摘要
现有的理论和实践研究表明流利和准确同为语言教学的理想目标,任何一种厚此薄彼的教学方法都是有缺陷的。但如何在实际教学中帮助学生实现交际中语言表达质与量的平衡依然是一个悬而未决的问题。目前的研究多以流利为对象,忽视了语言的准确度,对交际中影响学生语言表达准确度的认知和情感因素缺乏深入细致的了解。本文从语言学习的信息处理模式入手,以中国大学本科生为研究对象,采用试验的方法具体分析了任务难度、任务复杂度及语言水平三个变量对中国学生交际中语言表达准确度的影响和它们之间的交互作用。同时也寻找出了一些影响复杂度的具体因素,如任务前准备,任务结构,任务条件等。
It has now been widely acknowledged that both accuracy and fluency should be the ideal goals of language teaching. The field of TEFL is now witnessing strong interests in the idea of seeking a balance between meaning and form in instruction and accordingly accuracy and fluency in students' production. Much literature has been devoted to the theoretical and practical concerns of fluency and the research on accuracy remains a fertile but unexplored field. With the information processing model of language learning as a departure, the present study explores the influences of task complexity, task difficulty and proficiency level on Chinese students' accurate performance in communication and their interactional effects.
Forty-eight subjects from Zhejiang University, all freshmen and non-English majors, participated in the research. They were at different levels of proficiency in English. There were two between-subject factors (Processing condition and Proficiency level) and one within-subject factor (task type) in the design. Effects of task complexity on accuracy were studied from two different perspectives: we studied task complexity owing to inherent task structure, content or condition and the variable was indicated by three task types; we also investigated the effects of manipulating task complexity and the factor was opera-tionalized as two performance conditions: planning and no planning. Subjects were divided into small groups, with four in each. Half of the groups were randomly assigned to planning condition and half to no planning condition. Each group had to do all the three tasks. While completing the tasks, subjects under both conditions were audio taped. Immediately following performance of each task, subjects were asked to complete a brief questionnaire composed of five items. Responses to these five items were used to measure learner perceptions of task difficulty.
All the quantitative data were processed by SPSS for windows 10. ANOVAs, Correlations and Linear Regression analyses were used respectively to analyze the relationships between the variables and the interactions between them. The significance level was set at . 05 level. Some quantitative data were also collected to answer the call for triangulation. The findings of the study show that task complexity does exert considerable influences on accuracy and accuracy is in reverse relationship with task complexity, with more complex tasks resulting in lower accuracy. Proficiency level has a prevalent impact on accuracy, with learners at higher levels producing more accurate language, but there is no significant interaction between proficiency level and task complexity. Subjects, in spite of their proficiency levels, achieve higher accuracy in less complex tasks and participants at higher proficiency levels consistently produce more accurate language in any task. Some affective factors contributing to task difficulty are correlated with accuracy, among which perception of overall difficulty and stress are most prominent. They are both significantly negatively correlated with accuracy. In addition to planning, task structure and task condition are found to be relevant to task complexity.
出处
《现代外语》
CSSCI
北大核心
2003年第2期171-179,共9页
Modern Foreign Languages
关键词
准确度
任务复杂度
任务难度
语言水平
accuracy, task complexity, task difficulty, proficiency level
