The Effects Of Different Tasks On Meaning Negotiation In College English Classroom

This thesis mainly explores the effects of different tasks on college learner-learner's meaning negotiation in second langauage classroom. According to Krashen's comprehensible input hypothesis, lots of comprehensible input can enhance the L2 learners'acquisition. And in Long' Interaction Hypothesis, he regards that more input induced by interaction will promote leaners'acquisition. On the basis of this, Gass proves that when interaction involves meaning negotiation and feedback, it facilitates second language acquitsion (SLA) more. Since there is a general agreement that conversational interaction can facilitate interlanguage development, much of the research on interaction has been conducted. Now that in this thesis, the present study is intended to examine how four different tasks with different complexity affect chances of meaning negotiation. The investigation involves 32 computer major undergraduates in Nanjing Forest University and mainly adopts four tasks in group discussions as research method. The experiment conducted in this thesis also shows that task type and its complexity do have influence on learner-learner's meaning negotiation.Three main findings arise from the results reported in this research:First, four different tasks, namely jigsaw, information-gap, decision-making and opinion-exchange do have different effects on meaning negotiation. Second, task complexity exerts a complex imbalanced effect on the meaning negotiation. Third, learners' task performance can be improved with more meaning negotiation. Therefore, some implications drawn from the results and analyses reported in the investigation for promoting meaning negotiation in task-based instruction. These measures comprise diversifying task types, selecting appropriate tasks, implementing tasks by controlling cognitive demands and adjusting the role of teachers. So English teachers may choose proper tasks with these suggestions in their teaching, which provide more opportunities for their students to negotiate meaning with each other and to improve their task performance. Limited by the words of this thesis, the research was unable to be applied to more diversified task types or more tasks of the same type. Therefore, the result will be more scientific and reasonable if more diversified task types or more tasks of the same type are involved in the research.