A Study Of The Effects Of Topic Familiarity On Chinese EFL Learners' Oral Production

Students' oral performance in English as a foreign language(EFL)has been a continuing concern across a number of linguistic fields.With the ever-increasing popularity of task-based language teaching(TBLT),researchers began to explore the effects of task factors on oral English production.Topic familiarity,as one of the cognitive factors of task complexity,has been explored by many researchers in the area of second language acquisition(SLA)and EFL teaching and learning.However,in previous studies,learners'English language proficiency was rarely taken into account and the measures used for assessing oral production were not comprehensive.Besides,the interpretation of research findings was insufficient.In light of the above-mentioned points,the present study aims to investigate the effects of topic familiarity on Chinese EFL learners'oral production.Fifty English majors participated in the study with 25 first-year students in Group 1(low proficiency group)and 25 third-year students in Group 2(high proficiency group).Participants were asked to perform two speaking tasks of different topic familiarity and their oral discourses were analyzed in terms of complexity,accuracy,and fluency(CAF)by seven assessing measures.The effects of topic familiarity on participants' oral production as a whole in terms of complexity,accuracy,and fluency were examined.Then,this study investigated the effects of topic familiarity on participants' oral production in terms of complexity,accuracy,and fluency within the same proficiency group and between two different proficiency groups.In-depth interviews were carried out to complement the statistical results.Finally,the research findings were discussed and explained from the perspectives of multiple attentional resources allocation and speech processing.The following findings have been obtained.First,results show that topic familiarity significantly affected Chinese EFL learners' oral production as a whole in terms of complexity,accuracy,and fluency.To be specific,the familiar topic promoted participants to produce more meaningful syllables per minute,more clauses per T-unit,and more error-free clauses.Second,topic familiarity exerted significant effects on Chinese EFL learners' oral production in terms of complexity,accuracy,and fluency within the same proficiency group.The familiar topic promoted first-year English majors to produce more fluent language,more clauses per T-unit,and more error-free clauses.The familiar topic promoted third-year English majors to produce more meaningful syllables per minute,more clauses per T-unit,and more error-free clauses.Third,declining topic familiarity widened the gaps between two proficiency groups in terms of syllables per minute and error-free clauses.In terms of their oral performance of the familiar topic,third-year English majors significantly outperformed first-year English majors in terms of syntactic complexity and syntactic variety,but not in terms of lexical complexity.As to their oral performance of the unfamiliar topic,third-year English majors significantly outdid first-year English majors in terms of syllables per minute,syntactic complexity,syntactic variety,and error-free clauses,but not in terms of lexical complexity.Interview results supported the statistical analysis and disclosed participants'psychological activities behind their speaking behaviors.At the theoretical level,multiple attentional resources model and speech production model provide strong support for conducting this study.The research findings support the cognition hypothesis of the effects of cognitive factors on learners' oral production along resource-depleting dimensions,and develop more comprehensive links between cognitive processes and different stages of EFL learners'speech processing.Appropriate topic familiarity can elevate class efficiency.The familiar topic promotes substantial output in class,especially for less proficient learners.Finally,limitations of the present study and suggestions for future work are discussed.