A Study On The Effects Of Task Types On Pair Interaction In Chinese EFL Classroom

This thesis reports an empirical study on the effects of two task types on pair interaction in a genuine Chinese EFL class based on the theories of Input Hypothesis, Interaction Hypothesis and Output Hypothesis. Many classroom researchers have probed into the factors influencing classroom interaction. The research results indicate that group work or pair work is better than teacher-led activity in motivating learners' interaction and a close relation is also found between task type and task output in group interaction. The present study attempts to make a further investigation concerning the effects of different task types and designs on learners' task performance during pair interaction within Chinese EFL context so as to provide Chinese English teachers with insights into more effective teaching and task designing.The study was implemented in an intact class from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. Four communicative tasks, with two opinion gap tasks and two information gap tasks, were selected and were done during four scheduled lessons as a normal part of the teaching plan. Each task lasted for 10 minutes. A questionnaire and follow-up interviews were also carried out after all the data was collected. The data were analyzed from three aspects: (1) language production, including the comparisons of the quantity and quality between the two task types;(2) amount of negotiation moves, including analysis of the trigger types and interactional modifications;(3) amount of modified output.The main findings showed that information gap tasks guaranteed more language production, meaning negotiation and modified output, while opinion gap tasks resulted in better fluency and complexity of students' output. Thus, the present study found differences between the two task types not only in the quantity of negotiation sequences but also in their quality. Another conclusion was that even within the same task type, different designs and organization of the task might also render different effect on pair interaction. The complexity and the topic of the tasks were found to play an important role in learners' task performance.Finally, the main characteristics of Chinese students' pair interaction were described and two implications were put forward for the Chinese teachers. First, they have to design the task according to different teaching purposes. Secondly, they have to take the complexity and topic of the task into consideration while designing the tasks.