A Study Of The Effect Of Oral Languaging On Chinese Efl Learners’ Writing In The Continuation Task

Based on Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory,Swain claims that oral languaging plays a mediating role,makes meaning,and shapes knowledge and experience through language.Numerous studies have shown that oral languaging has a positive impact on enhancing learners’ second language writing proficiency,particularly on writing accuracy and fluency.However,most previous studies on oral languaging have been conducted in traditional writing tasks,such as a propositional writing or a summary writing.As an emerging second language writing task in recent years,the continuation task combines language input and output,and enhances language imitation and creative application.It has been shown that the continuation tasks make great contributions to improving writing complexity and accuracy.Thus,it can be seen that oral languaging or the continuation task has a positive impact on the improvement of writing proficiency.However,in terms of writing complexity,fluency,and accuracy,oral languaging or the continuation task is insufficient to improve writing proficiency respectively.Therefore,this study attempts to find the effect of oral languaging in the continuation task on the complexity,accuracy,and fluency of writing for second language learners.In order to test the possible effect of the combination of the continuation task and oral languaging,the present study poses the following three questions: 1)What effect does oral languaging in the continuation task have on writing complexity for Chinese learners of English? 2)What effect does oral languaging in the continuation task have on writing accuracy for Chinese learners of English? 3)What effect does oral languaging in the continuation task have on writing fluency for Chinese learners of English?With the purpose of finding the answers to these three questions,this study adopted a mixed-design research paradigm to investigate the effect of oral languaging in the continuation task on Chinese English foreign learners’ writing proficiency in terms of complexity,accuracy,and fluency.Forty-five participants were randomly divided into three groups and they were required to conduct three writing tasks respectively: oral languaging in the continuation task,oral languaging in a propositional writing task and a propositional writing task without oral languaging.The quantitative data obtained from the experiment were obtained and analyzed by SPSS 20.0 and qualitative data were analyzed in terms of language-related episodes.The results showed that compared with oral languaging in a propositional writing task and a propositional writing task without oral languaging,L2 learners conducting oral languaging in the continuation task had the best writing performance.To be specific,oral languaging in the continuation task had a significant effect on the improvement of L2 learners’ writing complexity,accuracy,and fluency.Besides,the quality of oral languaging in terms of language-related episodes in the continuation task was higher than that in a propositional writing task.The results of the present study suggest that the continuation task has a positive effect on L2 writing,which also lends support to the alignment effect of the continuation task.The alignment effect produced by the continuation task is conducive to stimulating students’ oral languaging which promotes the internalization of knowledge.The current study also contributes to the development of oral languaging in L2 writing domains.In addition,there are several pedagogical implications: for students,by noticing their writing process through oral languaging,they may give full play to their personal initiative in the continuation task.Besides,teachers can master the dynamic process of the continuation task through students’ oral languaging so that they can find students’ difficulties in L2 writing and strengthen the alignment effect of the continuation task.