The Effect Of Task Complexity On Learners' Critical Thinking In EFL Speaking Class

The present study is aimed to explore the effect of task complexity (Robinson's model) on learners'critical thinking in EFL speaking class. It investigates whether task complexity influences EFL learners'performance in the critical thinking in their speaking learning: whether"topic familiarity"and"time constraints"facilitate the EFL learners to challenge authorities, to think dimensionally and creatively. By exploring the impact on the learners'critical thinking in EFL speaking, this thesis aims to increase the understanding of the relationship between task-based instructions and critical thinking in EFL speaking, so that educators can implement task-based instructions more effectively and consequently promote learners'speaking abilities with critical thinking.This study is conducted in an EFL speaking class, among second-year non-English majors at Soochow University. In the study, both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed. The quantitative data are obtained from an experiment of 58 second-year non-English majors at Soochow University. Meanwhile, written interviews are adopted to gain insights into the understanding of thinking skills. The author employs three indicators—"challenging authorities","dimensional thinking"and"creative thinking"abilities to test the performance of the subjects'critical thinking in the study. The major findings can be summarized as follows:1. Task complexity does not have obvious effect on participants'performance of challenging authorities: participants do not benefit a lot from enough time preparation as expected; and performance of challenging authority is not often seen in participants on familiar topics.2. The reducing of task complexity is helpful for learners'dimensional thinking. Participants mention the others'opinions more frequently on familiar topics, with no time constraint. In addition, participants can make reasons on the familiar topics, but they are not good at citing statistics to enhance convincing effects.3. The change in"creativity"does not display an expected tendency for the whole participants group. Without time constraint, participants'performance of"creativity"strikes to the highest degree, but this portion of 50% still remains unsatisfying: most participants lack in independent thinking abilities; instead, they are following authorities.4. Through the written interviews, learners'attitudes towards critical thinking are mainly positive. The interviewees show confidence in critical thinking teaching.In light of the above findings, the author suggests that: among three indicators in the performance of critical thinking, the task-based instruction is not found to have significant influence in"challenging authority"ability. On the other side, it is in the perspective of"dimensional thinking"ability and"creative thinking"ability that, the task-based instruction has the potential in developing learners'critical thinking in speaking class. However, the effect of such an instruction still needs further empirical studies.