Event Date
Location: 53A Olson Hall
This presentation will look at Task-Based Instruction as a second language acquisition theory and a pragmatic classroom method. As the former, it forms a bridge between The New Paradigm of Communicative. Language Teaching and the Next Paradigm of Transformative Teaching and Learning. As the latter, it assists teachers in guiding students to higher levels of proficiency more rapidly than previous methods.
Betty Lou Leaver, Provost at the Defense Language Institute, received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Pushkin Institute in Moscow, Russia. She has held several other positions, including Academic Dean at the Amman, Jordan branch of the New York Institute of Technology, Director of the Russian & English programs for the International Space Station crews at NASA, Language Training Supervisor at the Foreign Service Institute, and stints as visiting professor at Bryn Mawr College, Monterey Institute of International Studies, and Middlebury College. She has provided consultation in education and second language acquisition to ministries of education in 24 countries and has published more than two dozen books and nearly 200 articles, primarily in the fields of second language acquisition and general education.