Applied linguists and language educators generally agree that creating and sequencing language that is lexically more diverse and syntactically more complex is a core component of proficiency. The construct of“linguistic complexity” is often used to describe this dimension (Givón & Shibatani, 2009). The Foreign Language Proficiency Guidelines developed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages highlight “complexity of learner language” as one of three benchmarks of performance (Swender, Conrad, & Vicars, 2012). This complexity scales up from single words to extended discourses. However, instructors have often been challenged by how to scaffold learners to create more complex language.

Using the tenets of interaction and task-based learning in applied linguistics, this project helps instructors and learners of Arabic to accomplish this goal. Applied linguistic research has demonstrated that teacher-learner interaction challenges learners to create complex meanings with their linguistic resources (Gass & Mackey, 2007). In interaction, there is more planning time and clarification requests that challenge learners to construct more complex meanings in complex language. Crucial to interaction are the well-designed language tasks. These tasks act as work-plans that scaffold learners to structure and sequence interaction. While engaged in these tasks, to perform certain linguistic functions, learners are scaffolded to create complex language units (Ellis, 2003). To accomplish this goal, the project first characterized the main patterns of accuracy and linguistic complexity (lexical and syntactic) that emerged when intermediate learners of Arabic orally performed tasks that targeted functions of description and narration in communication. Second, it documented the effectiveness of task-based interaction in heightening linguistic complexity in Arabic.

This guide/website is designed to help the teachers incorporate the project’s materials and techniques into their Arabic language classroom. These sources are expected to facilitate the enhancement of learner linguistic complexity at K-12 and college levels. These resources include sample tasks that are aligned with language functions that are appropriate to the intermediate level, sample lesson plans that are aligned to these tasks, and sample recordings of teacher-learner interaction scenarios/episodes that show the strategic use of interaction.

• Section 1 presents an overview of interaction and task-based learning in world language education, followed by a justification of the combination of the two in the Arabic classroom.
• Section 2 provides an overview of the tasks along with the lexical and syntactic aspects in each. It also lists the language functions that these tasks emphasize.
• Section 3 offers lesson plans with explanations of how to use them. These are aligned with the tasks in the previous section.
• Section 4 provides with sample interactions while the students where were working on the task with an annotation of how language complexity was heightened.

The website ends with a list of references that teachers will find useful.