Repetition of task and its effect on foreign language out-turn

Abstract

Ibrahim Zamani

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of task repetition on foreign language out-turn. Twenty eight Saudi female students in the Preparatory Year (PY) at King Saud University were randomly selected to conduct an oral information-gap task. The participants were asked to perform the task two times with twoweek interval between the two performances. The oral performances were transcribed and analyzed to measure fluency and accuracy of language output. The collected data were coded for the two dimensions of oral production (fluency and accuracy), based on the established criteria. A within group dependent t-test for paired samples was computed to find out whether or not there were significant differences between the mean scores of the first and second performances. The findings revealed that task repetition resulted in significant differences in subjects’ oral discourse in terms of fluency and accuracy. The findings of the current study recommend that researchers and teachers might find it very beneficial to devote some of their time to design effective task repetition to help language learners improve their oral production.