\nHankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea
\n<sjmanning
![\"atmark\"](\"http:\/\/www.tesl-ej.org\/atmark.png\")
hufs.ac.kr><\/p>\n\nAbstract<\/h3>\n
This study investigates the influence of a grammatical reconstruction task on talk and subsequent individual writing. In a South Korean university, two classes alternated learning conditions, between \u2018read\u2013summarize\u2013write\u2019 and \u2018read\u2013reconstruct\u2013write\u2019. In the summarize condition, small groups collaborated to create a summary of the reading; in the reconstruction condition, small groups collaborated on a summary reconstruction task. This was an activity in which the teacher first wrote a summary of the reading and then removed all the grammar words, punctuation, and capitalized letters, leaving only the content words. Students had to reconstruct the original summary. In the last phase of the lesson, students wrote an essay on the same topic as the reading. The in-class talk was analysed for differences and the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of the writing were calculated. Results showed the collaborative summary prompted discussion about the ideational content of the summary, whereas the reconstruction task promoted talk about which grammatical forms to use. Subsequent individual writing was impacted; accuracy improved after the reconstruction task with no loss of fluency. Fluency increased in both conditions when compared to pre-tests, while syntactic and lexical complexity of the writing was unaffected by condition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Improving the lexico-grammatical accuracy of learners\u2019 writing is among the goals of university EFL writing instruction. Unfortunately, learners often repeat the same mistakes, despite being able to identify and correct these same mistakes when identified by the instructor \u2013 indicating that learners have linguistic knowledge but have not deployed it. This poses the problem of creating a situation in which learners produce accurate writing \u2013 to the limit of their competence \u2013 without reducing the fluency or complexity of the produced language.<\/p>\n
A solution may lie in teachers taking advantage of the situated nature of the language classroom. Language classrooms, language learning tasks, teachers, and learners are interconnected elements of both larger and smaller systems (levels) existing over time (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008). The elements and agents in the classroom intersect at a point in time and space (a classroom on a day and time) with a socially defined event (a lesson) that has an objective (teach\/learn \u201csomething\u201d) with a longer-term goal (e.g., learners may want to get a job). \u201cThe lesson\u2019s event connects to previous events and to events yet to happen,\u201d (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 201). This suggests that a performance of a task in class will be influenced by: the conditions of that task (Robinson, 2001, 2011; Skehan, 1998, 2009); that lesson\u2019s pre-task activities (Willis & Willis, 2007); and all the learning histories of each individual doing the task (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008).<\/p>\n
Rather than look at the writing task as an isolated event and examining its performance as the result of the task design (Kuiken & Vedder, 2007; Robinson, 2011; Skehan, 2009), this study imagines it as a stage of a \u201clearning history process\u201d that is influenced by earlier lesson activity (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008), with the immediately preceding task being the most salient history. Viewing writing tasks this way encourages instructors to arrange task sequences in such a way that prior activities in the sequence prompt learners into performing later tasks in the way that is most beneficial to their learning needs. For example, performing tasks that require a high degree of linguistic accuracy (e.g., dictation) might create a classroom context in which there is a residual emphasis on accurate production, leading to more accurate language production in an immediately following individual writing activity. Should this be borne out, it would be of help to teachers when creating sequences of tasks to address their learners\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n
Tasks and language learning<\/h4>\n
Since the emergence of task-based language teaching (TBLT) in the 1990s, much has been researched about the various ways tasks are designed and implemented in ESOL classrooms. TBLT holds that language use leads to language learning, yet the mechanism for how this happens has been under considerable, as yet unresolved debate. Early explanations focused on the cognitive processes of noticing a gap between what one needed to say and what one could say (Schmidt, 1990). The task would be designed in a way that learners would notice this gap, clarify it through negotiation of meaning (Long, 1996), or they would engage in language related episodes \u2013 talk about language (Swain & Lapkin, 1998) and thereby learn what they did not know. This noticing, theorized to happen in real time, relied on learners to first notice and then to take the initiative to articulate what was noticed. A delayed approach to noticing was proposed by Willis (1996). She suggested providing samples of native speakers\u2019 talk when doing the same task for learners to examine after doing the task themselves. Through this analysis, learners would notice what they had not known, and this noticing could then lead to learning (Willis, 1996; Willis & Willis, 2007). Long\u2019s approach relied on incidental acquisition of items at the level and need of the learner, whereas the Willis\u2019 (Willis & Willis, 2007) approach allowed for more formal pre-planning of items by the teacher, depending on what the teacher felt the learners required. However, they still insist that the curriculum be sequenced by tasks rather than by linguistic items \u2013 i.e. a task-based syllabus (Samuda & Bygate, 2008, p. 58).<\/p>\n
Another way of conceptualizing how task performance leads to language learning stems from a sociocultural view of education in which learning is viewed as a process mediated through interaction between learners and experts (usually the teacher) (Vygotsky, 1986). From this view, the environment of the task performance affords learning opportunities through students engaging in languaging (Swain, 2010) or otherwise assisting each other, for example by waiting, using gestures, finishing each other\u2019s utterances, etc. (Ohta, 2001).<\/p>\n
While acknowledging the merit to a sociocultural post hoc<\/em> explanation of how tasks aid language acquisition, many researchers and course designers argue that since we do not know a priori<\/em> what sociocultural conditions will be present at the time a task is performed, only the characteristics of the task itself should be considered when sequencing them into a curriculum (Robinson, 2001, 2011; Skehan, 1998). Therefore, a great deal of research has been carried out investigating various aspects of tasks in order to develop a theoretically valid approach to sequencing.<\/p>\n
