We need to look deeply at times into the specific needs of learners in Asia and the Pacific region who we cannot forget are still very much living in local contexts -not only an evidently increasingly global one. That being said, there is much to learn from these studies that can be borrowed and lent across a number of frontiers. Further, it is evident that we must not exclude research into second language learning because of it its geographical or cultural source. That has to underlay an important part of the integrity of research and this book is very much devoted to that principle.

One approach, that does seem to meet a wide range of cross-regional needs and to which a number of the authors deal with directly or indirectly is one to which I have continuously been drawing attention and analysis for more than two decades. It is that of task based learning. Interestingly, its popularity is accelerating in East Asia as well as elsewhere. A demonstration of this is the fact that I was asked by the Chinese Government to prepare a new task based publication for the English curriculum. China represents, as Li (2004) states in his included work, the world's largest source of English learners, let alone the largest segment of EFL learners anywhere in the world.

India with its huge population and apparent new boom for English learning as mentioned by Gupta (2005) is also a large beacon of English learning. Just these two countries alone and their appetites for English education give us a new sense of the increased diversity of language ownership; something Phan Le Ha (2005) touches on in her article on the internationalization of the language and non-natives increasing critical role in teaching, development and learning. It signals the reality that those learning English will be significantly centered around or originating from Asia.

Therefore educators need evermore to recognize the importance and distinctive context based needs of those requiring education in English outside the traditional native speaker contexts. This is not inherently contradictory with those with persistent arguments that many general principles of acquisition should be understood and appropriately applied by educators within their distinctive classroom settings and communities.

In keeping with such thoughts, I believe it can be reasonably well argued that the task based teaching as I have largely described in various publications -more recently, "An introduction to Task Based Teaching", 2004, Cambridge University Press- does provide a flexible, functionally compatible and contextually sensitive approach for many learners, as well as teachers. There may not be a magic approach anywhere for this region or others, but let us look at some of the attractive features of task based learning. It offers the potential for the following:

1. A replacement to or a supportive infusion of more student centered learning to certain single approach based syllabi.
2. Utilizing more authentic experiences and materials as well as principles of constructivism compared to top down teaching.
3. More of a sense of personal and active accomplishment including developing a greater sense of language ownership.
4. Increased student participation when task teaching is well planned and implemented sensitive to learners' learning styles, learning and communicative strategies, personalities, multiple intelligences and the overall local contexts, for example.
5. Making specific lesson goals more evident through movement towards and/or success of task completion.
6. Important and ongoing assessment and "washback" to both teacher and learner.

Tasks, well chosen and developed which are centered around relevant acquisition principles, as well as sensitive to context have also the potential to lessen the need for test cramming and excessive reliance on a result/test based oriented syllabi. Cramming, described by Poole (2003) in the Asian EFL Journal amongst others as part of an "Exam Hell" represents a significant phenomenon in a large part of Asia. Further, a result based syllabus, especially one with a narrow focus on grammar-translation and reading and vocabulary may not provide a full set of language skills needed by various L2 learners including those wishing to become communicatively capable.

Tasks can be also fun and highly student centered when borrowing on effective games and other such activities though task is not a substitute word for games. Where students are conscious of marks, including many Asian high school students, if tasks are not clearly supportive of good grades, they may find such exercises as either irrelevant or even label them as bad teaching. For games may not be always supportive of important curricular goals. Nevertheless, it can be argued that putting fun (back) into learning represents positive motivation that can achieve even worthwhile outcomes in respect to the curriculum. It is really difficult to think of most learners whatever their context as appreciating boring teaching on a sustained basis.

It is also learners' complaints that that they do not always understand the teaching goals through teacher centered lectures that make task based teaching potentially dynamic for learning. Such task approaches can represent to students not only achieving the better learning of a language item but in organizing time effectively, learning to work cooperatively -an important Asian value- and using a variety of intelligences and skills such as computer mediation. Thus, students can become cognitively and pragmatically more fully engaged which can reduce tedium and make class work more challenging and relevant to their wider needs and interests.

Again, too many students in the region and elsewhere may become overly committed to rote, passive approaches and formulaic thinking associated with certain multiple choice questions that are simply re-stylized from practice tests. Combined within a teacher centered, top down approach, students may simply associate English with a kind of assembly line and formulaic work to be tolerated but not to be enjoyed. The end result is that English becomes firmly embedded within some students thinking as a chore and not really being authentic enough to act as a door to a whole new world of possibilities, career or otherwise -be it in the business world or other sectors. Rather, many students in Asia and elsewhere may, see their own world and future successes in terms of fulfilling tasks especially when the teacher reinforces such a link with practical activities.

It is not to argue against there being merit at times for the grammar-translation, audio-lingual approaches or lexical approaches, many of which remain popular and central to quite a few teachers in the region. Learners' needs, proficiency, teacher competency and confidence, government policy and a host of other factors may determine the validity of how instructors best deal with instructed learning.

