The Effects Of Task Complexity And Working Memory On Efl Learners’ Argumentative Writing

Since the 1980 s,task-based teaching has become the research hot spot by researchers for a long period,in which writing teaching is not only the research focus but also the key and difficult point for students.In recent years,researchers have studied some elements which effect English writing from cognitive perspective including task complexity and from learner factors,including working memory.However,studies for the correlation between task complexity and working memory in terms of writing proficiency are fewer.This study is aimed at exploring English output differences of Chinese learners with different working memory capacity when they fulfil writing tasks with different complexity: the effects of task complexity on EFL learners’ argumentative writing proficiency;the effect of working memory capacity on EFL learners’ argumentative writing proficiency;and whether there is a correlation between task complexity and working memory in terms of accuracy,fluency and complexity in EFL learners’ argumentative writing or not.This study chooses 50 sophomores of English major from a university in Lanzhou as participants to explore the effects of task complexity and working memory capacity on argumentative writing by means of experimental research.Firstly,a pre-test is used to choose 50 students with intermediate writing level from 74 students in two natural classes.Then,as for the first question,the study designs two argumentative writing tasks according to +/-prior knowledge from Robinson’s Multiple Attentional Resources Model.One argumentative writing task is topic given and the other one is topic,idea and macro-structure given and these 50 students need to complete these two argumentative writing tasks in two groups,group TIM and group T.Later,as for the second question,each writing group is divided into high working memory capacity and low working memory capacity on the basis of their scores of working memory span test.In the end,as for the third question,the study compares the information about fluency,accuracy and complexity when high working memory capacity and low working memory capacity complete argumentative writings with different complexity.After this experiment,all of information are arranged and analyzed by descriptive statistics,the paired sample t test and regression analysis in SPSS 22.0.Research results show that: 1)Task complexity has effects on accuracy,fluency and complexity in EFL learners’ argumentative writing.The increase of task complexity leads to the decrease of accuracy,fluency and syntactic complexity,while the increase of complexity.2)Working memory has effects on accuracy and complexity in EFL learners’ argumentative writing,while it hasn’t an effect on fluency.Learners with high working memory capacity perform better in the aspects of accuracy and complexity,while perform worse in the aspect of fluency than learners with low working memory capacity.3)There is a correlation between task complexity and working memory.When working memory capacity is higher,the effect of task complexity becomes weaker.By means of this experimental research,the results have proved that there are correlations among task complexity,working memory capacity and task performance.This study has supplied Robinson’s Multiple Attentional Resources Model and Skehan’s Limited Attentional Capacity Model from the perspectives of theory and practice.