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Effects on students’ production during communicative tasks’ performances Ana Moreno Merino Director Enrique Lafuente Facultad de Educación Zaragoza 2 ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................................ 3 0. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................... 4 1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ....................................................................................................................... 7 2. THE METHOD ................................................................................................................................................. 11 2.1 Instructional context .................................................................................................................................... 11 2.2 Materials ...................................................................................................................................................... 12 2.3 Participants .................................................................................................................................................. 14 2.4 Procedure ..................................................................................................................................................... 15 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................ 19 3. 1 Percentage of L1/L2 ................................................................................................................................... 20 3. 2 Amount and complexity of the production ................................................................................................. 26 3.3 LREs (Language Related Episodes) ............................................................................................................ 34 4. CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................................................................... 38 4.1 Summary of findings ................................................................................................................................... 38 4.2 Teaching implications ................................................................................................................................. 39 4. 3 Limitations of the study .............................................................................................................................. 41 5. REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................................. 43 6. APENDIX ......................................................................................................................................................... 45 6.1 Tasks ............................................................................................................................................................ 45 6.1.1 Task 1 .................................................................................................................................................. 45 6.1.2 Task 2 .................................................................................................................................................. 48 6.1.3 Task 3 .................................................................................................................................................. 48 6.2 Transcriptions8º346ooñphyii< .................................................................................................................... 49 6.2.1 Task 1 .................................................................................................................................................. 49 6.2.2 Task 2 .................................................................................................................................................. 54 6.2.3 Task 3 .................................................................................................................................................. 56 3 ABSTRACT Nowadays, the most important teaching method for second language that is being implemented in the schools is the communicative approach in which students are encouraged to produce in the target language. Tasks are the tools designed for making the students use the English language in a communicative way and cooperatively produce a tangible outcome. The problem of this method that may concern many teachers is the shortage of information that we have about it and about how to create communicative tasks in order to make this approach effective. This study aimed to discover which aspects of the communicative tasks affect the students’ production and what impacts, if any, the kinds of pairing have during the students’ interactions. Three tasks were designed with different outcomes (open or closed), procedures to complete them (written or oral) and three kinds of pairs performed them (H-H, H-L and L-L). The results showed great variability in the students’ production across these three independent variables of the tasks. For the kind of outcome and the type of pairing, there are evidences that they have a great impact as very different results are found when these variables are changed. With respect to the procedure to complete the tasks (oral or written), the different effects on students’ production we want to promote will need to be taken into account because each procedure encourage different production effects. 4 0. INTRODUCTION During the history of second language teaching, there have been a lot of different methods that varied in terms of teaching objectives, principles and techniques. In the 70s, new learning and teaching needs started to rise because of the European influence about the necessity of using the English language for a purpose. The communicative approach emerged for meeting those needs and since then, this approach has become more important and has increasingly gained the acceptance of the English as a second language community. In spite of its general agreement, some teachers do not use the communicative approach and still follow the traditional methodology to second language teaching. In this method, teacherfronted classes are the basis and students are not encouraged to use the language for any communicative purpose. However, we can say that nowadays, the communicative language teaching is the most used methodology in the schools. It is based on diverse principles that make it very different and innovative from all the other approaches to language teaching. One of its main features is that language is not seen anymore as the target content but as a vehicle for communication, and students are engaged in this communication so as to achieve a purpose. The focus of this method is the meaning rather than the form, so there is not explicit teaching of grammar. Another very relevant characteristic of this methodology is the importance given to the promotion of interactions in real context situations. For this approach, these interactions are the basis for acquiring a language because negotiations of meaning and exchanges of information then occur and they are an essential condition for acquisition to happen. The last remarkable aspect of this approach is that students are asked to produce a tangible outcome, that is to say, thanks to their interactions and negotiations of meaning, students have to be able to get something done, to achieve a visible product. 