Manoochehr Jafarigohar; Afsar Rouhi; Shirin Rahimi Kazerooni
Abstract
The use of paired speaking tasks for the assessment of interactional competence has recently attracted the attention of many scholars in language learning research. The present study aimed at investigating whether task type has any effect on promoting language learners’ interactional competence ...
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The use of paired speaking tasks for the assessment of interactional competence has recently attracted the attention of many scholars in language learning research. The present study aimed at investigating whether task type has any effect on promoting language learners’ interactional competence measured by means of multi-factor qualitative coding of paired speaking tasks. The performances of 92 dyads of conveniently-selected intermediate Iranian EFL learners on four paired speaking tasks were assessed using a rubric developed based on recent models for the scoring of interactional competence. To reveal the factors contributing to interactional competence, confirmatory factor analysis was run rendering the four-factor rubric developed in the present study as a valid measure of interactional competence through paired speaking tasks. In addition, to check the effect of different task types on interactional competence, the researchers calculated ANOVA estimates. Mean difference statistics computed indicated that some significant effect with large effect size existed for task type. Post-hoc comparisons carried out made it clear that from among the four tasks (i.e., Spot-the-difference, Story-completion, Decision-making, and Free-discussion) only the Story-completion task was the source of variability in the scores of interactional competence. The findings are of significance in that they point to the centrality of task type in assessing speaking through paired tasks. The study has certain theoretical and practical implications for foreign language teaching/testing researchers and practitioners.
Aso Bayazidi; Ali-Akbar Ansarin; Zhila Mohammadnia
Abstract
Despite the abundance of research evaluating the effects of task complexity, task types, and planning on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of the language produced by learners, most studies have focused on the syntactic aspect of complexity, with very few studies investigating the lexical part of ...
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Despite the abundance of research evaluating the effects of task complexity, task types, and planning on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of the language produced by learners, most studies have focused on the syntactic aspect of complexity, with very few studies investigating the lexical part of complexity. Such studies explored the lexical performance of learners through using merely one measure of lexical complexity (namely diversity). The present study is an attempt to further explore the effects of task type and proficiency level on different aspects of lexical complexity of spontaneous speech monologs produced by intermediate and advanced Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 35 intermediate and advanced Iranian learners of English performed three different speaking tasks: an argumentation, a description and a narration task. The speech monologs were coded for three different aspects of lexical complexity: diversity, density, and sophistication. Two-way repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate the main effects of task type (the within-subjects variable) and proficiency level (the between-subjects variable) on lexical complexity. The results showed that task type and proficiency level both significantly affect lexical complexity in the participants’ task performance. The argumentation task yielded the highest scores for diversity and density, while the highest sophistication score was obtained for the narration task. There was no interaction between task type and proficiency level for the diversity and sophistication scores, and the advanced learners consistently got higher diversity and sophistication scores for all the three tasks, while there was an interaction between the two variables for the density scores; the advanced learners got higher density scores for the description and narration tasks but not on the argumentation task.
