The Effects Of Task Type On The Retention Of L2 Idioms

The Involvement Load Hypothesis is proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn in 2001, which holds that the retention of L2 vocabulary is contingent upon amount of task-induced involvement, presented by the combination of three motivational-cognitive factors:Need, Search, and Evaluation. Based upon the hypothesis, subsequent studies have been conducted to test the effectiveness of different tasks in L2 vocabulary acquisition, among which most have partially or totally validated the Involvement Load Hypothesis on the immediate posttests, while the results are mixed on the delayed posttests. The current study mainly attempts to investigate the effects of task type on L2 idiom retention on the basis of the Involvement Load Hypothesis. Different from previous studies, the target words of the current study are idioms rather than individual words. Three research questions are proposed:1) Does the task type affect the retention of L2 idioms? 2) Is there any difference between the short-term retention and the long-term retention? 3) Is there any correlation between the form retention and the meaning retention?99 adult Chinese EFL learners are involved in the experiments, in which the participants are requested to read the same text and randomly assigned to four different reading tasks: reading comprehension, searching for target idioms, fill-in-the-blank with target idioms, and sentence-making with target idioms. Unannounced immediate and delayed posttests are conducted after the completion of reading and tasks to measure the short-and long-term retention of the target idioms. The results reveal:1) the task type has a significant effect on the short-term meaning retention of L2 idioms; 2) there is a significant difference between the short-term retention and the long-term retention; 3) the correlation between the short-term meaning retention of L2 idioms and the retention of its form is significant.Some pedagogical implications can be drawn from the findings.First, teachers are encouraged to design tasks varying in involvement load for different pedagogical purposes. In addition, pedagogical interventions qualifying as focus on forms (FonFs) are recommended in the teaching and learning of L2 idioms. Moreover, output tasks and multiple exposures to new idioms are proposed to help L2 learners frame repertoire of L2 idioms.