5 Tasks are the tools created to promote interactions between the students in the communicative classrooms in which they seek to achieve a tangible outcome so, a task is a kind of activity to carry this methodology out. Jane Willis (1996) defined task as “An activity where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose (goal) in order to achieve an outcome” (p.27-36). Skehan (1998) reinforced the definition of task by differentiating it from an exercise, explaining that in a task, students are engaged in communicating content for achieving an outcome which has a relationship with the real world. Then, tasks are made to promote the basic learning principles of this approach to language teaching, that is, to get the students to communicate to each other with the purpose of producing a tangible outcome. The problem with this methodology is the lack of information we have about it. There are still few studies about how to carry it out and about what aspects of the tasks can have an impact on students’ production. As a result, teachers do not know how to create communicative tasks and most of them create their tasks randomly and others, that might not feel confident with the method, opt to continue with the traditional approach to second language teaching. The aim of this study is to analyze which aspects of the communicative tasks affect on the students’ production and in what way. This information shall allow us to discover how we can create tasks in order to improve certain skills of the students’ second language competence. Moreover, it will provide clues for the teachers to capacitate them to create those communicative tasks in the classroom, taking into account the effect they want to get on their students and consequently, encourage this teaching method for second language. 6 The present study sets out to explore three key research questions:  How does the type of outcome, pairing and procedure influence the amount of L1 used during communicative tasks? o Which aspects of a task promoted more use of L1/ L2? o What effect, if any, did the kind of pairing have on the amount of L1/L2?  How does the type of outcome, pairing and procedure influence the complexity of students’ production during communicative tasks? o Which aspects of a task promoted longer L2 sentences? o What effect, if any, did the kind of pairing have in the length of the students’ production?  How does the type of outcome, pairing and procedure influence the amount of LREs produced during communicative tasks? o Which aspects of a task promoted more focus on form in the L2 sentences? o What effect, if any, did the kind of pairing have in the students’ attention to form? To answer these research questions, first I will identify the independent variables of the tasks that can affect on the students’ use of their L1, on the complexity of their production and on the number of times that they focus on a grammatical aspect (LREs). The next step is to create the tasks taking into account these independent variables that can have an impact on the students’ production. Once the tasks are created, I will explain how some students will perform the tasks and why I have done this selection. Next, I will carry out the tasks with the students and I will audio record them in order to transcribe their communicative performances and analyze them. 7 Then, the results of their interactions during the tasks’ performances will be presented so as to try to find out which features or which independent variables of those tasks have an impact on students’ production and what aspect of their production they affect. The final step will be to draw conclusions about my findings and to try to obtain clues for the teachers about how to create communicative tasks regarding the aspect of students’ production they want to develop, so as to promote the communicate approach to language teaching. 1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Since the 70s, researches about a new approach to language teaching have been carried out. This new approach is the communicative language teaching and its main idea is that language learning successfully comes through having to communicate in real context situations. Krashen (1981) and his Input hypothesis are one of the basic theoretical bases of this approach. Krashen related acquisition to input arguing that acquisition is produced when some kind of input is received. In his Input hypothesis he concluded that the only condition for acquiring a new language is receiving comprehensible input containing structures one level beyond our competence, so explicit grammar teaching is not necessary and has to be avoided. Despite the fact that his theory was at the beginning of the communicative approach an important basis, it became to be too vague in terms of acquisition of grammar. Some years later, Long (1996) realized that receiving input is not enough for acquiring a second language so he proposed his Interaction Hypothesis in which he pointed out the necessity of interactions and negotiations of meaning for adapting the input, transferring meaning and finally, acquiring the language. 8 For him, the interactional modifications of the input are the most important factors for acquisition, he stated that continuous practice leads to automation of the knowledge and to increase fluency; as a conclusion of Long’s ideas, receiving L2 input and using it during interactions are the basis for second language acquisition. These two theories are the basis of the communicative approach to second language teaching which focuses on meaning and avoids explicit grammatical drills, in order to encourage interactions in which negotiations of meaning are promoted. For the great importance of these two theories, the aspects of the tasks that promote L2 use will be examined in this study in order to find out how to design tasks to promote this aspect of production. Another of the most relevant characteristics of the communicative approach is the tangible outcome required to the students in the tasks’ performances. This idea was introduced by Swain (1985; 1995); he had a cognitive view of the second language acquisition that explains that the human beings have a limited processing capacity that does not allow us to focus our attention to all the aspects of the language at the same time. For this reason, Swain suggested that output is a necessary condition for acquisition as it serves to help learners notice the gaps in their linguistic knowledge and thus affects both analysis of input and of their own existing internal resources; in addition to this, he claimed that any kind of output is not enough but a comprehensible one in which students push themselves to create elaborated sentences. Following this theory, I will study the length and the amount of sentences that the students produce in order to examine which aspects of the tasks promote a more elaborated output. 