task complexity

This study examined the effect of cognitive load on L2 learners’ descriptive and expository essay writings reflected in their obtained readability indices by taking a mixed-method approach. Randomly selected 58 out of 83 intermediate to upper-intermediate EFL learners in three groups underwent varying methods of Topic-Only, Topic-plus Argument/Counter-argument, and Topic-plus Mechanics, followed by retrospective interviews. The writings were analyzed in terms of density, diversity, and syntactic complexity based on the certain variables. Following the research interventions, 12 (five boys and seven girls) participants, randomly selected, attended retrospective semi-structured interviews. ANCOVA results indicated that, unlike descriptive writings, expository ones virtually underwent significant changes, and learners’ attentions were highly affected. The results obtained in the quantitative writing analysis were consistent with the records in the interviews. The study revealed that participants performed better when they received either no or meta-cognitive supports. The results suggest that content support may decrease the load and facilitate linguistic encoding. The findings corroborate cognitive load theory and emphasize adopting sensitive measures to meet increasing task demands in writing tasks.

The present study probed into the combined effect of task complexity and task condition through collaborative activities on EFL learners’ vocabulary learning with a focus on the role of L2 proficiency. To this end, 121 female Iranian EFL learners from Safir Institute in Babol were initially given Oxford Placement Tests (OPTs) to select homogeneous participants in terms of language proficiency. Then, 80 female pre-intermediate and intermediate Iranian EFL learners were selected and randomly divided into four groups: two experimental groups and two control groups. Each group consisted of 20 learners. There were a vocabulary pretest and a posttest. The experimental groups benefited from two complexity tasks, namely a ''fill-in task'' and a ''sentence writing'' task with different derivatives of the words. The two experimental groups were required to perform the tasks collaboratively. However, the control groups were not exposed to any complexity tasks and followed their conventional vocabulary learning individually. Results revealed that task complexity and task condition had a statistically significant impact on the learners’ vocabulary learning in both experimental groups (i.e., pre-intermediate and intermediate) compared with their control group counterparts. Practical implications and directions for future research are also discussed.

This quantitative study aimed to investigate the combined effects of two types of strategic planning, namely collaborative and teacher-led planning conditions and task complexity on Iranian intermediate language learners' oral production in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. To achieve this purpose, 90 EFL learners were selected through convenience sampling from a language institute in Shiraz, Iran, and randomly assigned to two control and four experimental groups. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design in the form of pretest, treatment, and posttest. In the first step, all participants took part in a speaking pretest in which they were required to narrate a story based on a series of picture description tasks. While the experimental groups underwent 10 treatment sessions of picture description task performance along with two planning types i.e., teacher-led and collaborative planning conditions, the control groups were not allowed to plan the task performance. In the last session, the language learners took a posttest whose results were compared with those of the pretest. The findings revealed that the language learners in the collaborative planning groups outperformed the other groups in terms of both fluency and complexity. Further, teacher-led groups did better than the other groups in terms of accuracy. This study carries crucial implications for EFL teachers, material developers, syllabus designers, and speaking skill examiners.

Massoud Rahimpour is Professor Emeritus of Tabriz University. Professor Rahimpour has done his B.A. in English Language and Literature at Tabriz University in 1975, M.A. in TESOL at Oklahoma City University, U.S.A. in 1978, and Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics: Second Language Acquisition/Teaching at The University of Queensland, Australia in 1997. While he was at the University of Tabriz, he was also Head of English Department, Director of the International Academic Collaborations of Tabriz University, Deputy Dean of Faculty and Director of Centre for Teaching Foreign Languages. Professor Rahimpour has also been Honorary Associate Professor at the School of Languages and Cultures at The University of Queensland and language instructor at TAFE Queensland. He has also acted as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of English Language Teaching and Learning, Tabriz University and the Member of Editorial Board of several Journals of Language Teaching Research. Professor Rahimpour has published papers in international and national journals, published books and has presented papers in conferences. He has also supervised tens of M.A and Ph.D. theses. His research interests are Task-Based Language Teaching, Syllabus Design, Second Language Acquisition, Research Methods in Applied Linguistics and Adult Language Learning. Dr. Davoud Amini, assistant professor of ELT at Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University and a former Ph.D. student of professor Rahimpour has arranged this interview with him.

The current study aimed at finding out the relationship between complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) in speaking performance across language proficiency levels with the focus on Skehan’s Trade-off Hypothesis. The selected participants of the present study included 60 language learners who were selected out of 90 learners. Through the results obtained from Oxford Placement Test, 21 participants were placed at elementary, 20 at intermediate, and 19 at advanced levels. The nationality of all participants was Iranian and therefore they shared similar L1 background. The sample participants were asked to perform the designed speaking tasks in different task complexities (low, mid, and high) and their oral CAF were measured and analyzed. To measure CAF, the percentage of error free C-units for accuracy, clauses per C-units for grammatical complexity, type-token ratio (TTR) for lexical complexity, and total number of tokens (words)/ total task time (per minutes) for fluency were used. The results of Pearson product-moment correlation revealed a significant positive relationship among complexity, accuracy, and fluency in oral performance. The results of the study indicate that there is variation in the process of gradual complexification in spoken L2 production across proficiency levels. In fact, the results of this study revealed distinguishing features in all three CAF components. Moreover, the findings of the present study provide pedagogical implications and recommendations for teachers, syllabus designers, and language assessors. Finally, some suggestions for other interested researchers in this field are presented.

The present study investigated the effects of cognitive complexity of pedagogical tasks on the learners’ uptake of salient features in the input. For the purpose of data collection, three versions of a decision-making task (simple, mid, and complex) were employed. Three intact classes (each 20 language learners) were randomly assigned to three groups.  Each group transacted a version of a decision-making task in dyadic condition. The results of the statistical analysis (one-way ANOVA) revealed significant differences among the groups. The participants in complex group tended to produce more uptakes. The results of the present study revealed that manipulating cognitive complexity of pedagogical tasks led to more uptake of the linguistic items made salient by the teacher and triggered much interaction between the participants.  The study, also, has a number of theoretical and pedagogical implications for SLA researchers and syllabus designers.

The purposes of this study were to determine a reading ability level based on the CEFR for male and female engineering students and to compare their reading levels on the CEFR and DIALANG self-assessment grids with the level based on their performance on the reading tasks. The participants were 162 Iranian male and female undergraduate students at the Iran University of Science and Technology. DIALANG and CEFR reading self-assessment grids and four reading tasks at four levels (i.e., A2, B1, B2, and C1) were administered to the participants. Considering the students’ performance on the reading tasks, the results revealed that female learners outperformed the male learners; however, a considerable number of learners (about 40%) in both groups were considered ‘Below B1’. The results also showed that learners’ self-assessment did not closely correspond with their performance on the reading tasks as both groups of learners rated their reading ability lower on the CEFR and DIALANG grids; nevertheless, the highest matches were related to the female learners' ratings on the DIALANG grid.