Rod Ellis
Curtin University

Rod Ellis is currently a Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Education, Curtin University in Perth Australia. He is also a visiting professor at Shanghai International Studies University as part of China’s Chang Jiang Scholars Program and an Emeritus Professor of the University of Auckland.  He is a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. His published work includes articles and books on second language acquisition, language teaching and teacher education. His two latest books are the co-authored Task-based Language Teaching: Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Prees, 2020) and Measuring Pragmatic Competence: A Psycholinguistic Perspective (Multilingual Matters, 2024).  Earlier books include Reflections on Task-based Language Teaching (Multilingual Matters, 2018). Language Teaching Research and Language Pedagogy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), Exploring Language Pedagogy and Second Language Acquisition.  Research (Routledge, 2014) and Understanding Second Language Acquisition 2nd Edition (Oxford University Press, 2015). He has also published several English language textbooks for Africa and the innovative Impact Grammar (Pearson: Longman).  He is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards – The British Association of Applied Linguistics best book award (1986), the Duke of Edinburgh best book award (1995), the Modern Language Association of the United States best book award (1988) and the International Association for Task-based Language Teaching Annual Prize (2021. He has held university positions in six different countries and has also conducted numerous consultancies and seminars throughout the world, including in Ethiopia.

Plenary speech

Title: 

Evaluating Tasks

Abstract:

Evaluating a task involves asking whether a task ‘works’ and how it can be made to work better. I first examine what it means to ask whether a task ‘works’. I propose that a micro-evaluation of a task can be conducted by means of a student-based evaluation, a response-based evaluation, and a learning-based evaluation and report on several micro-evaluations of tasks that have made use of this framework. These were conducted as part of master level courses on task-based language teaching. The trainee-teachers were required to design their own task in groups, plan a micro-evaluation of the task, teach the task and collect the data needed for the evaluation, analyze the data collected, present their findings to whole class, and finally write a report of the micro-evaluation. The usefulness of such micro-evaluations will be considered from three perspectives: (1) the contribution they make to our understanding of how to design tasks that work,  (2) the role they play in promoting teachers’ interest in and reflection on task-based teaching and (3) their value for teacher-education.