9 The problem of not pushing the students to create accurate sentences is that they fossilize. Selinker (1972) created this concept for explaining a point in which the internal grammar of a learner stops developing and never acquires new structures. This fossilization can be avoided with explicit attention to grammatical features, so in this study, we are looking for tasks’ characteristics that promote this explicit attention to grammar and therefore, avoid fossilization. In this study, I have used Skehan’s (1998) cognitive view of the language learning process so as to examine some tasks following his concept about language production. As Swain (1985), Skehan explained that the human beings have a limited processing capacity which affects the way in which we acquire. Due to these limitations, we cannot focus our attention to all the aspects of the language and we usually focus our attention first to meaning rather to form and therefore, we do not acquire properly he grammatical aspects. Skehan clarified that some aspects of the tasks promote focused attention to certain features of the language. For this reason I will look at form attention by the students during their communicative performance so as to conclude which tasks promote more conscious attention to form and facilitate L2 acquisition. The reason why this research seeks to discover the aspects of tasks that can affect on learners’ production is the number of evidences provided from authors as Storch (2010) whose research proved that the kinds of tasks has an important impact on the production and interactions that the students originate while performing them. 16 The aim was transcribing all of their conversations and any kind of language production of the learners during the task so that both tasks and the three different kinds of pairs can be evaluated and compared. The transcriptions have been used for analyzing all the aspects that are open to evaluation in this study. All of the transcriptions have been classified in tables that will allow us to compare results and provide answers to the research objectives of this study. Choosing the unit of analysis to examine students’ interactions in the L2 was a bit problematic at the beginning, but it became clearer when the research objectives were kept in mind. All the data used in the analysis of this study was extracted from the transcriptions of the students’ interactions during the performance of the tasks. The criteria used for selecting the useful information were the research objectives and all the information which could give any evidence or answer to the aims was taken into account. All of the research objectives (use of L1, complexity of production and number of LREs) were dependent variables of the tasks, what is to say, they were the effect induced for some variables on the tasks and on its performances that were the cause for finding different results. Each of the research objectives was analysed across three independent variables that could cause the differentiations on the results. The first of these variables was the kind of tasks that the students performed according to its outcome, namely, open or closed ended. The second independent variable was not related to the type of task but to the kind of pair who completed them. As it is said before, the three different kinds of pairing were H-H, H-L and L-L and the three of them completed the three types of tasks. 17 Finally, the last independent variable had also to do with the kind of tasks, but this time, it was related to the process by which the students performed them; the two options were oral or written and those lead to another feature of the tasks because the oral tasks were focused on meaning but the written one was focused on form, as it usually happens in the written activities. To sum up, the three research objectives of this study were analysed and examined across three different kinds of variables to check which of them affected and in what level the use of L1 during the students’ performances, amount and complexity of their production and finally, the number of times that the students paid attention to a language feature. Regarding the first question about the quantity of L1 use by the students during the interactions, the way to measure it was the number of L1 words. The number of L1 words that the students used is the best way to find out the percentage of the use of their first language. In addition to this, according to Storch (2010) this is very reliable way to measure the amount of L1 produced as the number of words of a transcript is very easy to identify so making a mistake when collecting them becomes complicated. Obtaining the number of L1 words was very easy because it was done by counting the total of words (L1+L2) with the computer word-count function and subtracting the L2 words [(L1+L2) - L2]. All the results have been given as a percentage of L1 use as it is the more clear way to compare all the tasks and kind of pairs. The percentages obtained were calculated taking the amount of L1 words in a task out of a number of the total of L1 and L2 words. 18 Concerning the second question with respect to the production and complexity or grade of elaboration of the students’ performance in the tasks, this study sought to discover which aspects of the task could facilitate first of all ,that the students push themselves to produce as much as possible and secondly, to create a more comprehensible and complex output. Two ways of measuring this aspects were used; regarding the amount of production, the number of turns that the students was counted and for the complexity of their production, the number of words per sentence. On the one hand, the number of turns was quite easy to measure, in fact, easy enough to not to have any error. First, all the turns were classified according to their L1 quantity; when a turn had its half or more of the words in L1, it was classified as L1 turn, and therefore it was eliminated as we are only interested in L2 turns. Once the turns were differentiated according to their content of L1 or L2 words, the L2 turns were counted with the computer numbering function. On the other hand, for checking in which task and which pair of students produced more elaborated sentences, I took into account the number of words per sentence, because the longer the sentences were, the more elaborated the output was. This aspect was more complicated to measure than the amount of L1 or L2 turns because there is not a computer function for that. Firstly, all the Spanish (L1) words had to be eliminated from the transcripts so that only English words (L2) could be counted. As with all the rest of the data, I separated it according to their task, the kind of pairing and how the process of the task was (oral or written). The way to proceed on this matter took quite a lot of time. After having eliminated all the L1 words from the transcripts, all the turns had to be separated into single sentences as I was not examining the elaboration of the turns but of the sentences. 