An Empirical Study On The Effects Of The Collaborative Continuation Task On Senior High School Students’ English Vocabulary Learning

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in the continuation task in the field of second language acquisition(SLA)research.Although a growing body of research has been allocated to investigating the effects of the continuation task on learners’ L2 writing,grammar learning and vocabulary learning,few studies have explored L2 vocabulary learning in the collaborative continuation task among senior high school learners.Based on previous research,the present study aims to examine whether the collaborative continuation task impacts learners’ L2 vocabulary learning,compared to the individual continuation task.It also explores the effects of proficiency pairing on vocabulary acquisition and learners’ attitudes towards L2 vocabulary learning in the collaborative continuation task.The current study seeks to shed light on L2 vocabulary acquisition in the collaborative continuation task by addressing the following three research questions:(1)Are there any differences of the immediate and delayed vocabulary test scores between the individual continuation group and the collaborative continuation group?(2)Are there any differences of the immediate and delayed vocabulary test scores among dyads with different proficiency pairing in the collaborative continuation group?(3)What are high-proficiency and low-proficiency participants’ attitudes towards L2 vocabulary learning in the collaborative continuation task?91 participants from two parallel classes in the same senior high school in Xi’an,Shaanxi,China were instructed to finish the continuation task individually or collaboratively.In this process,pair discussions were recorded in the collaborative continuation group.Then participants took part in immediate and delayed vocabulary tests which were designed to test their acquisition of the six target words in the reading material.In addition,12 learners from the collaborative continuation group were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview.SPSS 26.0 and Nvivo were employed to analyse the quantitative and qualitative data.The results are presented as follows:(1)The collaborative continuation group outperformed the individual continuation group in terms of the acquisition of word meaning and use in immediate and delayed tests.However,no significant differences were found between the two groups in the acquisition of word form in the immediate test.(2)The HH dyads and the HL dyads demonstrated an advantage over the LL dyads in word form,meaning,and use in the immediate test.However,no significant differences were found between the HH dyads and the HL dyads in word form,meaning and use in both immediate and delayed tests.(3)Despite some differences between high-proficiency and low-proficiency learners,participants generally had very positive attitudes towards the collaborative continuation task and its effects on L2 vocabulary learning.Based on the research findings outlined above,some pedagogical implications are proposed.Firstly,students should be encouraged to align more,at language level and content level,with the reading material through peer interaction in the collaborative continuation task.Secondly,teachers could combine the continuation task with various teaching techniques and activities to facilitate learners’ acquisition of word form.Thirdly,learners should be encouraged to make full use of their creation and imagination in continued texts,rather than being governed by rigid patterns and rules in writing training.