Experimental Study On Effects Of Post-task Focus On Form On EFL Learners' Oral Production

Focus on form is a central construct in task-based language teaching.It has been proved to be necessary to help learners master effective language use for communication while developing target-like proficient foreign language for the last two decades.Considering the relative infancy of existing research on focus on form at the post-task stage in task-based language teaching,the present study employs post-task transcribing as a focus on form activity and investigates the effects of individual transcribing on learners' oral production.Besides,the present study explored the effects of multiple task practices on learners' oral production by means of four task sessions.The research questions which guided this study are as follows:1.Does post-task focus on form(i.e.transcribing)have a positive effect on EFL learners' oral production? If yes,what are the specific effects of post-task transcribing on EFL learners' oral production in terms of accuracy,complexity and lexical performance?2.Do multiple task practices have a positive effect on EFL learners' oral production? If yes,what are the specific effects of multiple task practices on EFL learners' oral production in terms of accuracy,complexity and lexical performance?Sixty participants,divided into one treatment group and one control group completed four tasks with a one-week interval between each task.A listening-based retelling task was employed.At the post-task stage,the treatment group was assigned individual transcribing while the control group was not assigned this activity.All the participants' oral production was measured in terms of accuracy,complexity and lexical performance.The results mainly indicate two findings related to the research questions.Firstly,posttask transcribing was proved to be effective in improving learners' oral production.Secondly,multiple task practices were found to be beneficial to learners' accuracy,complexity and lexical performance.The findings were discussed with knowledge of Noticing Hypothesis,Output Hypothesis,Levelt's speaking model,practice effect of socio-cultural theory and other related second language acquisition theories.On the basis of theoretical discussions,the following implications concerning pedagogy have been presented: The results of the present study imply that the post-task stage in task-based language teaching merits more special attention with regard to its positive effect on focus on form.Therefore,this study recommends that a post-task transcribing activity can be taken on as a practicable focus on form activity in EFL classrooms and that multiple task practices are necessary and advantageous in improving EFL learner's oral production,which benefits learner's lexical learning in the long run.