Recently, Kim, Jung, and Tracey-Ventura (2017) pointed out that less work has been done investigating task performance in an existing learning context. Some prominent studies that have looked at situated tasks include McDonough and Chaikitmongkol (2007) and Van den Braden (2006), who both report longitudinal studies. Others have investigated single tasks in classrooms, either as proposed by educational authorities (e.g., Carless, 2004), or as part of a researcher\u2019s agenda (e.g., Kim & McDonough, 2011).<\/p>\n
What none of these studies has investigated is the dynamic impact a task may have on an immediately following activity within the same lesson. Ellis\u2019 (2017) position paper on task-based teaching, while critiquing the previous research, discusses the issue of implementation conditions \u2013 how students go about doing the task \u2013 affecting task performance and task sequencing. Implementation conditions include for example, how much time students have to plan what they will say prior to performing the task or whether or not they can practice the task prior to doing it (Ellis, 2017, p. 513). However, in his review, the implementation conditions refer only to the task under investigation, not to any previous classroom activity. He does not address the idea that a previous activity, even one focusing on a different skill, could serve as an implementation condition for a later task, and in turn, alter the performance of that later task. In short, there has been no research to date on the idea that when students do one task that requires a certain mindset and then do another task, there might be a carryover of the first mindset that influences performance of the second task. To date, tasks have only been investigated as standalone activities, and efforts at sequencing tasks have focused only on the characteristics of the individual tasks and not at their relative effects on each other.<\/p>\n
It is hypothesized that performing a task that naturally promotes discussion of grammatical items will lead to activation of grammatical knowledge in the learners, which remains activated during a subsequent in-class activity. This \u201cactivation\u201d could work either by making the sub-conscious conscious (cf. Schmidt, 1990) or by creating a classroom ecology (Van Lier, 2004) or trajectory (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008) in which grammatical accuracy is given greater standing than it would have if following typical tasks that prize meaning over form (Ellis, 2003).<\/p>\n
If it could be shown that the focus (on meaning or accuracy) of a preceding task influenced a later task, it would be of use to teachers who wish to integrate tasks into an existing curriculum \u2013 those using a task-supported language teaching (TSLT) approach (Samuda & Bygate, 2008, p. 60), which has been reported to be the main way that tasks are used in Asian contexts (Butler, 2011).<\/p>\n
Methods<\/h3>\n
This study investigated changes in individual essay writing performance created by changed requirements of its preceding task. Specifically, it asked if performance of a collaborative task requiring linguistic accuracy prompted talk about language (i.e., languaging, Swain, 2010), and if this were performed immediately before an individual writing assignment, would the writing be more accurate, without sacrificing fluency or complexity? The research questions were:<\/p>\n
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- Do students differentially attend to form or meaning when performing a collaborative summary vis-\u00e0-vis a collaborative reconstruction task?<\/li>\n
- Is the complexity, accuracy, or fluency of an individual\u2019s writing differentially influenced by performance of a summarizing or reconstruction task immediately prior to writing?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Setting and participants<\/h4>\n
The study took place in two essay writing classes for general students (non-English majors) at a university in Seoul, South Korea. Each class met once per week for two hours. The lessons followed a \u201clinked skills approach\u201d (Nation, 2009). Skill 1 was reading and analyzing authentic texts (essays, news editorials, and the like), and followed by (skill 2) discussing the contents in small groups, followed by skill 3, independent writing in class (see Table 1). For the present investigation, skill 2 (discussion) was changed to collaborative summarizing, in which speaking and writing were integrated. The nature of the summary \u2013 freely written or reconstructed \u2013 was varied. The in-class essays were collected and photocopied, and the originals returned to the students for finishing as homework.
\n<\/a>
\nPrior to data collection, I asked the students for permission to use their classroom recordings and essays. They were given an opt-in sheet to sign; any sheets unreturned or left blank were assumed to be opt-outs. Students received no bonus for opting in and no penalty for opting out. Opt-outs attended the lessons and did the tasks because the tasks were part of their curriculum. I did not use non-participants\u2019 data, or the data of their group members, in this study. [1<\/a>]<\/p>\nThere were 18 participants. There were more students registered in the class, but some did not wish to participate, and the remainder did not attend all three lessons. This reduced the N to nine per class because the non-participants\u2019 data, along with that of their group members, was removed. The author was the classroom teacher for both classes.<\/p>\n
Data collection<\/h4>\n
The study took place between the 10th<\/sup> and 12th<\/sup> week of a 16-week semester (See Table 1). By the 11th<\/sup> week of the semester, students were familiar with the class procedure, and the researcher could create a study that served the existing goals and needs of the participants \u2013 i.e., if it had been established that accurate production was not a need for these students, this study would not have taken place. An in-class essay in the 10th<\/sup> week served as a baseline, and then the classes alternated treatments. In weeks 11 and 12, each class did the same reading activity, followed by either a collaborative summary or a collaborative reconstruction task. Finally, the students did a 30-minute, timed individual writing. All the essays received feedback on their contents, organization, and language but the week 10 and week 11 papers were returned at the end of week 12 class, and week 12\u2019s paper returned in the next class (week 14, due to a national holiday) to avoid any influence my feedback might have had.<\/p>\n
Table <\/strong>1<\/strong>. Research Design<\/strong><\/p>\n
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