The Impact Of English Proficiency On College Learner-Learner's Meaning Negotiation In A Chinese EFL Context

In recent decades, a great number of researches and empirical studies in second language acquisition and foreign language teaching have shown that negotiation of meaning, which occurs in interactions between learners and nonnative speakers as well as in interactions between learners and teachers and between learners and learners, triggers learners' attention to target language forms, thereby promoting language acquisition. The largest number of studies on meaning negotiation in recent years focus on the influence of task types or characteristics on learner's meaning negotiation. However, few studies have been conducted in terms of learners' individual characteristics. The current experiment attempts to explore the influence of proficiency difference on the amount and type of learner-learner's meaning negotiation. The two experimental questions the present study aims to answer are stated as follows:(1)Does proficiency have an effect on the amount of learner-learner's meaning negotiation?(2)Does proficiency have an effect on the type of learner-learner's meaning negotiation?Sixty students who enrolled for the first semester at Lanzhou Jiaotong University participated in the current study. They were non-English majors. They were randomly selected. The subjects were administered a test for English proficiency. According to their English proficiency, 30 subjects were categorized as low intermediate and the remaining 30 subjects high intermediate. The subjects were further randomly grouped into three sub-groups: high group (High-High), low group (Low-Low) and mixed group (High-Low). Each group had 20 students (10 dyads in all). The dyads worked together on a picture-difference task. One subject of each dyad was given picture A, and the other was given picture B. There were 10 slight differences between picture A and picture B. Without showing each other their pictures, the subjects were asked to do the task only by describing their pictures or asking their partners for information in English. Their interactions were audio-recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were coded and measured for the amount and type of meaning negotiation. The data were submitted to a series of one-way ANOVAs to examine the influence of proficiency difference on the amount and type of meaning negotiation. Moreover, after the task was completed, all subjects were asked to fill in a meaning negotiation questionnaire, and 12 subjects randomly selected from each group were interviewed. The data collected from the questionnaire and interview shed light on the participants' mental operations in the process of negotiation of meaning. The results from the questionnaire and interview on recalling learners' mental operations agreed with the experimental results.The current study revealed that proficiency was a factor that influenced the amount of learner-learner's meaning negotiation. High-Low dyads produced more meaning negotiation than High-High dyads and Low-Low dyads. However, proficiency was not found to be a factor that influenced the type of learner-learner's meaning negotiation. The researcher of the current study theoretically analyzed and explained the phenomenon. The current study had some implications for Chinese college English learners to improve their oral proficiency. In task-based language teaching classroom, teachers should pair high learners with low learners to work mutually. This strategic pairing provided optimal conditions for learner-learner's meaning negotiation, which was helpful for learners to internalize target language forms.