19 Then, all the transcripts were examined in different documents so I was able to get the data from all the performances in a separated way and to compare them later. Thanks to the computer word-count and numbering functions I got the average length of the sentences of every transcript by dividing the total number of words by the total number of sentences. Finally, the third question was related to the number of times that the students paid attention to any language feature during their communicative performances. In this study explicit language attention is analyzed following Storch’s (2012) method that she redefined from Swain and Lapkin (1998, 2001). Those authors considered any kind of language deliberation as Language Related Episodes (LREs) and Storch defined them as “instances where learners self and other repaired language use or deliberated about the meaning of linguistic items, choice of grammatical forms or spelling and pronunciation... LREs represent learners’ explicit attention to language use”. So we are going to consider LREs as any language deliberation or correction. For collecting this kind of data, again, all the transcripts were examined separately and one by one. The number of LREs produced by every pair of students was manually counted my marking them in the transcripts with a different colour. Conclusively, the results were inserted in a table to compare the number of LREs done across the different kinds of tasks and by the different types of pairs. 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION In this study, all the findings are presented in the same order as the research objectives were; first of all, the percentage of L1 and L2 used by the students during the interactions is reported; secondly, the findings for the number of turns and words per sentence, what is to say, amount of the students’ production and its length or complexity; and finally, the number of times that the students focused their attention to a language feature; the number of LREs. 20 All of the results are organized by each of the characteristics of the tasks and the kinds of pairing who performed them, so conclusions about how the independent variables affected the research objectives can be drawn. 3. 1 PERCENTAGE OF L1/L2 Teachers are aware that pairwork during communicative activities may lead to students using the L1 instead of the L2, and therefore losing the opportunity to negotiate meaning and interact. As a result, establishing the percentage of the L1 that the students used during their interactions when they completed the tasks can give us a clue about their ability for using the target language and about what characteristics of a task promote a higher use of the L2. First of all, we are going to have a look at the tasks across their different kinds of outcome, open or closed; thanks to that, we will be able to conclude which of those outcomes promote a higher use of the L2. Table 3 shows the results of the use of the L1 by the three types of pairing during the three different tasks and presents the total number of words including L1 and L2 words, then the number of isolated L1 words and finally a percentage of the total L1 use across each kind of outcome. 21 Dyadic pair Task Open/closed ended Total of words L1 words Percentage of L1 Pair A H-H 1 Closed 327 3 0,9% Pair B H-L 1 Closed 309 13 4,2% Pair C L-L 1 Closed 111 2 1,8% TOTAL CLOSED 747 18 2,4% Pair D H-H 2 Open 157 13 8,3% Pair E H-L 2 Open 248 8 3,2% Pair F L-L 2 Open 127 14 11% Pair G H-H 3 Open 147 49 33,3% Pair H H-L 3 Open 101 9 9% Pair I L-L 3 Open 56 1 1,8% TOTAL OPEN 836 94 11,2% Table 3. L1 use during task performance across different types of outcome In this table we can see that task 2 and 3 are counted in the same group because although they have some different characteristics, the type of outcome is the same and it is the feature we are comparing in this table. There is not distinction either of the type of pairing who completed the tasks because in both kinds of task across their outcome, the three types of pairing performed them, so there is equality in the results. In this table, if we look at the percentage of L1 that the students used in the closed outcome task, we can see that it is very low (2,4%), in fact, it is almost non-existent. However, the percentage of use of the L1 in the two open outcome tasks is much higher (11,2%). We can also see in the column of total of words (L1+L2) that in the open task students used more the language, so no matter if it was in Spanish they might felt more free to express themselves in the open outcome task. We have seen that one of the aspects for acquiring a language is to use it and to interact with the partner to produce the more possible output in the target language. 22 The quantity of L1 that the students used when communicating is therefore, an indicator of acquisition as the less they use it, the better they acquire the target language. Thanks to this table, we can conclude that one feature of the tasks that can help the students to produce more output in their L2 is the kind of outcome of the tasks, and according to the results of this study, closed-outcome tasks facilitate and promote the use of L2 and the restriction of the L1 use. Now that one of the independent variables has been studied, there are more aspects to consider when analyzing the causes of communicative task that promote better second language learning. The kind of pairing in which students performed a task, has got numerous influences in the way the students interacted to each other and expressed themselves. This is the reason why, to study which types of pairing used their L1 in a higher percentage is so important. Table 4 reflects the amount of L1 that all the types of pairing used during their communicative performances. Dyadic pair Task Total of words L1 words Percentage of L1 H-H 1 327 3 0,9 % H-H 2 157 13 8,3% H-H 3 147 49 33,3% TOTAL H-H 631 65 10,3% H-L 1 309 13 4,2% H-L 2 248 8 3,2% H-L 3 101 9 9% TOTAL H-L 658 30 4,6% L-L 1 111 2 1,8% L-L 2 127 14 11% L-L 3 56 1 1,8% TOTAL L-L 249 17 6,8% Table 4. Use of the L1 during task performance across different types of pairing 23 In this table we can see the number of total words (L1+L2) across each kind of pair in the course of the three tasks; we can also observe the number of L1 words during the whole process of completion of the tasks and finally, the percentage of L1 use across each pair. Looking at the results of the table, we can realize about an unexpected finding in the percentage of use of the L1 from the H-H pairs. Unexpectedly, those pairs are the ones who used their first language in a higher amount (10,3%) and it is an important discovery because we would have not expected this results as high proficiency students are supposed to have a better L2 competence and therefore, less necessity for using their L1. The fact that the H-H students used in a higher percent their L1 is not the only important finding in this study, but the great difference between the H-H and the L-L pairs which L1 use percentage is only 6,8%. Thanks to this table, we perceive that the type of pairing who used their L1 in a lower amount during the three tasks was the H-L type as they only used it in a 4,6%. Then, according to this table, the best selection for pairing the students is H-L groups, but not only because, compared to the other pairs, they have demonstrated the lowest results in terms of L1 use, but also because regardless the other types of pairs, they performed the tasks using an insignificant amount of their L1, what is very positive in respect of second language learning. Therefore, we should avoid pairings in which two high proficiency students work together, but promote mixed proficiency level pairs because they seem to push themselves to produce as much as possible in the target language so they facilitate their L2 acquisition between both kinds of students. Finally, there is another important aspect to consider with regard to L1 or L2 use during interactions in communicative tasks; the process in which students completed the tasks, namely, oral or written. 