Teaching English: Question & Answer session with Dr. Rod Ellis (part 2)

Accommodation Theory 
"Accomodation Theory is a social-psychological model of language use proposed by Giles to account for the dynamic nature of variation within the course of a conversation. Speakers can converge  (i.e. make their speech similar to the style of their adressee) or diverge (i.e. make their speech different from the style of their adressee). In some situations speech maintenance occurs (i.e. speakers make no changes)" (Ellis, 2008, S. 953).

task
"A task is a language-teaching activity where meaning is primary, there is some kind of gap, students are required to use their own linguistic resources, and there is an outcome  other than the display of language for its own sake" (Ellis, 2008, S. 981).

task-based teaching
"Tasked-based teaching is an approach to the teaching of second/foreign languages based on a syllabus  consisting of communicative tasks and utilizing a metholodology that makes meaningful communication rather than linguistic accuracy primary" (Ellis, 2008, S. 981).

information gap task


Critical Period Hypothesis
"This states that there is a period (i.e. up to a certain age) during which learners can acquire an L2 easily and achieve native-speaker competence, but that after this period L2 acquisition becomes more difficult and is rarely entirely successful. Researchers differ over when this critical period comes to an end" (Ellis, 2008, S. 981).


Ellis, R. (2008). The Study of Second Language Acquisition: OUP Oxford.