Most universities don’t want to change how they teach

The speaker passionately champions Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) over grammar-based methods. She successfully piloted TBLT at Nox College, seeing beginner students reach intermediate proficiency in nine months. Later, as program director at UIC, she implemented TBLT across a large Spanish curriculum by engaging instructors through workshops and providing clear task implementation. Despite TBLT aligning better with language acquisition, she notes it isn’t the norm due to widespread misunderstanding of tasks, resistance to abandoning grammar-focused syllabi, lack of appropriate textbooks and training, entrenched professor autonomy, student expectations for traditional grammar, and universities often de-prioritizing language learning.