Task repetition and extra-curricular speaking opportunities: Measuring gains in complexity, accuracy, and fluency

Page No.: 
33
Writer(s): 
Okon Effiong, Qatar University

This paper reports a study which highlights the effectiveness of task repetition in promoting changes in learners’ interlanguage. Thirty-two randomly chosen third-grade junior high school students of both genders were divided into two groups and presented with an interview task. One group repeated the task four times while the second group did the same task twice over a four-week period. Statistical analysis of transcripts indicated that repetition enabled the learners to show improvement in measures of complexity, and to some extent, accuracy. Similarly, a holistic re-reading of the transcripts corroborated the quantitative result and showed gains in fluency, thereby supporting the argument that repetition can facilitate changes in learners’ language. The findings suggest that task repetition can promote language learning and overall language proficiency.

本論では、「繰り返し学習」で学習者の中間言語が促進されることを検証する。中学3年生男女32名を無作為に2つのグループに分け、インタビュー形式のタスクを実施した。4週間にわたり、同じタスクを1つのグループには4回、もう一方には2回行った。その結果、「繰り返し学習」で複雑な表現力の向上には統計的な有意差がみられ、正確さは向上する傾向がみられた。同様に、インタビュー内容全体を見返すと量的結果が裏付けられ、流暢さの向上がみられた。調査結果は、「繰り返し学習」は言語習得や全体的な言語能力を促進することを示唆している。

 
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