24 This is an aspect of the tasks that make students’ production vary a lot, mostly in terms of their focus to attention, so it is very important to take it into account when drawing conclusions about the features of the tasks that promote more L2 use when originating an output. In table 5 we can see how much the results vary depending on the means that the students use to complete the tasks. This table shows the total of words (L1+L2), the L1 words and the total percentage of L1 use of all the pairs during the three tasks across the process the followed to complete each one. Dyadic pair Task Oral/written Total of words L1 words Percentage of L1 Pair A H-H 1 Oral 327 3 0,9% Pair B H-L 1 Oral 309 13 4,2% Pair C L-L 1 Oral 111 2 1,8% Pair D H-H 2 Oral 157 13 8,3% Pair E H-L 2 Oral 248 8 3,2% Pair F L-L 2 Oral 127 14 11% TOTAL ORAL 1279 53 4,1% Pair G H-H 3 Written 147 49 33,3% Pair H H-L 3 Written 101 9 9% Pair I L-L 3 Written 56 1 1,8% TOTAL WRITTEN 304 59 19,4% Table 5. Use of the L1 during task performance across written and oral tasks In this table we can see that the results are extremely different, what let us think that there is a process in the communicative tasks that we should promote more than the other in order to get our students to produce a great quantity of output in the target language. This process is the oral one. The total percentage of L1 use for the oral tasks is only 4,1%, that is a very good percentage because it means that the students barely used their first language when they completed the oral tasks. 25 However, the total percentage of use of the L1 for the written task is incredibly higher than the oral ones; its percentage of the use of the first language is almost 20% of the total of words produced and it is quite a big quantity. These results help us be aware that the oral procedure for completing the tasks can benefit in a higher lever the students’ process of acquisition as they do not promote the students’ use of their L1. As a conclusion for the three independent variables that we are analysing in this study and can change the effects related to L1 use on the students’ interactions, we can assume that there are clear findings that might help us to create and organize different types of tasks in the classroom The results showed that in general, students did not use very their L1, this is in line with previous studies (Storch & Aldosari, 2012) which suggested that this may be due to the fact that pair work is demonstrated to provide the students with opportunities to interact with each other and students usually want to take advantage of the opportunity to express themselves in the target language as it is not a common chance for them in their schools (Storch & Aldosari, 2012). Another finding of this study is the significant difference that exists in the use of L1 across different types of tasks. On the one hand, regarding the outcome, open outcome tasks promoted much more L1 production than a closed one. On the other hand, the written task showed a higher amount of L1 use than the oral tasks; moreover, this can be explained because of the added difficulty of the written task to focus on grammar, which could make the students to express their deliberations about the grammatical aspects in their L1. 32 Hence, we could say that the difference between performing an oral or a written task is that students are going to interact more in the oral one and therefore, facilitate their second language acquisition, but, even they interacted in a higher amount, they did not seem to create very complex sentences so they did not make any effort in terms of elaboration of their production and this can leads to the problem of fossilization (Selinker, 1972). Therefore according to the students’ production, it gives the impression that depending on the learning aim, one process or another should be encouraged. For achieving more interactions between the students, oral tasks seemed to be the best facilitators, but if we are looking for complexity in the sentences, written tasks allowed students to focus their attention on the way they elaborate their output better than the oral tasks. As we have seen during the process of this part of the study, there are three independent variables that can have a great impact on students’ production during their completion of communicative tasks. The students’ production was studied separated in two different aspects; the amount of turns and the length of the sentences. In respect of the number of turns, the closed ended task presented a much higher number of turns than the tasks with an open outcome. This finding corresponds to Ellis’s (2000) classification of the tasks’ features to promote a higher amount of negotiations of meaning in which he said that closed ended tasks are more positive to promote those negotiations. Analysing more features of the tasks, the oral tasks promoted more interactions than the written one, and this can be explained because students did not have to write anything and their focus was on practising their L2 with their partner rather than writing. 33 Regarding the types of pairings, the H-H pairs created the higher amount of turns and therefore they were who interacted the more, there was a big difference between this kind of pairs and the L-L, whose number of turns was quite low. For this reason, mixed pairs should be the most appropriated ones as they produced a very high amount of turns too. In respect to the length of the sentences, longer ones were found in the written task and the main reason why this happened was the obligation of the students to take the grammatical aspects into account, so they were a bit forced to pay attention to their sentences and to try to elaborate them a bit more than in the oral tasks. Still, no big difference between the written and the oral tasks was found because even the students needed to think about the sentences in the written task, they were not actually pushed to produce a comprehensible and elaborated output, so as Swain (1985) claimed, push output is necessary in order to get our students to think about the grammatical aspects of their production and to create a more complex output; for this, the teacher role is very important as they are the unique people who can push the students to produce this aimed output. In addition to this, as in the number of turns, H-H pairs created the most elaborated sentences but L-L produced the lower amount of words per sentence, so again, H-L pairs seems to be the best solution for getting all the students to produce a complex output. In conclusion to this second feature of production, a difference between its two aspects (amount and complexity) has to be clarified in order to create the tasks. If the goal of the task is to promote students’ interactions and a higher number of turns, oral tasks with a closed outcome should be promoted; however, if the goal is to develop students’ complexity of production, written tasks with open outcome may be more beneficial. 