Task complexity and its effects on complexity, accuracy and fluency of EFL learners’ written production
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Abstract
The present study investigated the effects of task complexity on complexity, accuracy, and fluency of learners’ written narrative task production. The participants of this study were 30 intermediate students, who were randomly selected as one group. Two picture stories were used for the purpose of the study. All 30 participants were required to look at the picture stories in 15 minutes and narrate them at two separate sessions but in same condition. During the first session, they looked at the pictures which were selected based on the courses they have passed and performed here-and-now (HN) task by writing their narratives in present tense and at the second session, with similar conditions, they performed there-and-then (TT) task by writing their narratives in past tense. After all writings were collected and scored, three scores were obtained by each rater as measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The results of statistical analyses showed that tense variation had significant effects on the complexity of learners, but it did not have any significant effects on the accuracy and fluency of EFL learners’.
Keywords: task-based language teaching, task complexity, accuracy, fluency, complexity
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