Peter Robinson
Robinson
Peter Robinson is an applied linguist known for some of the most ambitious theorizing in task-based research, especially around task complexity, attention, and cognition. Associated with institutions including Aoyama Gakuin University, he has spent much of his career trying to make task design intellectually systematic rather than merely plausible.
Robinson is a classic theorist's theorist. His work is rigorous, programmatic, and sometimes demanding, but it has given the field a vocabulary for asking what makes one task genuinely more complex than another.
Career
- Built an international research career in SLA and task-based learning
- Especially associated with cognitive approaches to task design and sequencing
- Known for highly systematic theorizing about complexity and development
- Central participant in long-running debate with Peter Skehan over task complexity and performance
Published Work
- Cognition and Second Language Instruction (2001)
- Task Complexity and Second Language Learning (2011)
- Individual Differences and Instructed Language Learning (2002)
- Attention and Awareness in Foreign Language Learning (1995)
Influence
- Major influence on task-complexity research and curriculum design in TBLT
- Gave the field a more formal vocabulary for thinking about progression, challenge, and cognition
- Particularly important for researchers who want TBLT to rest on more than classroom intuition