Complexity, Accuracy And Fluency Research Articles

A Review of the Effect of Task Complexity on Syntactic Complexity in Second Language Writing in China

In the 1990s, research on task complexity became prevalent and gradually scholars have investigated how task complexity of writing tasks affects second language learners' writing performance. Skehan synthesized a measure of learners' proficiency in second language writing in terms of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) of linguistic output. Among them, syntactic complexity, which refers to the range of variation and complexity of the form of linguistic output, has received more and more attention from researchers of second language writing in recent years, and has become one of the hot spots of research in the field of second language acquisition. This paper relies on the CNKI to search for studies on effect of task complexity on syntactic complexity of L2 writing in China, and through summarizing, organizing and analyzing these literatures, it can be found that the theoretical guidance of existing studies is mainly based on the cognitive hypothesis, supplemented by the Limited Attentional capacity Model. Researchers have varied task complexity based on the resource-directing and resource-dispersing to investigate its effect on syntactic complexity, but the findings have not been consistent, which may be due to geographic pedagogical differences or subtle differences in study design.

Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency (CAF) oF EFL College Learners’ Writing : The CLIL and Non-CLIL Classes

This study was designed to compare the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of EFL written text in CLIL and Non-CLIL classes. The study enrolled two groups of undergraduate students from the State University of Malang, Indonesia: an experimental CLIL class (N = 50 students; 22 males and 28 females) and a non-CLIL as control class (N = 50 students; 19 males and 31 females). Students' essays were evaluated quantitatively using some aspects of linguistic proficiency, such as complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The errors were classified as syntactic, morphological, lexical, lexicogram, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. The findings indicated that both CLIL and non-CLIL methods produced comparable complexity, accuracy, fluency, syntactic, morphological, lexicogram, and spelling scores in two groups of students. Meanwhile, for complexity and lexical values, the CLIL and Non-CLIL methods produced significantly different average scores, with the application of the non-CLIL method being higher. On the punctuation variable, the CLIL method can significantly improve the assessment. Several possible explanations for the increase in complexity, accuracy, and fluency include a preference for the English standard, the course's assessment criteria, and practice effects. The findings of this study also provide additional pedagogical implications.

The effects of two methods of on-line planning on L2 task-based speaking performance and strategy use

Studies on on-line planning have been based upon the same definition in the past few decades, and they have operationalized on-line planning in similar ways. Drawing upon theories in cognitive psychology, the present study sets out to propose a revised definition of on-line planning that aims at capturing a greater variety of on-line planning behaviors. Two methods of eliciting on-line planning were implemented: providing students with listener’s feedback between two consecutive rounds of task performance, and providing them with criteria for successful task performance. Their effects on second language (L2) narrative task performance and the use of planning strategies were investigated with 90 Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) who were first-year English majors. To assess the quality of task performance, complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) measures and a measure of story completeness were employed. Post-task interviews were conducted to explore planning strategies. Results from the quantitative and the qualitative analyses suggest that utilizing listeners’ feedback successfully elicited an increased number of on-line planning activities. Participants under this on-line planning condition also produced significantly more complex and accurate output than the non-intervention group.

Predicting Elicited Imitation Performance from Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency (CAF) of L2 Oral Production

The Elicited Imitation Test (EIT) is a testing tool that has been used to measure the second language (L2) proficiency for L2 research. The EIT construct is, nevertheless, still not comprehensively investigated in EFL contexts. This study aims to contribute to this field by examining the extent to which complexity (indexed by lexical diversity, mean length of utterance), accuracy (percentage of error-free clauses) and fluency (breakdown, self-repair, speed) (CAF) can predict EIT performance in a Saudi context. A total of 66 learners were recruited to narrate picture stories. Multiple regression analysis was employed to answer the research questions. The findings show that speed fluency, filled pauses, and accuracy are key indicators of EIT performance. This implies that faster and more accurate L2 speech with fewer pauses is likely associated with a better EIT performance. Additionally, the data highlights the validity of EIT as an assessment instrument across various linguistic settings.

The Effect of Task-Based Language Teaching on the Development of Speaking Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency (CAF) among Iraqi Intermediate EFL Learners

The Effect of Task-Based Language Teaching on the Development of Speaking Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency (CAF) among Iraqi Intermediate EFL Learners

Online Feedback in Interactive Blogging: Cultivating Students’ Writing Performance and Learning Engagement

Integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into language learning has shifted how English classes are administered. The shift in teaching instruction from pen and paper-based activities to online-based approaches has led to interactive blogging to make the classes more authentic, motivating, and communicative. Thus, this paper mainly examines two significant issues: 1) how interactive blogging benefited the writing class when online feedback took place and 2) how the EFL students actively participated in the interactive blogging atmospheres. This study employed school-based action research involving 30 students majoring in the English Language Program of a university in Malang, Indonesia, who actively participated in the study. The data were taken from interviews, open-ended questionnaires, and writing tests. The findings revealed that online feedback in interactive blogging increases students’ writing performance covering CAF (complexity, accuracy, and fluency), and it enables students to interact more frequently with their teacher and classmates inside and outside the classroom. This indicates that teachers must empower students with technologies and more student-student and student-teacher interactions in writing classes. However, it is not as easy as paper and pen-based writing activities when giving and understanding online feedback.

