The Effects Of Working Memory Capacity And Task Repetition On EFL Learners’ Speech Production

Speaking is a complex cognitive activity and speaking an L2offers morechallenges than speaking a first language. As the fact that spoken English is not onlyone of the most important indexes to measure EFL learners’ achievements, but alsothe main access for them to put what they have learned into practice, research on theinfluencing factors of EFL learners’ speech production plays a critical role in secondlanguage acquisition. Therefore, exploring EFL learners’speech production is of greatimportance. Thus, this study aims to explore the effects of the dual-factors (i.e.,working memory capacity and task repetition) on EFL learners’ speech production. Itaddresses the following research questions:1. Is there any significant effect of working memory capacity on EFL learners’speech production in terms of accuracy, complexity and fluency?2. Is there any significant effect of task repetition on EFL learners’ speechproduction in terms of accuracy, complexity and fluency?3. Does the effect of task repetition on EFL learners’ speech production varyaccording to working memory capacity?The present study was a2(working memory)×3(task repetition) mixedANOVA design. The24sophomore English-major subjects, whose languageproficiency was at the same level, were from the same class in Nanjing University ofTechnology. Working memory capacity fell into two groups—low working memorycapacity group and high working memory capacity. It was measured in terms ofinformation processing and information storage by a Chinese computerized readingspan test (CCRST) adapted from the version made by Cui and Chen (1996). Taskrepetition fell into three groups, i.e., the first trial (listening once and retelling), thesecond trial (listening twice and retelling) and the third trial (listening three times andretelling). The speech sample was elicited through a story recall test selected from2012TEM-4test. The subjects’speech production was measured in terms of accuracy (i.e. ACCURE, ACCURC), complexity (i.e. COMPLC, COMPLT, COMPLG) andfluency (i.e. SR, PTR, MLR, AR,ALP).In this study, a mixed ANOVA was conducted. The major findings are displayedas follows:1. Working memory capacity has a significant effect on EFL learners’ speechproduction in general, but no significant effect is found on complexity and twomeasures (AR and ALP) of fluency. The results indicate that EFL learners with highworking memory capacity perform better in accuracy and fluency than those with lowworking memory capacity.2. Task repetition has a significant effect on EFL learners’ speech production. Ithas a strong explanation power on the EFL learners’ speech production. However, theeffect on ALP is not significant. The results also show that the effect of task repetitionon complexity is more significant between the second and the third trial than thatbetween the first and the second trial.3. There is a significant interaction effect between working memory capacity andtask repetition on EFL learners’ speech production in terms of accuracy andcomplexity. More narrowly, the effect of working memory capacity on accuracy andcomplexity is weakened with the gains in working memory capacity. For accuracy, theeffect of task repetition is more significant in low working memory capacity groupthan in high working memory capacity group. For complexity, the significant effectonly exists in low working memory capacity group. Furthermore, within the lowworking memory capacity group, the effect of task repetition achieves significance inthe third trial, while there are no significant effects between the first and the secondtrial.Additionally, no significant interaction is found on fluency.To sum up, EFL learners’ speech production was significantly affected byworking memory capacity and task repetition, and the effect of working memoryposes different degrees with the gains in task repetition. These results lend support toworking memory capacity theory and input frequency effects theory. This study alsohas important pedagogical implications. On one hand, given the fact that workingmemory capacity cannot be manipulated or changed, other task-based strategies, namely, increasing task repetition and adjusting task difficulty, may be employed toraise the automaticity of individuals’ L2production processes and unburden workingmemory capacity so that attention can be cast to more complex aspects depending oncontrolled process. On the other hand, teachers could find out the perfect matchbetween task repetition and the initiative of students to give full play to their potential.