A Study Of The Effect Of Continuation Task Types And L2 Proficiency Levels On The Lexical Richness In Enghsh Writings

Lexical richness is an important indicator to measure students' use of vocabulary in breadth.For the past decades,abundant studies have been conducted to investigate students' developmental patterns in lexical richness and the relationship between lexical richness and writing quality.However,previous research on influential factors of lexical richness is limited.Given this,the present study investigates the impact of continuation task types on lexical richness of students at different proficient levels.This study aimed to address the following three research questions:(1)What was the effect of reading-to-write continuation task and keyword-cued continuation task on the lexical richness of students' English writings?In what way were the effects of continuation task types reflected in the lexical variation,lexical sophistication and lexical density?(2)What was the effect of students' high and low proficiency levels on the lexical richness of students' English writings?In what way were the effects of L2 proficiency levels reflected in the lexical variation,lexical sophistication and lexical density?(3)What was the interactive effect of continuation task types and students' L2 proficiency levels on students' performance in lexical richness?In order to answer the above three questions,a total of 82 English-major students from a key university in Shandong Province participated in this study,among whom,40 junior year students were high-proficient students and 42 freshmen were low-proficient students.Twenty-two high-proficient students and 22 students low-proficient completed a reading-to-write continuation task while 18 high-proficient students and 20 low-proficient students finished the keyword-cued continuation task.Students' writing samples were processed and analyzed through Range 32 for quantitative study.Descriptive analysis,independent sample t-test,Mann Whitney U test and One-way ANOVA were employed for the quantitative analysis.AntConc 3.5.7 was adopted to make qualitative analysis on word use in students' compositions.The results of the study revealed that reading-to-write continuation task was more effective to improve EFL students'lexical richness with significant difference found in lexical sophistication and lexical density.High-proficient students performed better than low-proficient ones.Significant difference was found in lexical variation and lexical sophistication.Cross-group comparison showed that reading-to-write continuation task had stronger alignment effect on low-proficient students in lexical richness,especially in lexical variation and lexical density.Having found a close relationship among continuation task type,L2 proficiency level and students'performance in lexical richness,this study provides guidance for English language teaching.Teachers could use reading-to-write continuation task to improve students' lexical richness and should take students' proficiency level into consideration when designing writing tasks.Limitations of the study and suggestions for future studies are finally listed.