In fact, Chew (2005) in her article on reviewing the evolution of syllabi in Singaporean English education, indicates that the single centered approach to a syllabus may be ebbing, increasingly substituted by a more eclectic one. Whether this experience will be replicated in other countries in the region, may be difficult to exactly say. It may be that we are in a period of the "end of methods". But like others in different social sciences who harkened the end of ideology, it may be more prudent to view change as largely evolutionary with recurring ebbs and flows depending upon the current contextual streams of challenges.

However, the attractiveness of task based learning relates not only to the enumerated benefits. It provides rather a useful practice that that can be applied across many approaches, as well as boundaries. Task based learning may provide an enduring legacy that meets the test of time. It may also provide a curricular and syllabus framework of flexibility that logically students and teachers will be drawn to even if it need not be the central leitmotif for certain places.

For example, tasks could include, completing a grammar bingo game after a contrastive analysis, grammar-translation based presentation. Subsequently, task based communicative teaching practices could be supported to incorporate the appropriate grammar into developing two way oral skills through an interview exercise. Again, the task approach does not deny that in some Asian classes -or anywhere in the world for that matter- that certain traditional approaches need to have their day. Rather it is especially supportive of an integrated approach, or even where the needs of the learner may be solely communicative. However, again task selection and development is the key to better ensure specific needs are met. In doing this, the educator needs to be conscious of principles and aspects of acquisition.

In this respect Ellis, (2005) has so well summarized here with authority and clarity the general understanding in the profession on instructed language learning. We are further faced with the fact that the true task of learning a second language in the many EFL environments that Asian learners find themselves are removed from a lot of 'naturalistic", non-classroom, English speaking settings. Such an understanding of these realities and the principles that surround realistic classroom learning can be of service to classroom teachers wondering what methods, approaches and practices to choose at a specific time. It reminds us of the value of the extensive reading programmes to which Helgesen (2005) alludes can be so useful for Asian learners where they are limited in their accessibility to communicative English in a natural environment.

Teachers in such contexts may need to be reminded, at times to extend the task work outside the classroom with proper direction that permits students to develop independent learning skills that facilitate students to do the extensive work necessary to gain fluency. In cultures where top down approaches are in the main, instructors be they native teachers or not, need to be cognizant of these realities and limitations. We can not simply, for example, put all learners on the Internet or through CALL, clap our hands and say "go to it". Again learning context, as related to acquisition can be highly relevant, which Ellis (2005) would seem to imply.

Countries that have ESL environments, some of which appear comparatively advanced in terms of their English education systems such as Singapore and Hong Kong, may for historical or special leadership reasons have cultivated English as a second language. Here students may have to be approached differently in general as they may be better motivated through seeing English on a daily basis in coming to terms as to why they may be spending more than a thousand hours to learn it within the school system. They may also have more opportunities to integrate classroom learning into day to day usage if not immediately then possibly in the relatively near future when they obtain employment. Task work in such circumstances can even draw on giving real world assignments of surveying store managers and others in English that extend instruction quantitatively to a level that helps develop real authentic competency.

Simply speaking, English is not foreign to all parts of the region. This should draw more Asian educators towards thinking about what techniques and experiences within their own region itself that can be borrowed and/or adapted from places like Hong Kong. This is a place I know personally for its significant daily use of English especially in the professional areas.

Whatever one argues is precisely workable, there is no denying that the future of English education, as so well discussed by the likes of Ellis, (2005) Chew, (2005) Helgesen (2005) and many others at the Asian EFL Journal Conference (2005) is well secured in respect to its growth.

Chew, P. (2005). Change and Continuity: English Language Teaching in Singapore [Electronic version]. Asian EFL Journal Vol. 7, Issue 1.

Ellis, R. (2005).Principles of Instructed Language Learning [Electronic version]. Asian EFL Journal Vol. 7, Issue 3.

Gupta, D. (2005). ELT in India: A Brief Historical and Current Overview [Electronic version]. Asian EFL Journal Vol. 7, Issue 1.

Helgesen, M. (2005). Classroom Practices & Materials. Future Directions [Electronic version]. Asian EFL Journal Vol. 7, Issue 3.

Li, M. (2005). Culture and Classroom Communication: A Case Study of Asian Students in New Zealand Language Schools [Electronic version]. Asian EFL Journal Vol. 6, Issue 1.

Nunan. D. (2004). An introduction to Task Based Teaching, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Phan Le Ha. (2005). Toward a critical notion of appropriation of English as an international language [Electronic version]. Asian EFL Journal Vol. 7, Issue 3.

Poole, G. (2003). Assessing Japan's Institutional Entrance Requirements [Electronic version]. Asian EFL Journal Vol. 5, Issue 1.