The Effects of Task Repetition on Korean High School Students’ Acquisition of Formulaic Sequences

Abstract

This study attempts to explore the effects of task repetition on English language learners’ acquisition of formulaic sequences (FSs) in written production by taking a pretest-posttest design. To this end, three intact classes (n=82) participated in the study and each class was randomly assigned one of three groups: one control group and two experimental groups (i.e., procedural repetition and task repetition). All participants took a pretest and a posttest and received twenty-minute explicit instruction on 27 predetermined FSs after the pretest. The task repetition group completed the identical writing task twice and the procedural repetition group repeated two writing tasks with different topics. Production of the predetermined FSs in participants’ writings from the pretest and the posttest were analyzed in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Findings suggest that the procedural group produced more accurate FSs and the task repetition group did not. While both the task repetition and the procedural repetition groups demonstrated significant increase in the number of supplied FSs (i.e., fluency), neither group benefitted from task repetition treatment in terms of complexity. The pedagogical implications and the role of task repetition are discussed in terms of instruction of FSs.