Impacts of Resource Dispersing and Resource Directing Task Dimensions on EFL Learners’ Oral Production

Elham Ansari,Sajad Shafiee

doi:10.5539/ijel.v8n6p148

Abstract

This study was primarily aimed at investigating the effects of simultaneous use of reasoning demand (resource-directing) and prior knowledge (resource-dispersing) on fluency, accuracy, and complexity of L2 oral performance. More, specifically, an attempt was made to investigate how EFL oral production could be affected by ±reasoning demand and ±prior knowledge in the local context of Iran. Thirty male and female Iranian intermediate EFL learners whose mother tongue was Persian and whose age ranged between 23 and 29 were chosen as the participants in this study, and a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was utilized. Assigned to two experimental conditions, participants were engaged in a narrative task in which two different wordless picture stories were chosen for data collection. Such statistical operations as t tests and MANOVA were applied to analyze the data. The results obtained from t tests revealed that in ±reasoning demand condition, both complexity and accuracy significantly improved whereas the results for fluency were not statistically significant. In addition, with regard to the ±prior knowledge group, similar results were obtained. In the end, conducting MANOVA revealed that both groups were not different in the pretest; however, utilizing the same procedure for the posttest illustrated a difference between the two groups in terms of their accuracy and complexity, but not their fluency. The results bear some implications for L2 oral production and practice as controlled by teachers and practitioners in EFL contexts.

Highlights

Tasks have been seen by many authors as a primary unit of instruction and/or as building blocks of classroom language learning over the past couple of decades (e.g., Bygate, Skehan, & Swain, 2001; Ellis, 2003; Long, 1989; Skehan, 1998)
The results of t test will be reported for the three aspects of performance with regard to each independent variable in both the pretest and posttest sessions
The first research question addressed the effect of reasoning demand on complexity, accuracy, and fluency of upper intermediate EFL learners’ oral production in the treatment

Summary

Introduction

Tasks have been seen by many authors as a primary unit of instruction and/or as building blocks of classroom language learning over the past couple of decades (e.g., Bygate, Skehan, & Swain, 2001; Ellis, 2003; Long, 1989; Skehan, 1998). The growing interest in task-based language teaching (TBLT) and learning has largely been motivated by the fact that tasks lay foundations for second language (L2) use and acquisition. In second language acquisition (SLA) research, tasks have been widely and frequently used as a way to draw attention to interactional features, negotiation of meaning, input processing, noticing forms, and language production, all of which are believed to promote L2 learning (e.g., Bygate, et al, 2001). According to Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005), ‘elaborated language’ could be conceived of in two different senses: First, cutting edge development of the learner language, which is not yet ijel.ccsenet.org

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