The Effects Of Input And Output Modality On The Continuation Task

Input and output,as language learners’ basic practice,have long been discussed in the field of second language acquisition(SLA).The continuation task which integrates input comprehension(listening and reading)with output production(speaking and writing)has been appealing to language teaching researchers and practitioners.Due to the cognitive differences between listening and reading,speaking and writing,and the imbalanced development of receptive and productive abilities of Chinese English learners,learners’ input and output processing may vary under different modes,which can further impact learners’ language performance.However,the role of modality has not been deeply explored in the continuation tasks.Therefore,the present study aims to investigate the effects of input and output modality on the continuation task,addressing the following research questions:Q1: What are the effects of input modality on the continuation task?(1)What are the effects of input modality on the written continuation task?(2)What are the effects of input modality on the spoken continuation task?Q2: What are the effects of output modality on the continuation task?(1)What are the effects of output modality on the visual-input continuation task?(2)What are the effects of output modality on the aural-input continuation task?Q3: Do the effects of input and output modality interact in the continuation task?109 English-major freshmen were recruited in this 2(listening/reading input)×2(speaking/writing output)experimental study.Four groups of participants with comparable language proficiency carried out reading-writing integrated continuation task,listening-writing integrated continuation task,listening-speaking integrated continuation task and reading-speaking integrated continuation task respectively.Once the task was finished,interviews were carried out to collect information about participants’ cognitive status,such as content comprehension,attention allocation,and the usage of the previously noticed language form of the input.At last,the effects of input and output modality on the continuation tasks were evaluated from perspectives of accuracy,fluency,complexity and lexical alignment.The major findings are as the following:1)The effects of input modality: visual input resulted in higher fluency,accuracy,lexical and syntactic complexity than aural input in both the written and spoken continuation tasks.In the spoken continuation tasks,there were significant differences in aspects of fluency and lexical complexity,but in the written continuation tasks,there were no significant differences between visual and aural input.Lexical alignment was present in both the visual and aural-input continuation tasks,but no significant difference was found between these two modes of input.2)The effects of output modality: the written continuation tasks produced higher accuracy and lexical complexity than the spoken continuation tasks in both aural-and visual-input modes,whereas the spoken continuation tasks resulted in higher syntactic complexity than the written continuation tasks.Under the aural-input mode,significant differences were detected in aspects of accuracy and lexical complexity between the spoken and written continuation task.Under the visual-input mode,significant and nearsignificant differences were found in lexical complexity and accuracy respectively between the spoken and written continuation task.In terms of lexical alignment,the number of aligned content words in the listening-speaking integrated continuation task was significantly higher than that in the listening-writing integrated continuation task,while no significant difference was found between the spoken and written continuation task with visual input.3)Interaction effects between input and output modality: no interaction effect was found in accuracy,lexical and syntactic complexity.In addition,it was found that input modality had a significant main effect on lexical complexity,while the output modality had significant main effects on accuracy and lexical complexity.The present study found that the input and output modality were important factors in the continuation task,and that the output modality played a more influential role than the input modality.The comparison of the spoken and written continuation tasks showed that speaking tasks induced higher fluency and syntactic complexity,while writing tasks led to higher accuracy and lexical complexity,which indicated that output modality could promote learners’ language performance from different dimensions.In addition,the writing task could,to some extent,make up for learners’ listening deficiency,which was shown by learners’ comparable language performance in the listening-writing and reading-writing integrated continuation tasks.Besides,the input material and learners’ language proficiency would influence the effects of input and output modality on the continuation task.Therefore,foreign language teachers shall carefully select the input materials and output types of the continuation task according to learners’ language proficiency and the impacts of input and output modality on the continuation task,so as to match learners’ cognitive resources and promote the learning process.