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Building a learning environment for students to meet educational objectives is a major challenge facing education stakeholders, particularly teachers. This study aimed to design and implement an e-task-based approach (eTBA) and examine its impact on 21st-century learning outcomes (21st-CLOCs)--namely, critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration across networks, agility and adaptability, effective communication, initiative and entrepreneurialism, accessing and analyzing information, and curiosity and optimism--in a kindergarten sample (N = 22). A mixed-methods approach was adopted. Observation forms and rubrics were designed and used to collect evidence on 21st-CLOCs, and a repeatedmeasures analysis of variance was used to measure patterns of progress during a 24-week experiment. Over the course of 12 experience task activities, the 21st- CLOCs developed significantly. Children's overall learning outcomes improved as a result of the e-task-based approach applied in this study. Experiencing three task activities was enough for children to cope with the outcomes, with respect to children's individual variations. Further research is required to apply the e-task based approach to different contexts and grade levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English communication is a crucial skill that should be mastered by students at the university level due to the demand of study skills comprehension. Nevertheless, students still have low motivation and lack of practicing English proficiency as substantial ability in academic field. This condition is strengthened by the limited owing to the required time in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes. Covering the ongoing situation, information and communications technology (ICT) presents a virtual educational setting that is able to provide accessible effective materials to assist participants in learning. In addition, the task-based approach is taken based on the students' need to practice authentic English through meaningful tasks. This study aims at analyzing the students' perceptions on the implementation of integrating ICT into EAP materials through a task-based approach and identifying the implications. We employ descriptive qualitative method, where a survey was carried out to obtain some information about the students' viewpoint regarding the materials. This result reveals that the practice of integrating ICT into English Academic Purposes (EAP) materials through task-based approach promotes students' motivation and gains meaningful learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the canonical model of skill-biased technical change to incorporate differential effects of technology and international trade on the skill composition of occupations, the paper employs a task-based approach to analyze structural changes in regional employment within a rich vocational education setting in West Germany during 1979 and 2012. Results confirm theoretical predictions that regional employment districts with high initial share of routine occupations have experienced greater subsequent adoption of computer and information technology and larger decline in routine occupations. Exposure to global imports in goods and services has reduced overall employment in routine-intensive occupations; the magnitude being notably smaller as compared to technology. However, when looking at the direction of displacement of routine workers, regions with greater share of routine jobs have experienced greater growth of high-skilled abstract jobs in the subsequent periods while the overlap between initial apprenticeship intensity and subsequent decline in regional routine employment is significantly strong. Taken together, findings show that unlike in the USA where employment growth in low-skilled service occupations has been the greatest, in Germany there is a greater trend toward occupational upgrading and larger growth in managerial and professional occupations due to the operationalization of its apprenticeship system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research investigated the usefulness of task-based activities versus translation for incidental learning of vocabulary. For this purpose, forty Iranian EFL students whose vocabulary knowledge was within the same range were randomly assigned into two groups. In group A, the task group, participants performed two communicative tasks over a period of sixty minutes. In group B, the translation group, students were required to translate a text cooperatively. To assess the incidental gains of the participants, after performing the activities, three type of tests were administered to both groups. Results indicated that although both groups had almost the same performances in form recognition test, better results were obtained in meaning translation and multiple-choice tests of the translation class. Overall, the study revealed that in EFL context, using translation in a communicative framework enhances vocabulary learning at deeper levels of cognitive processing leading to deeper vocabulary gains for unknown words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]