Effects of Task Repetition on L2 Oral (in Written Form) Production in Computer-Mediated Communication

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a three-phase integrative task-based course for achieving communicative effectiveness in two aspects. One aspect was to combine E-simulation with Facebook online chat in a computerised environment. E-activities may not only captivate participants and allow them to be immersed in friendly user interfaces, but also permit participants to engage in pre-task and online planning. Consequently, E-activities may enhance production performance in the complexity and accuracy dimensions, which were based on those described in previous studies. The other aspect was to observe the effects on the L2 production of learners according to the aforementioned computer-mediated communication (CMC) settings by manipulating task repetition. Whereas rehearsal can improve the performance of a task, it was also used to distinguish between the differences among tasks performed with the same partner or with a different partner. The theory of task-based language learning and teaching (TBLT) was investigated to determine whether further modification or extension was needed in these CMC settings. The results of this study showed that task repetition enhanced the performance of learners regarding syntactic variety and lexical complexity. Task repetition had more positive effects on the changed-partner group than it had on the same-partner group.