34 Apart from the amount of L1, the number of turns and the elaboration on students’ interactions, there is another dependent variable of the communicative tasks that deserves to be taken into consideration, the number of times that the students pay attention to any feature of the language. 3.3 LRES (LANGUAGE RELATED EPISODES) As Storch (2012) defined them in her research about language teaching, language related episodes are instances in which students self correct, repair the others’ language use or deliberate about any language feature. I consider them as a very important aspect for acquisition because their production means that the students have knowledge about the language, they realize about it and then they put it into practice. This study is especially interested in LREs related to grammar as they imply the students’ focused attention to grammatical forms and therefore, accuracy in their production which is a very important aspect in terms of second language acquisition. These LREs can be affected depending on the characteristics of the tasks and kinds of pairing that perform them, so in this part of the investigation we are going to have a look to the three independent variables that have been present during the whole study and that can influence the students’ attention to grammar. Table 9 shows the number of LREs that each pair did and also the average of LREs that the students did during their communicative performances across the two different types of outcome, open or closed. 35 Dyadic pair Task Open/closed ended Average of LREs per task Pair A H-H 1 Closed 3 Pair B H-L 1 Closed 4 Pair C L-L 1 Closed 2 AVERAGE CLOSED 3 Pair D H-H 2 Open 1 Pair E H-L 2 Open 2 Pair F L-L 2 Open 0 Pair G H-H 3 Open 6 Pair H H-L 3 Open 3 Pair I L-L 3 Open 1 AVERAGE OPEN 2 Table 9. Average number of LREs during task performance across different types of outcome In this table we can observe that the average of LREs in the tasks classified according to their kind of outcome is not very high, as this kind of language explicit attention is usually very hard to find unless the students are trained or specifically told to do that. The variation between both types of outcome is basically irrelevant as the closed outcome tasks have one LRE more (3 per task) than the open ended one (2 per task). With regard to this table then, we cannot determinate a clear conclusion about what kind of outcome facilitates the students’ production of LREs. This is the reason why we have to continue examining the other independent variables in order to get a pattern in which LREs’ production is encouraged. Table 10 displays the average number of LREs that all the types of pairing did during their interactions along the completing of the three different tasks. The aim of this table is to try to find out which type of pairing facilitates the origination of LREs. 36 Dyadic pair Task Average of LREs per group H-H 1 3 H-H 2 1 H-H 3 6 AVERAGE H-H 3 H-L 1 4 H-L 2 2 H-L 3 3 AVERAGE H-L 3 L-L 1 2 L-L 2 0 L-L 3 1 AVERAGE L-L 1 Table 10. Average number of LREs during task performance across different kinds or pairing In this table we can observe that, in contrast to the type of outcome, the kind of pairing have a noticeable effect on the originations of LREs. Comparing the H-H pairs and the H-L pairs we can see that there is almost no difference between them as H-H groups produced 10 LREs as a total of the three tasks and the H-L groups, a total of 9 LREs. This let us think that those kinds of pairing are the most appropriated for encouraging the production of language related episodes and L-L pairs should be avoided because they only generated 3 LREs along the performance of the three tasks, and this is a very low number that should be risen. For this reason, pairing the students by mixing high proficiency students with low proficiency level ones, seems to be very beneficial for the students with a low language competence as they can learn with the high proficiency students how to focus on grammar when producing some kind of language. Now that two variables have been analyzed in terms on LREs production, the last one has to be also examined to check how we can promote the origination of LREs in the classroom. This last variable is the process through which students completed the tasks; they can be oral or written. 37 Table 11 shows the average of LREs that the students produced per task attending the process they followed to complete them. Dyadic pair Task Oral/written Average of LREs per task Pair A H-H 1 Oral 3 Pair B H-L 1 Oral 4 Pair C L-L 1 Oral 2 Pair D H-H 2 Oral 1 Pair E H-L 2 Oral 2 Pair F L-L 2 Oral 0 AVERAGE ORAL 2 Pair G H-H 2 Written 6 Pair H H-L 2 Written 3 Pair I L-L 2 Written 1 AVERAGE WRITTEN 3 Table 11. Average of number of LREs during task performance across different types of means This table does not present a significant difference between the students who performed the tasks in an oral or in a written way. As we can observe, the total average of LREs in the oral tasks is only 2 language related episodes per task and they are 3 per task in the written ones. With these results, as with the ones of the table 9 about the kind of outcome, we cannot draw a clear conclusion about which process of the tasks promotes a higher amount of students’ focus on form. As a conclusion, the kind of outcome (open or ended) and the process followed to perform the tasks (oral or written) do not seem to have any impact on the origination of LREs as their results did not show any significant difference. For this, we can assume that when it comes to encouraging production of language related episodes, the kind of task does not need to be taken into account but the kind of pairing who perform it. 38 For promoting a higher amount of LREs in the students’ performances, the most important variable was found to be the kind of pairing. The H-H and H-L pairs showed a notable higher amount of LREs than the L-L pairs; as several scholars contend, (Leeser, 2004; Storch & Aldosari, 2010) L-L pairs do not focus their attention to grammar when completing a task because their aim is being able to complete the task and this is the reason why they produced few LREs. There are other studies which support that H-L pairs are the best option for performing communicative tasks (Watanabe & Swain, 2007) and stated that, high level students are benefited by low proficiency students perhaps for the teaching role that they undertake 4. CONCLUSIONS 4.1 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS This study set out to find which aspects of the communicative tasks can affect students’ second language production and therefore their L2 acquisition. Unlike previous studies, (Storch, 2012) the present analysis focused on three different variables that can affect on students’ production in order to find out what kinds of tasks can promote three basic aspects of production, the use of the L2, the production of complex and elaborated sentences and the focused attention to the grammatical structures. One of the three aspects that were analyzed was the amount of L1 use during tasks’ performances. This study analyzed this feature across the three kinds of tasks and the results indicated that oral tasks with a closed outcome are demonstrated to be the most beneficial for the students’ use of their L2. 