Halo effects in rating data: Assessing speech fluency

Fluency is a common objective in English language learning and teaching. However, researchers have commented on the absence of a widely accepted definition of the construct and this sense of uncertainty may hinder efforts to measure fluency for purposes of research or assessment. To date, the extent to which rating instruments measure fluency independently from other areas of speech production such as complexity and accuracy has been under-explored. This is a significant gap because the literature broadly suggests that rater scores are susceptible to halo effects that have a distorting influence on the measurement of speaking skills and blur boundaries between assessment criteria. To investigate this issue, the current study examines a data set of scores assigned to 77 English language learners on two speaking tasks using an analytic rating scale featuring criteria for speech complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF). The tasks were transcribed and analysed using measures of CAF. Rater scores were analysed using many-facet Rasch measurement and multiple regression. Results revealed that rated fluency was influenced by lexical complexity, indicating that fluency scores represented more than the fluency construct outlined in the analytic scale. Measures of speech speed, phonation time ration, length of utterance, lexical complexity, total speaking time and repair fluency explained the largest amount of variance in the fluency scores. Implications for research, language teaching and assessment are discussed.

Data‐driven learning: English as a foreign language writing and complexity, accuracy and fluency measures

AbstractBackgroundData‐driven learning (DDL) has been regarded as one of the promising approaches that could effectively enhance writing performance of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. Although extensive research has been conducted on the use of DDL in developing various aspects of writing skill, there exist only few studies to date that focus on DDL for revising writing despite its great potential for revision. Furthermore, among the existing studies, very few investigated DDL at revision stage by referring to complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) measures which are objective and reliable indices of writing quality, and none has examined these three CAF measures jointly as an index of writing development.ObjectivesWith the purpose of addressing these gaps, the present article describes an instructional design which integrates DDL into the writing process of EFL learners who were taught how to exploit corpus data in revising their writings and then reports on the effects of such a design on their actual learning outcomes as measured in CAF.MethodologyIn a quasi‐experimental between‐group pre‐test/post‐test design, 31 tertiary level EFL students were divided into experimental (DDL) and control (non‐DDL) groups. Experimental group was instructed on corpus consultation to revise their writings while the control group followed the conventional practices of using dictionaries, textbooks and teacher explanations in revising their writings. Writing performance of each group was analysed based on CAF measures and compared through one‐way between‐group multivariate analysis of covariance.Results and ConclusionsThe findings showed that DDL used for writing revision had a significant, positive effect on fluency and lexical complexity as DDL group outperformed the non‐DDL group in producing lexically diverse and fluent writings. However, no statistically significant evidence was found favouring the effect on DDL on accuracy and grammatical complexity.

Grasping the effects of storyline complexity, task structure and proficiency in narrative writing performance

Task complexity has attracted the attention of researchers interested in syllabus design and language pedagogy since the eighties. A scarcely investigated feature is storyline complexity, and its effects on complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) in narrative writing. This study examines the effects of storyline complexity in the narratives of 60 low to upper-intermediate Swedish secondary school learners of Spanish as a foreign language. Furthermore, the study addresses the role of proficiency in mediating these effects, as it sets out to ascertain whether storyline complexity affects different dimensions of CAF performance to the same extent at different proficiency levels. To elicit data, two narrative tasks were used. Both of them had a loose structure but differed in their storyline complexity, with the simple task having a single storyline and the complex task a dual storyline. In turn, to assess the learners’ proficiency level, a multiple-choice test was employed. The study used a between-subjects design, and the statistical treatment relied on a two-way analysis of variance (2 storyline complexity conditions x 2 proficiency levels). Complexity and fluency turned out to be higher in the complex condition irrespective of proficiency, whereas mixed results were found for accuracy at different proficiency levels.

The role of cognitive individual differences in digital versus pen-and-paper writing

It is unknown whether and to what extent cognitive individual differences may play different roles in paper versus computer-based second language (L2) writing. This exploratory study is a first attempt to explore this issue, focusing on the effects of working memory and language aptitude on the quality of paper versus computer-based L2 writing performance. Forty-two Spanish learners of L2 English performed a problem-solving task either digitally or on paper, took a working memory n-back test, and completed LLAMA tests to measure language aptitude. The quality of their L2 written texts was assessed in terms of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) measures. The results indicated that the role of cognitive individual differences may vary depending on the writing environment.

