Tasks in Action


Book Description

Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) has been gaining momentum around the world during the past twenty years. However, particularly lacking in the body of available publications on TBLT is empirical evidence of the actual activity, interaction and learning processes that tasks give rise to in real classrooms. This volume compiles a number of studies that describe what learners and teachers, in various educational contexts, actually do when they are asked to perform tasks as part of their regular classroom activity. As such, the volume provides valuable new insights into the implementation of task-based language teaching and vividly illustrates how classroom practice can inform future theory-building and research on TBLT. All the chapters in this book are based on papers that were presented during the first International Conference on Task-Based Language Teaching, which was organised in Leuven in September 2005 by the Centre for Language and Education of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.




Powerful Task Design


Book Description

Applicable to educators across all disciplines and grade levels, this book provides the tools to analyze, design, and refine cognitively engaging tasks of learning.




Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching


Book Description

In addition to the approaches and methods covered in the first edition, this edition includes new chapters, such as whole language, multiple intelligences, neurolinguistic programming, competency-based language teaching, co-operative language learning, content-based instruction, task-based language teaching, and The Post-Methods Era.




Task-Based Language Education


Book Description

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been attracting the attention of researchers, curriculum developers, teacher trainers and language teachers for many years. However, much of the available literature and research has been from a psycholinguistic perspective, driven by the desire to understand how people acquire a second language. Far less research has been carried out as to whether TBLT works for real teachers and real learners in a classroom environment. This book aims to offer a unique contribution by uniting a discussion of task-based pedagogical principles with descriptions of their application to real life language education problems. It provides an account of the many challenges and obstacles that the implementation of TBLT raises and discusses the different options for overcoming them. The book contains a substantial body of research from Flanders, where the implementation of TBLT has been a nationwide project for fifteen years in primary, secondary and adult education.




Getting Things Done


Book Description

The book Lifehack calls "The Bible of business and personal productivity." "A completely revised and updated edition of the blockbuster bestseller from 'the personal productivity guru'"—Fast Company Since it was first published almost fifteen years ago, David Allen’s Getting Things Done has become one of the most influential business books of its era, and the ultimate book on personal organization. “GTD” is now shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks, and has spawned an entire culture of websites, organizational tools, seminars, and offshoots. Allen has rewritten the book from start to finish, tweaking his classic text with important perspectives on the new workplace, and adding material that will make the book fresh and relevant for years to come. This new edition of Getting Things Done will be welcomed not only by its hundreds of thousands of existing fans but also by a whole new generation eager to adopt its proven principles.




Task Design In Mathematics Education


Book Description

*THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AS OPEN ACCESS BOOK ON SPRINGERLINK* This open access book is the product of ICMI Study 22 Task Design in Mathematics Education. The study offers a state-of-the-art summary of relevant research and goes beyond that to develop new insights and new areas of knowledge and study about task design. The authors represent a wide range of countries and cultures and are leading researchers, teachers and designers. In particular, the authors develop explicit understandings of the opportunities and difficulties involved in designing and implementing tasks and of the interfaces between the teaching, researching and designing roles – recognising that these might be undertaken by the same person or by completely separate teams. Tasks generate the activity through which learners meet mathematical concepts, ideas, strategies and learn to use and develop mathematical thinking and modes of enquiry. Teaching includes the selection, modification, design, sequencing, installation, observation and evaluation of tasks. The book illustrates how task design is core to effective teaching, whether the task is a complex, extended, investigation or a small part of a lesson; whether it is part of a curriculum system, such as a textbook, or promotes free standing activity; whether the task comes from published source or is devised by the teacher or the student.




Leading With Emotional Courage


Book Description

The Wall Street Journal bestselling author of 18 Minutes unlocks the secrets of highly successful leaders and pinpoints the missing ingredient that makes all the difference You have the opportunity to lead: to show up with confidence, connected to others, and committed to a purpose in a way that inspires others to follow. Maybe it’s in your workplace, or in your relationships, or simply in your own life. But great leadership—leadership that aligns teams, inspires action, and achieves results—is hard. And what makes it hard isn’t theoretical, it’s practical. It’s not about knowing what to say or do. It’s about whether you’re willing to experience the discomfort, risk, and uncertainty of saying or doing it. In other words, the most critical challenge of leadership is emotional courage. If you are willing to feel everything, you can do anything. Leading with Emotional Courage, based on the author’s popular blogs for Harvard Business Review, provides practical, real-world advice for building your emotional courage muscle. Each short, easy to read chapter details a distinct step in this emotional “workout,” giving you grounded advice for handling the difficult situations without sacrificing professional ground. By building the courage to say the necessary but difficult things, you become a stronger leader and leave the “should’ves” behind. Theoretically, leadership is straightforward, but how many people actually lead? The gap between theory and practice is huge. Emotional courage is what bridges that gap. It’s what sets great leaders apart from the rest. It gets results. It cuts through the distractions, the noise, and the politics to solve problems and get things done. This book is packed with actionable steps you can take to start building these skills now. Have the courage to speak up when others remain silent Be stable and grounded in the face of uncertainty Respond productively to opposition without getting distracted Weather others’ anger without shutting down or getting defensive Leading with Emotional Courage coaches you to build your emotional courage, exercise it effectively, and create an environment in which people around you take accountability to get hard things done.




Recent Perspectives on Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching


Book Description

This volume addresses TBLT from various perspectives and aims to reflect the epistemological diversity in this area by drawing on multiple perspectives (i.e. cognitive-interactionist, complexity theory, sociocultural theory, and pedagogical/curricul




Visualization Analysis and Design


Book Description

Learn How to Design Effective Visualization SystemsVisualization Analysis and Design provides a systematic, comprehensive framework for thinking about visualization in terms of principles and design choices. The book features a unified approach encompassing information visualization techniques for abstract data, scientific visualization techniques




Deep Work


Book Description

AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF 2O16 PICK IN BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP WALL STREET JOURNAL BUSINESS BESTSELLER A BUSINESS BOOK OF THE WEEK AT 800-CEO-READ Master one of our economy’s most rare skills and achieve groundbreaking results with this “exciting” book (Daniel H. Pink) from an “exceptional” author (New York Times Book Review). Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep Work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way. In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill. 1. Work Deeply 2. Embrace Boredom 3. Quit Social Media 4. Drain the Shallows A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.