Task Type and Discussion of Language Form in L2 Pair Interaction

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of task type on L2 learners’ discussion of language form during collaborative dialogues. The tasks differed in their degree of input provision: argumentative writing, dictogloss, and text editing. All collaborative dialogues were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed in terms of the frequency, type (lexical or grammatical), and outcome (correctly/incorrectly resolved or unresolved) of language-related episodes (LREs) produced during pair interactions. Results from a repeated measures ANOVA with post hoc comparisons showed that learners produced more LREs while doing the argumentative writing task than when they did the dictogloss task or the text-editing task. In addition, while learners significantly produced more lexical LREs while doing the argumentative writing task than when they performed either the dictogloss task or the text-editing task, the number of grammatical LREs produced in the text editing task was significantly higher than that produced during the completion of the other two tasks. Finally, learners significantly correctly resolved more LREs in the argumentative writing task than in the dictogloss task, but no significant difference was found either between the argumentative writing task and the text-editing task or between the text-editing task and the dictogloss task regarding the correct resolution of LREs. The effects of task type on the frequency of incorrectly resolved and unresolved LREs were also not significant.