self
Social and cultural worlds
Affiliations / Imagination
Intentionality
Consciousness
Goals
Regulation
Agency
Power
Dialogue
Resistance
Transformation
Identity
Relations with others
Senses of self
Social and cultural worlds
Affiliations / Imagination
Complementary
Variability
Psychological
SLA theories:
Learner-external
variables
learner-internal IDs
Random noise
Formal linguistic
SLA theories
Central
Sociocultural theory:
Constitutive of
human experience
&
Complexity & DS
Theories:
Site of development
Complementary
Psychological
SLA theories:
Linguistic environment
Tasks demands
IDs, learner-external
IDs, learner-internal
Only peripherally done
in TBLT research so far
Variability
Central
Sociocultural theory:
Constitutive of
human experience
&
Complexity & DS
Theories:
Site of development
Only recently begun as
a 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 respecifications of phenomena:
L2 grammar:
Systemic-Functional
Linguistics
L2 interaction:
Conversation Analysis
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)
Contextualization is a must
Continuum of options:
Ontology?
Contingent
data
Inferences
Generalization
[demands well-defined
populations, cross-context
replication]
Analytic generalization
[generalization to theories, not
populations; Duff (2006, after
Firestone, 1993)]
Epistemology?
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 & foreign
language contexts
Varying ages
Heritage
language contexts
L1 semiliterate/L1 oral
populations of L2 learners
Disparate social milieus
with varying L2 use needs
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.
Social context, external or lived?
Metaphor
Epistemology
Ontology
Methodology
container
positivist
raw - perceived
quantitative
resource
constructivist
etic - emic
qualitative
source
Critical
pragmatic
general –
particular
naturalistic
data
homogeneous –
variable
elicited data
Site of
struggle, to be
transformed
So, yes, there are options, but...
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.
(Ortega, 2006)
How does social context matter in
TBLL&T?
Education
Context
Lived, not raw
Contextualization
A must
Diverse contexts
A must
Prioritize: students,
teachers, programs
TBLL&T
reclaimed
Negotiate: values, social
impact, research choices
Research
Epistemology
Diverse
Methodology
Range of choices &
continua
Ethics
Critical pragmatism
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 You
[email protected]
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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