Abstract
While the role of task repetition has received much attention in task-based research, few studies have examined how exact task repetition affects the performance of child second language learners. Also, little is known about the impact of exact task repetition on trade-off effects between linguistic performance areas among child learners. To help fill this gap, we investigated the impact of task repetition on 40 Chinese EFL learners’ oral production. The children repeated the same story-telling task three times, and transcripts of their performance were coded for linguistic complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Complexity was expressed in terms of overall complexity and subordination and phrasal complexity. We assessed accuracy with weighted clause ratios and proportion of errors. Fluency was captured by repair and breakdown fluency measures. Wilcoxon signed rank tests revealed positive effects for task repetition on fluency and accuracy. Trade-off effects observed during participants’ first performance had decreased by their third retelling. These results support Skehan’s (1998) Limited Capacity model and suggest that task repetition is a useful pedagogical tool in instructed child L2 contexts.
Highlights
While the role of task repetition has received much attention in task-based research, few studies have examined how exact task repetition affects the performance of child second language learners
A principal rationale for integrating tasks into second language (L2) teaching is that, while engaging L2 learners in language use that resembles how the L2 is used in real-life contexts, they provide a platform for a simultaneous focus on meaning and form, which is generally accepted to be a prerequisite to attain advanced L2 communicative ability (e.g., Long & Robinson, 1998)
At Time 1, we found that weighted clause ratio had small-size negative correlations with overall and subordination complexity
Summary
While the role of task repetition has received much attention in task-based research, few studies have examined how exact task repetition affects the performance of child second language learners. Little is known about the impact of exact task repetition on trade-off effects between linguistic performance areas among child learners. There is ample evidence suggesting that repeating a task promotes the quality of speech performance, only a few studies (Sample & Michel, 2014) have directly explored how task repetition may influence links between the linguistic complexity, accuracy, and fluency of oral production. As the aim of task-based teaching is to achieve a balanced development in all CAF areas, this is a key issue to investigate further Research on this topic seems important among child learner populations, given that repetition is a prominent feature of language play, which is assumed to play a key role in the development of children’s communicative competence (Moore, 2012)
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