Effect Of Field-Independent/Dependent Cognitive Style To L2 Learners On Reading Comprehension And Written Production In The Continuation Task

The core mechanism of the continuation task—alignment effect in language has been widely studied in the field of SLA.According to Wang(2010),the continuation task involves an interactive process where writing coupled with reading entails alignment.To achieve the goal of strengthening L2 learning is to increase alignment effect in the interactive process.Early studies exploring the alignment effect focused mainly on language sphere in interpersonal dialogue including phonetics,vocabularies,grammatical structure.Atkinson et al(2007)addressed that alignment includes the learner coming into coordinated interaction with the language being learned,in tandem with many factors including individuals.However,as one of the most important elements of individual difference,cognitive style is largely neglected in the study of alignment.Cognitive style refers to the habitual behaviors of individuals in cognitive processes,which influences how individuals analyze and organize information.The categories of cognitive style vary,such as field independence and field dependence;reflection and impulsion and convergence and divergence.The present study explores field independence and field dependence.The present study aims at comparing the reading comprehension and written production between field-independent(FI)and field-dependent(FD)cognitive style learners in the continuation task.Specifically,the present study intends to explore: 1)the difference of reading comprehension performance influenced by FI/FD cognitive style;2)the difference of written production at the aspect of alignment effects influenced by FI/FD cognitive style.The alignment effects will be analyzed from article length,error rates and the usage of original keywords.To this end,an empirical study was conducted among 64 senior high school students in three intact classes coming from Xiamen.The research was conducted in three steps: 1)The Group Embedded Figure Test was employed to measure participants' cognitive style.The participants were classified into FI/FD cognitive style groups accordingly.Then,the participants finished a reading comprehension task based on an article with the end removed;2)the participants were required to perform the continuation task,article length and error rates were analyzed in this step;3)Keyword lists of written production were analyzed in this step.T-test and Pearson correlation were adopted to analyze the data.The results of the data showed that: 1)FI cognitive style learners had significantly better performance in reading comprehension test;2)FI cognitive style learners made significantly less errors in the written production.In addition,the difference of article length of written production between FI/FD cognitive style learners was little;3)FD cognitive style learners used more keywords from the original text.The findings have theoretical and pedagogical implications.It enriches the research of alignment effect in the continuation task by adding empirical evidence to it.The findings also informed language teachers to pay attention to students' cognitive style and make full use of its advantages as well as create flexible environment for students in teaching the continuation task and using it as a method to improve foreign language proficiency.