Laura Gurzynski-Weiss

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This article explores how one open-access space, the TBLT Task Bank, can serve as a springboard for communities of practice (CoP; Lave & Wenger, 1991 ) and professional development (PD) to inform and advance both teacher education and research in TBLT. As a central, open-access repository, the Task Bank not only hosts pedagogical resources but also fosters sustained, critical engagement among diverse stakeholders including language teachers and teacher educators. Through local and global CoPs and professional development (PD), the Task Bank creates meaningful collaborative opportunities, offering a dynamic model for integrating open science and teacher education in applied linguistics.

Welcome to e-content platform of John Benjamins Publishing Company. Here you can find all of our electronic books and journals, for purchase and download or subscriber access.

This epilogue reviews the extraordinary career of Kimberly Geeslin as a scholar, mentor, and academic leader. The chapter first examines her numerous contributions to the fields of second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and Hispanic linguistics. We then discuss her role as a mentor, not only to numerous students at her home institution of Indiana University but to many early-career scholars whose professional development she fostered. Finally, the chapter examines Professor Geeslin’s contributions as an academic leader, including her role in building the graduate program in Hispanic Linguistics and her overall contributions to her university, with particular attention to her role in promoting the careers of women in academia.

Welcome to e-content platform of John Benjamins Publishing Company. Here you can find all of our electronic books and journals, for purchase and download or subscriber access.

This multi-site study explores how 18 graduate-level L2 teacher participants adapted tasks from the TBLT Language Learning Task Bank for specific learner needs and teaching contexts, and if their individual differences (IDs) influenced their adaptations. Participants first completed a questionnaire about their experiences as L2 learners and teachers, their knowledge of TBLT, and how they search for course materials. They then defined a teaching context (current, past, or prospective), specified a task need (i.e., communicative practice of a specific linguistic target), and identified task features to search for in the Task Bank. Next, participants screen captured and recorded their search and evaluation of possible tasks while thinking aloud, choosing one to adapt to their context. Finally, participants watched their video and submitted a written reflection. Bottom-up thematic analysis was used to determine how participants adapted the tasks from the Task Bank, if their IDs related to the ways they adapted their selected task, and whether these adaptations aligned with their specific teaching context. The results showed that all 18 teachers were successful in adapting their tasks to align with their stated teaching context and learner needs, demonstrating that the Task Bank works well for the target audience of diverse teachers. It was also found that teacher IDs did not play a role in their task adaptations when examined separately. However, a qualitative cluster analysis showed that more experienced teachers tended to focus on providing linguistic instruction and increasing interaction in task adaptation while less experienced teachers utilized a wide array of techniques. The minimal ID cluster profiles that were discernible lend support to the consideration of IDs in tandem with – rather than in isolation from – each other.

Spanish is the second most spoken language in the United States and the most taught additional language (L2) in elementary-level schools. However, the amount and type of access differs according to the resources available. Rural settings, which comprise a third of all schools in the US, often have fewer resources and support for the development and maintenance of exposure-track L2 programs, which meet once per week with the goal of, as the name suggests, providing exposure to the L2, rather than a focus on cumulative language development. Given that there are immediate and long-term benefits of even low levels of early bilingualism, ensuring access to quality L2 education is a matter of equity. This paper centers on the first year of a longitudinal collaboration between an exposure-track Spanish language teacher in a rural elementary school, and the research team who created a task-based program tailored for the school following a needs analysis. We analyze the first year of the grant-funded program based on task effectiveness, student enjoyment, and teacher perspectives. We contextualize results within the rural community and offer initial longitudinal data on US exposure-track Spanish. We detail how we adjusted the program for the second year, are freely sharing the materials on the Task Bank (tblt.indiana.edu) and have transferred the program to the teacher’s autonomy. Finally, we highlight that the success of this program was and is due to the collaborative nature of the partnership between the teacher, the researchers, and the administrators.

Instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) is one of the fastest growing areas of applied linguistics. With this tremendous potential comes great responsibility for robust, ethical, and transparent research methods that are responsive to and tailored for the ISLA domain. This article highlights unique characteristics of ISLA research, provides a current landscape of methodological trends within ISLA, and makes specific recommendations for research methods in future ISLA studies. I begin by briefly operationalizing ISLA and articulating some of the main research questions and overarching goals within ISLA, as well as the nature and ultimate aims of ISLA research. Next, the most unique methodological challenges for ISLA research are reviewed, including the use of intact classes and heterogeneous small participant pools, cross-sectional studies, using one’s own students for research, and individual differences. This is followed by a discussion of several current trends in ISLA research methods, including examining the process of learning/development, conducting practice-based research, expanding our conceptualization of instructional contexts, replication studies, especially with bi/multilingual learners in diverse contexts, refining our methods with an eye for ethics and justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and conducting open, transparent research that has potential for real-world impact and which dialogues with multiple stakeholders at all stages. I conclude by highlighting that, as ISLA continues as an independent research domain, the development and implementation of strong research methods tailored for ISLA is critical for research integrity and to make the greatest strides in understanding language acquisition processes and effective pedagogical interventions in diverse instructional contexts.