The Effects Of Task Structure On Chinese EFL Learners’ Oral Performance

The present study aims to investigate the influence of task structure on Chinese EFL learners’ oral performance in terms of language fluency, accuracy and complexity. Altogether60College students were selected as participants in the study. They were grouped into two proficiency levels in order to find out whether task structure interacts with language proficiency level.In this study, task structure was manipulated by two different sets of narrative pictures. More structured narrative task (Football) contains clear interconnections among six pictures whose sequences cannot be changed. The logic of structured narrative tasks is fixed and predictable. Thus this kind of task does not impose pressure in information processing. However, less structured narrative task (Journey) consists of loosely connected events, whose connection is weak. The logic in unstructured narrative tasks is of different possibilities. The results were processed both quantitatively and qualitatively. SPSS was used to process participants’ oral performance in terms of language fluency, accuracy and complexity. Interview data is analyzed to explain the statistics. The major findings are as follows:1. Task structure is a factor that influences language learners’ oral performance. More structured tasks generate more accurate but less complex language compared to less structured tasks, but language fluency is unaffected.2. Language proficiency is a factor that interferes with the effects exerted by task structure on Chinese EFL learners. Students with low language proficiency produced significantly more fluent, less accurate and more complex language when doing less structured tasks. However, little influence was exerted on the oral performance produced by students of high language proficiency.The results indicate that the effects of task structure should be paid due attention in both language teaching and testing, and that appropriate tasks could be selected to facilitate the development of language learners’ interlanguage systems.