Second Language Task Complexity: Researching the Cognition Hypothesis of Language Learning and Performance

Task-Based Language Teaching #2

by Peter Robinson (Editor)

Understanding how task complexity affects second language learning, interaction and spoken and written performance is essential to informed decisions about task design and sequencing in TBLT programs. The chapters in this volume all examine evidence for claims of the Cognition Hypothesis that complex tasks should promote greater accuracy and complexity of speech and writing, as well as more interaction, and learning of information provided in the input to task performance, than simpler tasks. Implications are drawn concerning the basic pedagogic claim of the Cognition Hypothesis, that tasks should be sequenced for learners from simple to complex during syllabus design. Containing theoretical discussion of the Cognition Hypothesis, and cutting-edge empirical studies of the effects of task complexity on second language learning and performance, this book will be important reading for language teachers, graduate students and researchers in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, and cognitive and educational psychology.

357 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 2011

About the author

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Peter Robinson is a Professor of Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition in the Department of English at Aoyama Gakuin University. His research interests are in second language acquisition; applied psycholinguistics; cognitive psychology; cognitive linguistics; consciousness and awareness during SLA; attention and memory during SLA; second language task complexity; intelligence, aptitude and SLA; experimental research methods; SL syllabus design. He has published extensively in International Review of Applied Linguistics, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Language Learning, and Applied Linguistics. He is on the editorial boards of Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, International Review of Applied Linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, and Studies in Second Language Acquisiton.