Abstract:
This study aimed to examine the effect of two types of collaborative output tasks on Iranian EFL learners’ comparative adjectives with two or more syllables. Thirty Iranian EFL learners participated in this study which were then divided into two experimental and one control groups; one experimental group received dictogloss task in 4-pairs and the other experimental group was given text reconstruction editing task in 6-pairs. Using pretest, posttests and delayed posttests, the data were collected through a grammaticality judgment test (GJT) and audio- recording of the learners’ interaction. Comparing the mean scores of three groups in GJT generally indicated that experimental groups gained more than the control group and text reconstruction editing group outperformed dictogloss group in noticing and learning the English comparative adjectives with two or more syllables. The transcripts of the students' verbal interactions indicated that text reconstruction editing group generated larger number of turns and language related episodes (LREs) in comparison to dictogloss group. Findings of this study also indicated that the majority of problems encountered in all the dyads were correctly solved in both dictogloss and text reconstruction editing groups, while the dictogloss group correctly solved more LREs in comparison to the text reconstruction editing group which showed that the dictogloss group was better regarding the quality of LREs. It can be concluded that the current study found evidence in support of Swain and herReceived: 14/08/2016 Accepted: 02/07/2017∗ Corresponding authorcolleagues' claims (e.g. Kowal & Swain, 1994) that task implementation required the learners to produce output collaboratively which in turn leads to the internalization of grammatical features.
Machine summary:
The transcripts of the students' verbal interactions indicated that text reconstruction editing group generated larger number of turns and language related episodes (LREs) in comparison to dictogloss group.
g. Abadikhah & Harsini, 2014; Ganji & Ketabi, 2015; Ghari & Moinzadeh, 2011; Kowal & Swain, 1994; Kuiken & Vedder, 2002; Nassaji & Tian, 2010; Tajeddin & Jabbarpoor, 2014), it seems that data are thin on the ground as to the effects of collaborative output-oriented tasks on the acquisition of comparative adjectives particularly those with two or more syllables and that no study has investigated this issue.
2. Which of the two collaborative output tasks (dictogloss and text reconstruction editing) is more effective with regard to the number and quality of language related episodes?
In addition, the interaction of the dictogloss and text reconstruction editing groups in the process of accomplishing the task collaboratively was audio-recorded to be analyzed for instances of LREs. Data Analysis The data analyses of this study were done both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Comparison of LRE outcomes Discussion This study mainly tried to investigate the possible impacts of utilizing dictogloss and text reconstruction editing tasks, as two types of collaborative output tasks, on learning English comparative adjectives with two or more syllables.
The present study tried to shed light on the possible effects of two types of collaborative output tasks (dictogloss and text reconstruction editing) on the acquisition of English comparative adjectives with two or more syllables.