Content area
Language program evaluation offers a systematic, multi-methodological, stakeholder-sensitive, and use-focused approach to documenting both the pedagogy and outcomes in language programs (Norris, 2006, 2025). As an inherently programmatic and holistic proposal for additional language (L2) education, task-based language teaching (TBLT) offers a coherent model on which L2 curricula can (theoretically) be based and implemented and should theoretically offer a variety of robust desirable educational outcomes (Long, 2015). However, to date, there is a dearth of empirical evidence documenting the programmatic viability, implementation, or outcomes of TBLT programs (Boers & Faez, 2023; Norris & Davis, 2021). Against this backdrop, the present study adopted language program evaluation as a methodological framework to study the implementation of strong-form TBLT in a large, public, urban university Spanish language program in the United States. The study was designed based on questions of interest to local program stakeholders, namely: (1) to what extent the program was attaining its goal of implementing strong-form (i.e., Long, 2015) TBLT; (2) what L2 proficiency outcomes were being attained by the program; and (3) to what extent fidelity to strong-form TBLT differentiated L2 proficiency outcomes once learner background characteristics were accounted for. The study employed a mixed-methods approach including document analysis, observations, interviews, questionnaires, and standardized proficiency testing to answer these three questions. Based on findings from these three datasets, I present evidence that the evaluated program is implementing many components of strong-form TBLT and achieving robust levels of language proficiency development across heterogeneous learner backgrounds. I conclude by contextualizing the results from the present study in the ongoing project of TBLT scholarship to be a “research-based pedagogy”, evaluating the viability of TBLT, especially for the study of languages other than English in postsecondary contexts like the focal context of the present study, and identifying future directions for collaborative research at the intersection of language program evaluation and TBLT.
