You Can’t Teach a Syllabus (And Why Accuracy-first is Killing Enrollment) - Matt Coss
About this episode
In this episode, researcher Matt Coss discusses the implications of traditional language teaching methods and the importance of student identity in language retention.
"People ask me all the time, 'Are you worried that AI's gonna take your job?' and I tell them, no, but I'm worried that you would ask me that question, because it tells me a lot about what you think my job is." We chat with researcher Matt Coss. Matt is a professor of applied linguistics in the Department of Modern Languages & Classics at the University of Alabama (USA). A research-practitioner who has taught Mandarin and Spanish across all proficiency levels for 13 years, his work focuses on task-based language teaching (TBLT), assessment, language program design, and student retention. He is also the Interviews Editor for TASK: Journal on Task-Based Language Teaching and a founding co-editor of the Focus on Practice section of Language Awareness. In this episode, we discuss: How a childhood happenstance and an adopted aunt bypassed traditional language learning methods completely. Why tracking technical language gains as an absolute baseline sets a language program up for total institutional collapse. A direct look inside a Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) classroom where a student successfully performed a task but swore their teacher "didn't teach them anything." Why…
People in this episode
Guest: Matt Coss
Topics covered
- Task-Based Language Teaching
- language program design
- student retention
- assessment
- language learning methods
Keywords
- applied linguistics
- Mandarin
- Spanish
- technical language gains
- vocabulary lists
- meaning negotiation
- student identities
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Alabama, TASK: Journal on Task-Based Language Teaching, Language Awareness
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