The Influence Of Continuation Task With Enhanced Language Form For Alignment Effect On Second Language Writing

Since Wang Chuming(2012)put forward the “continuation task”(CT)based on the Interactive Alignment Model,researchers have already verified that CT could effectively promote learners' second language(L2)writing alignment according to a series of in-depth studies.Therefore,more and more researchers begin to explore how to increase the alignment effect of CT in order to better promote the efficiency of L2 writing.According to the Noticing Hypothesis(Schmidt,1990),some input-enhanced interventions can improve learners' notice to the target language form.However,up to now,there are relatively few studies linking “noticing” factor to the topic of enhancing the alignment effect of CT,and most of them focus on a specific language form.Hence,the purpose of this study is to explore whether CT with enhanced language form can increase learners' L2 writing alignment,so as to provide new evidence for further exploration of CT.This study centers on the following questions: 1)Will enhanced CT increase the lexical alignment in L2 writing compared with common CT? 2)Will enhanced CT increase the sentential alignment in L2 writing compared with common CT? 3)Will enhanced CT reduce errors in L2 writing compared with common CT? 4)What are the L2 learners' attitudes towards enhanced CT?The participants in this study were 80 freshmen of English majors from twoclasses at a university in Shandong Province.The experimental materials included the CT tests which were adapted from the CT test of Zhejiang New Entrance Examination in October 2016 and the questionnaires.The collected data were calculated and analyzed by the software of AntConc 3.2.3 and SPSS 17.0.The results show that: 1)Enhanced CT can greatly increase the lexical alignment in L2 writing compared with the common CT.2)Enhanced CT can greatly increase the sentential alignment in L2 writing compared with the common CT.However,due to the “avoidance phenomenon” and the limitation of the subjects' English proficiency,the inverted sentence is rare in the writing produced by both groups.3)On the whole,enhanced CT can greatly reduce the number of errors in L2 writing compared with the common CT.Nevertheless,owing to three factors: task time,task difficulty and learners' English level,there are only significant differences in lexical errors between the two groups,while there are no significant differences in Chinglish,morphological errors and syntactic errors.4)The vast majority of the subjects had a positive attitude towards the enhanced CT.The results of this study are of great significance to the study of CT,and provide reference and help for L2 learners' writing and teachers' L2 writing teaching.