Development of students’ spoken language in an online French course: Presentation of continuing doctoral research

Abstract The present paper describes continuing doctoral research which examines the development of oral language during an online French course in terms of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF), and reflects on the possible influence of the online intervention on this development. The research is designed as a multiple-case study with 11 university students as participants of the research, each student forming a single case of the study. The pre-test post-test design was chosen in order to analyse students’ spoken performance before and after the intervention, and thus to assess its development. The paper outlines the results of accuracy analysis, which indicate that language performance cannot be judged solely by one aspect of CAF: many errors identified in this research seem to be a sign of the use of more complex language; and precise and accurate language without errors does not seem to be complex or fluent. The number of phonetic errors and some replies in the interviews suggest that the online course did not place enough importance on the teaching of pronunciation. These suppositions will be tested in the next stages of the research. The paper is part of the AILA Europe special issue.

Enhancing Syntactic Complexity in L2 Chinese Writing: Effects of Form-Focused Instruction on the Chinese Topic Chain.

Syntactic complexity, as one aspect of the Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency (CAF) model, is integral to the writing ability of second language (L2) learners. Previous research found that T-unit-based measures of syntactic complexity in writing tasks of English as a second language (ESL) learners increased with more instruction, yet it remains unclear whether the same can be observed in Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners. To fill this gap, this study compared the development of syntactic complexity of a training group (N = 64) and a control group (N = 51), both composed of CSL students in a first-year Chinese course at a university in North America. While participants in the control group only participated in the regular course, the training group received an additional 10-week, explicit form-focused instruction (FFI) on the Chinese topic chain. Results on the posttest and delayed posttest show that the FFI on the topic chain had a positive and durable effect on the participants’ syntactic complexity; instructional intensity and feedback type may have influenced its effectiveness and durability. Characteristics of measures and task complexity may have affected the observation of syntactic complexity.

Role of EFL Learners’ Perceptions of Task Difficulty in Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency: An Exploratory Case Study

This paper presents an investigation conducted in a public university in central Mexico into the possible influence of learners’ perceptions of task difficulty (TD) on levels of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) during the performance of three tasks (personal information, narrative and decision-making tasks). Firstly, four learner pairs performed the three tasks, and their levels of CAF were measured. Secondly, the participants were interviewed retrospectively about which tasks they perceived as difficult and their reasons for such perceived difficulty. In combining the quantitative and qualitative analyses, the data reveal that task difficulty increases when a task is perceived not to be familiar by the learner. The relationship between task difficulty and familiarity also appears to influence the levels of CAF, promoting high levels of fluency and accuracy when the task is perceived by the learner as easy and familiar. The findings of this study provide support for a cognitive approach to task-based language learning and put forward the need to include learners’ perceptions of TD as a variable to investigate the relationship between tasks and the CAF dimensions.

The effects of linguistic measures in the analysis of L2 Chinese descriptive writing

Abstract The current study investigates whether the CAF (complexity, accuracy, and fluency) analysis framework, frequently used in L2 studies of English and other languages, may effectively analyze L2 essays in Chinese, a language typologically different from English. CAF measures were examined for both their discriminative and predictive effects for L2 Chinese writing quality. The results revealed that most of the measures captured linguistic differences between lower-score and higher-score essays. Similar to findings in other L2s, more advanced L2 Chinese learners achieved syntactic complexification increasingly through phrasal features in their essays, in contrast to lower-level learners. The predictive effects of the measures for writing quality differed between lower-score and higher-score essays. T-unit length, a syntactic measure successfully analyzing Indo-European languages, did not serve as an effective predictor for L2 Chinese textual quality. The current study provides implications for both L2 writing research and L2 writing curriculum.

Enhancing Saudi EFL Learners’ CAF in Narrative Writing Through Native Speaker Kids’ Reading Website

This novel study investigated the impact of English native speaker kids’ reading website on enhancing Saudi EFL university students’ complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) in narrative writing. The rationale for this study is the scant literature in the area of estimating narrative writing in terms of CAF. The quasi-experimental method was adopted in this study through a pre-/ post-test in narrative writing. Eleven level three participants were recruited from in this study. Instruments of the study included a pre-post-test in narrative writing, and the CAF measures. A Wilcoxon signed-Rank and Mann Whitney were used in the analysis. The study results found no significant differences at 0.05 level regarding the post administration of syntactic complexity ratios except (CP/T, CP/C, and CN/C) whose results were significant. The sub-constructs of lexical density and lexical variation were enhanced partially, and as a whole, whereas there was no increase/decrease regarding lexical sophistication. For accuracy measure, the results were significant in all ratios at 0.05 level except (EFC/C, and EFTC/S ratios). Concerning fluency measures, the results were insignificant at 0.05 in all ratios except (MLC ratio). The results of the study and their pedagogical implications were discussed.