39 Secondly, two aspects on students’ production were jointly examined; the elaboration of their sentences and the amount of production they originated. For promoting a higher number of turns during tasks’ performances (amount of production), closed ended tasks which process to complete them is oral are demonstrated to be the most beneficial. However, when it comes to encouraging long sentences, written tasks with an open outcome are needed. Finally, the last analyzed aspect was the number of LREs made by the students during the tasks’ performances which help them to focus on grammar and benefit their L2 acquisition. The results showed that written tasks with a closed outcome are the type of tasks which encourages a higher amount of LREs production After analyzing all the information across the three dependent variables (use of L1, amount and complexity of production and number of LREs) we can conclude that H-L pairs are the most recommended and beneficial for all the kinds of tasks, so when performing a communicative task, students should be paired following this criterion. 4.2 TEACHING IMPLICATIONS In the field of the impacts that tasks can have on students’ acquisition there is still very little information, but now it is paramount to discover all the advantages of this communicative approach to second language teaching. This approach has got a lot of benefits to provide to the students’ acquisition process and we do not take advantage of all them because we do not know how to exactly carry it out. For these reasons, this is a very novel study that can contribute to all the teachers’ needs about this teaching method. 40 As all the aspects of production when performing a task have been individually analyzed, I present now a table which shows what kind of tasks promote one or another variable of the students’ production in order to facilitate the design of communicative tasks according to the aspect of production we want to promote. Table 12 shows the four studied aspects of production and which of the tasks’ features and kinds of pairs are more helpful to promote them in the classroom. Table 12. Features of the tasks and types of pairing which benefit each one of the aspects of students’ production In this table we can see that very different tasks can be created in order to promote one aspect or another of the students’ production. As a conclusion we could say that oral tasks benefit the amount of L2 produced in terms of amount of interaction and avoidance of the use of L1. However, written tasks promote elaboration and accuracy of the sentences (length and number of LREs). Regarding the kinds of outcome, closed outcomes seem to be the best option for almost all the aspects of production except for the length of the sentences because as we can see, open ended task encouraged longer sentences. L1 use Nº of turns Length LREs Closed X X X Open X Oral X X Written X X H-L X X X X 41 To end up, the kind of pairing most appropriated for all the aspects of students’ production is the H-L pairs because as it is demonstrated, H-H pairs benefited two of the aspects of production (L1 use and length of the sentences) but it is not possible to find only high proficiency students in the same classroom and as it is said before, L-L pairs should be avoided. In addition to this, H-L pairs did perform all the tasks with similar results to the H-H pairs so they demonstrated to be a good option for making the students improve all of their communicative skills related to production. 4. 3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY This essay is an investigation about an important aspect of education, what variables of the communicative tasks promote different aspects of students’ production. Nowadays, the communicative approach is increasingly getting more important and there is still not enough information to carry it out; this is why this research has got a great significance in the field. In spite of its importance, the present study has a number of limitations. First of all, this is a study of a very small-scale size so with a bigger amount of data collected and analyzed, it is possible that the results vary, but the really important aspect of this study is that it may serve as a precursor for further researches about this topic, that I consider it is very important and can be very useful for teachers. In addition to this, this research has been carried out with students of the same ages (12 years old) and this variable is possible to have an effect on the results. For this reason, studies with a wider variety of students could get different results and conclusions. 48 6.1.2 TASK 2 Each one of you has three pictures. Describe your pictures to your partner then jointly arrange the pictures in a sequence to be able to tell the story. Student A Student B 6.1.3 TASK 3 Look at the pictures of task 2 and jointly write a text about the story. You have to pay attention to grammar and write the story in past tense. 49 6.2 TRANSCRIPTIONS8º346OOÑPHYII< 6.2.1 TASK 1 H-H Pair 1 A That thing that we have to do es I ask you the thing that, because I have you information and you have my, so I ask you, where is it? Where is NY, and you, you have it here, so you have to give me the answer and I will write it. So you can start now 2 A Ok, do you want to start? Ok. Where is NY? 3 B Is in the south east of the EEUU of America 4 A Oh, thank you, is your turn 5 B Where is it? 6 A London is in south east of UK. South east of the UK. Okay is my turn How big is NY? 7 B It is 8 coma 4 millions of residents 8 A Thanks, your turn 9 B How big is it London? 10 A It has 3 million 9 hundred 45 thousands residents 11 B Can you repeat please? 12 A It has 3 million 9 hundred 45 thousands residents 13 B Again please 14 A Okay, it’s 13 millions, 9 hundred 45 thousands residents. Did you get it now? 15 B Yes 16 A Your turn 17 B Top attractions… What are the top attractions? L1 words LREs 50 18 A The London Eye, the Tower of London, the Westminster palace, and the Trafalgar square, I like a lot the London eye and the Big Ben. 19 B Despacio please 20 A There are the London Eye, the Tower of London and the Big Ben. Ok? 21 B Okay. 22 A Which one are the top attractions of NY 23 B Times square, the statue of liberty, Brooklyn bridge, Rockefeller Center he reads all they description of the places but he does not understand anything 24 A Can you repeat only the importants name of the places please? 25 B Mm.. times square 26 A Oh, thank you 27 B Central park, statue of liberty, Brooklyn bridge, and Rockefeller center. 28 A Okay, your turn. Okay, it’s your turn 29 B Trips to do… what are they? 30 A Trips you can do, you can go to Oxford, Stonehenge. 31 B Can you repeat please? 32 A Ok, Oxford and Stonehenge. 33 B Can you spell the name please? 