Extempore 2021 PD Extravaganza

This is PART TWO SESSION A of this workshop. SESSION B will be held tomorrow with the same content as session A, re-presented to accommodate those with schedule conflicts.

Task-based language teaching, which emphasizes learning to use the language for real world situations, has been identified as one of the most effective frameworks to promote language learning in the 21st century. Although many educators support that Tasks should be the backbone of our curricula, it is not always clear how to better identify, develop, evaluate, and implement them in our classes. In this workshop, participants will learn the pedagogical foundations of Task-based language teaching, and identify relevant Tasks for their contexts and their students’ needs. Through a backwards design approach, participants will create a coherent unique set of pedagogical tasks that will lead to a final Target Task along with its evaluation criteria while reflecting upon their current teaching and assessment practices and materials.

Please see the attached handout for workshop goals and session breakdowns.

For extra tasks to import into your Extempore account, check out our importable tasks page and our growing Extempore Commons database.

Presenter bio: Dr. Claudia Fernández is Clinical Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Illinois-Chicago where she directs the Spanish Basic Language Program under a Task-based curriculum. Her research focuses on how languages are learned in the classroom, in particular on materials research, Task-based language teaching, curriculum development, and the acquisition of grammar. Her work has been published in journals such as Hispania, Folio, The Language Educator, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and in several book chapters. She is a co-author of the Spanish textbook Aula abierta, and is currently co-editing a volume on the theory and practice of using language teaching materials in the classroom.

Grant Castner serves Extempore as our Community Manager. While managing social media and creating content with Extempore, he also teaches high-school level Chinese in Minnesota. An avid user of Extempore for language assessment, he’s always on the lookout for ways to improve his teaching practice.