Measuring syntactic complexity in learner Finnish

In the study of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF), syntactic complexity can be measured by a multitude of measures. Traditionally, the measures are quantitative and they use production units such as words, clauses, T-units, and sentences. Despite the vast number of measures available, many studies have used only one or two of them, or parallel ones tapping the same component of complexity. The present study explores syntactic complexity using seven frequently used quantitative complexity measures to gauge different facets of complexity in written learner Finnish. The data of the study consist of texts written by adult and adolescent language learners, and they cover proficiency levels from beginner (A1) to advanced learner (C2) in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). According to the results, changes in the measures are not linear from one proficiency level to the next. The results also show that while all the selected measures catch some statistically significant differences between proficiency levels in adult language learner texts, only four measures do so in adolescent language learner texts. The results also suggest that the measures are sensitive to task type.

Task repetition and collaborative writing by EFL children: Beyond CAF measures

Research into the potential of collaborative writing is relatively new. Similarly, task repetition (TR), which has been claimed to be a valuable tool for language learning, has been rarely explored in the context of writing. Therefore, little is known about the potential of combining TR and collaborative writing, and even less if we focus on young learners (YLs), who constitute a generally under-researched population. With these research gaps in mind, the present study examines the compositions of 10 pairs of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) (aged 12) who write the same text in response to the same picture prompt three times over a three-week period. Our analysis includes the language-related episodes (LREs) that learners generate while writing collaboratively and, also, a thorough analysis of the three drafts that students produce, including quantitative (complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF)) and holistic measures. Results show that learners’ compositions improve with repetition when measured by holistic ratings although CAF measures fail to grasp this improvement. As for the LREs, a great amount was found, most of the episodes were focused on form, most were successfully resolved and their amount declined with TR. In light of these results we argue in favor of the inclusion of holistic measures when analyzing students’ productions and discuss the positive effects of collaborative writing in the context of TR with YLs.

Words, clauses, sentences, and T-units in learner language: Precise and objective units of measure?

In research on learner language complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF), syntactic complexity is often studied with quantitative measures based on words, clauses, sentences, and T-units. The findings have been mixed, but segmenting learner language into these units of measure has seldom been problematised, even if the need for accurate coding is well known. The present study explores words, clauses, sentences, and T-units as production units in written learner language using a corpus of 352 L2 Finnish texts (28,813 words). The results illustrate how written learner language can be hard to fit into the production unit categories, which are essential for the most frequently used quantitative measures of syntactic complexity. On the one hand, the results support calls to include explicit definitions of the units of measure when reporting findings obtained with these quantitative measures. On the other hand, they align with calls to introduce new measures to better gauge the changes in learner language syntax as it develops with increasing language proficiency.

Task Complexity And Students’ Narrative Writing

This article is a theoretical review writing. It explores some studies on the effects of task complexity on written narrative production under different task complexity conditions by EFL learners at different proficiency levels. Task complexity was manipulated along Robinson’s (2001b) proposed task complexity dimension of Here-and-Now (simple) vs. There-and-Then (complex) in. Accordingly, three specific measures of the written narratives were targeted, i.e. complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF). The results of some experts’ research indicated that with respect to complexity and accuracy, the effects of both task complexity and language proficiency were found significant. More complexity and accuracy were found in the complex task with high-proficiency learners. However, no significant effect of task complexity and language proficiency on fluency was found. The pedagogical implications are discussed with reference to the influence of task complexity and language proficiency on text quality.

Speech Processing and Fluency Model: New Directions for improving Speaking Skills

The framework of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) has gained currency in the area of applied linguistics research, language teaching and testing in order to analyze the oral language performance of second language speakers ever since Skehan (1996) proposed it. Many studies have tried to relate CAF framework with the various models of speech processing in order to ground it psycholingustically. However, there is a need to offer more clarity regarding the psycholinguistics of speech processing and its specific relationship with the complexity, accuracy and fluency. This paper is an attempt to situate CAF framework on Levelt’s Model of Speech Processing (Levelt 1989) thereby providing it a stronger psycholinguistics foundation. It also aims to provide a more specific explanation about what gets reflected as accuracy, complexity and fluency in speech. The paper concludes by offering more specific questions that second language teachers in particular and applied linguists in general may consider exploring the concept further.