34 A S, t, o, n, e, h, e, n, g, e. okay, what trips you can … what trips can you do in NY? 35 B Washington DC, it is the capital and is 4 hours from NY, Atlantic City 36 A Okay 51 H-L Pair 1 A. Eeh okay. Eeh.. Tell me what museums are in NY. 2 B. Complete silence 3 A. Eem…can you repeat one museums are in NY? Please. Don’t worry, come on. She is nervous. Silvia, you tell me the museums in the NY, come on 4 B. No puedo!! 5 A. Well, where is it NY? Where is it NY? IS very big or no? 6 B. No... 7 A. Okay, and… the typical food? You know what’s the typical food? 8 B. Silence 9 A. Where is it NY Silvia? Come on Silvia! Preguntame lo que tienes ahi ,now you ask me, come on, read! Come Silvia! 10 B. ¿Qué? 11 A. You ask me how big is it? 12 B. How big is it? 13 A. Okay well… London, London is 30 thousand 940 residents, oh no. ah yes, yes.. okay you can write, Okay, ask me another question 14 B. Where is it? 15 A. Okay, London it is in the south east of the UK. It’s very beautiful 16 B. Typical food... what is typical food? 17 A. Some of the London traditional dishes are beef wellington, Sunday roast with pudding and fish and chips, is delicious 18 B. Eeh... Museums? 19 A. well… you want to ask me what museums are in London? Okay, in London there are the British museum and the national gallery. Okay? 20 B. Okay. 21 A. You want more information? And, London is very beautiful, yes. Now I ask you, Okay? 52 22 B. Okay 23 A. You do... you do know what museums are in NY? No? 24 B. Momma 25 A. Momma? Ah okay! And other? There are other museum in NY? No? There are not more museums in NY, okay. Well, where is it... osea.. Where is it NY? You know where is it NY? 26 B. In the south east of the United eeh... States of America 27 A. Okay, well.. How big is it NY? You do know? You don’t know… okay. And you do know what’s the typical food in NY, you do know? 28 B. ¿Tengo que leer esto? 29 A. Silvia come on! You do know what’s the typical food in NY? 30 B. Silence… 31 A. Okay 53 L-L Pair 1 A. Where is it NY? 2 B. Where is it London? 3 A. Where is it NY? 4 B. In the south east of the USA. Where is it London? 5 A. In the south east of the UK Where is… how big is it? 6 B. 8 14 million of resi... residents How big is it London? 7 A. Eeh... 20 million 2 thousand and 45. Where is top attractions? 8 B. Times square, central park, statue of liberty, Brooklyn bridge and Rockefeller centerTop attractions..London? 9 A. London Eye, Tower of London, Westminster Palace 10 B. Repite 11 A. Westminster Palace, Big Ben, Trafalgar square Where is museums in NY? 12 B. Momma, Madame Tussauds Museum London… where is museum London? What museum London? 13 A. Repite 14 B. What museum London? 15 A. British Museum, National Gallery 54 6.2.2 TASK 2 H-H Pair 1 A There are a children in a park and aa… he like photography. Eeh there are a person, he is photograph. Eeh a photograph, the person jump to the sea. 2 B In the first picture there are a children in the garden and a men.. ee...que se cae. In the second picture there are a camera eeh… doing a photo. And in the third picture there are the men running to the… to ... to the children because the camera... eeh… the camera is doing a photo, o algo asi… 3 B There are a children in the park, the men is doing a photo. 4 A In the photography the men se cae to the sea. 5 B The first one is the children is in the park. Later the men is doing the photograph. The men running to the children to… to the children. The men se cae 6 A And luego In the photography, the men se cae. 7 B And then , the camera, doing clik H-L Pair 1 A There is a duck in the water and a father, a son and.. no more, no more. There is a garden with plants.. and… I don’t know more, there is a kid and I think there is a father, esque no se que decir mas. First there is the duck, it is in the water, there is a kid with his father in the garden then the second, there is a picture eeh... two boys, one is in the water and the other is in the garden, I don’t know where is he. And third, the third picture there is one boy and his father is taking a photograph and behind her, behind his, behind he, is a duck aa.. I’m sorry... and no more. 2 B First aa.. one men, one boy, eeh.. Water eh… in second, one camera eh… eh… click. Eeh… one photograph eeh in the first one men running, one boy eh… y.. ya esta 3 A Is finished 4 A There is the boy and his father is playing football, then the father see a duck and he wants to buy, bought a new camera and because… no… that’s it. Help me Nico, I need help. 55 5 A The first one is the father and the boy. The second… 6 B Eeh… one photo in two boys played 7 A The first is this photo, this is the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth 8 A There is one boy and the father, he wants to take a photograph, and then he run eeh.. 9 B He run and.. eh… 10 A I don’t know.. And the camera says click. Now the camera… he throw to the water.. em.. He jumped to the water. then the photo… 11 B Then the photo, one boy and he in the water L-L Pair 1 A This is two persons in the park... This is one photo; in the photo is one boy and one person in the water. In the three photo this is one person taking photo a…a…one boy 2 B Em... The man run, how do you say tropezar? Pues el hombre tropieza y eh… y camera taking photos. 3 B The first is, the second is a…this, the thirty is a…there, the forty this and the fifth this, and the six. 4 A This one two persons in the park 5 B The man is taking photos 6 A In the three, one man eh… run 7 B And the four photos is a… the man is... se cae 8 A In the five the camera taking photo 9 B In the six is a man in the water se ha caido en el agua 56 6.2.3 TASK 3 H-H Pair 1 B Primero, first 2 A There are a children 3 B There was 4 A A claro si pasado, pues there was 5 B There was a children in the park. Then, eeh… the men, a ver, men era en plural no? o man era en plural? 6 A Man, 7 B The man is doing 8 A A photography 9 B Seria done no? Do, did, done… 10 A Did 11 B The man is did a photo. Ponemos photo o photography? 12 A Pon photography The man eh 13 B Was running to 14 A The children 15 B To the children 16 A He jump y se resbala… o no se como se dice 17 B He… he… no se he.. 18 A Jump to the lake, no se In the photography eh… 19 B There were, no se 20 A Si, a man in the lake 21 B A man in the lake and the children in the, in the grass. Esqe esto del is done… es asi? A ver.. pero cómo es esto? Esque es así pero de otra manera.. 22 A I don’t know 57 H-L Pair 1 A The father want to.. como era el pasado? Ai esque no me acuerdo 2 B Wanted? 3 A Oh yeah, wanted to take.. took.. Take or…? In past? Wanted to.. 4 B Take? 5 A Take a photo, then 6 B The… 7 A The father is taking a photo… he was taking the photo and then he ran to stayed with his son, then he, then he.. jumped to the water and then the photo is about the photo, is about the photo, he was in the water and his son stayed in the garden and he see him in the water. At the water? Or in the water? At the water! L-L Pair 1 B The man is… the man and the boy in the... in the water. The person is a photo, taking photo. The man run 2 A Two person in the park, one person taking photo 3 A The one man run in the park 4 B The man tropieza eh… and the camera taking photo 5 A In the photo one man in the water.