Effects Of Task Complexity On Chinese EFL Learners’ Writing

Over the past few decades,task-based language teaching(TBLT)has gained great attention both in second language acquisition(SLA)research and in second language(L2)pedagogy.Task complexity,a central issue in the TBLT literature,has been heatedly researched regarding its effects on L2 production.However,while most of the research has investigated how task complexity affects L2 oral production,few studies have examined how task complexity influences L2 writing performance.Besides,based on Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis,task complexity consists of two key dimensions,i.e.the resource-directing dimension and the resource-dispersing dimension,but most of the research has mainly focused on one dimension.Few studies have investigated how the two task complexity dimensions affect L2 writing at the same timeThe present study aims to explore simultaneously the effects of the two dimensions of task complexity,i.e.the resource-directing dimension and the resource-dispersing dimension,on L2 writing performance in terms of complexity,accuracy,and fluency(CAF).It focuses on the number of elements along the resource-directing dimension of task complexity and topic familiarity along the resource-dispersing dimension of task complexity.The research questions in the present study are addressed as follows1)What are the effects of task complexity(the number of elements)on Chinese EFL learners’ writing performance regarding complexity,accuracy,and fluency?2)What are the effects of task complexity(topic familiarity)on Chinese EFL learners’writing performance regarding complexity,accuracy,and fluency?One hundred and seventy sophomores majoring in business in a key university in Jiangsu Province participated in the study.They came from four intact classes,and each class performed one writing task.The four writing tasks in the present study are as follows:1)three elements+familiar topic;2)six elements+familiar topic;3)three elements+unfamiliar topic;4)six elements+unfamiliar topic.The participants’written texts were first coded by the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer(L2SCA)(Lu,2010)as well as the Lexical Complexity Analyzer(LCA)(Lu,2012),and then analyzed with the help of SPSS 22.0 in terms of CAF.The major findings in the present study are summarized as followsFirst,task complexity manipulated along the resource-directing dimension(the number of elements)didn’t have any effects on syntactic complexity,but it had a positive effect on lexical complexity of the Chinese EFL learners’ writing performance In addition,with the increase of task complexity along the resource-directing dimension(the number of elements),the Chinese EFL learners’ writing tended to be more accurate but less fluent.The results on task complexity along the resource-directing dimension were in line with Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis.Second,task complexity manipulated along the resource-dispersing dimension(topic familiarity)had a positive effect on both syntactic and lexical complexity of the Chinese EFL learners’ writing performance.However,with the increase of task complexity along the resource-dispersing dimension(topic familiarity),the Chinese EFL learners’ writing tended to be less accurate and fluent.The results on task complexity along the resource-dispersing dimension were more supportive of Skehan and Foster’s Limited Attentional Capacity ModelThe present study has implications for L2 writing research and pedagogy.It inspires L2 writing instructors to first think about which L2 writing dimensions the students need to improve,and then design writing tasks with appropriate complexity.