A Study On The Effects Of Task Type On Junior High School Students’ English Oral Performance

Task type is an important factor that influences the oral performance of second language learners.In research on tasks and second language oral development,many efforts have been devoted to exploring which tasks promote more complex,more accurate,and more fluent language output.Research has shown that different types of tasks facilitate different dimensions of L2 learners’ oral development.Previous studies mainly explored a group’s oral performance in different types of tasks at a certain point of time;in other words,they explored task type effects on L2 learners’ oral performance from a static perspective.However,learners’ oral language development is a dynamic process.Few studies investigated the effects of task type on L2 learners’ oral performance from a dynamic perspective,and focused on inter-individual differences and changes in the task type effects.Based on Complex Dynamic Systems Theory,this study recorded the English oral performance of six junior high school students in monologic tasks and interactive tasks over eight weeks,aiming to explore the effects of task type on their oral performance in terms of complexity,accuracy,and fluency.This mixed-method study drew data from oral recordings and semi-structured interviews to address the following research questions:1.What are the common features of task type effects on junior high school English learners’ oral performance?2.What are the inter-individual differences in task type effects on junior high school English learners’ oral performance?3.How do task type effects on junior high school English learners’ oral performance change over time?The following findings are concluded:(1)There are some common features of task type effects on junior high school English learners’ oral performance.Most learners have higher lexical diversity and accuracy in interactive tasks than in monologic tasks;all learners have higher syntactic complexity in monologic tasks than in interactive tasks.(2)There exist inter-individual differences in task type effects on junior high school English learners’ oral performance,and these differences are mainly in the degree of significance of the effect,for example,although syntactic complexity is higher for all learners in monologic tasks,task type effect on syntactic complexity is only significant for S3 and S5.Besides,it is noteworthy that one individual’s(S2’s)oral performance is not affected by task type at all,and no trade-off effects among CAF occur.(3)Task type effects on junior high school English learners’ oral performance change with time in two patterns: stability and variability.Both in groups and individually,the fluctuations of accuracy trajectories in monologic tasks are slightly greater than in interactive tasks,which means that junior high school English learners’ oral accuracy is more stable in interactive tasks.Based on these findings,this study provides insights for junior high school English teachers and language testers to maximize the function of different types of tasks to improve learners’ oral performance in different dimensions.