Abstract:
Task difficulty across different macro-genres continues to remain among less attended areas in second language development studies. This study examined the correlation between task difficulty across the descriptive, narrative, argumentative, and expository macro-genres. The three components of task difficulty (i.e., code complexity, cognitive complexity, and communicative stress) were also compared in the four macro-genres. The design included the administration of short reading texts with comparable length and readability indices based on the four macro-genres followed by task difficulty questionnaire. The macro-genre-based reading textsalong with the task difficulty questionnaire were administered to 50 EFL students in the University ofLorestan, Iran. Task difficulty questionnaire explored the learners’ perceptions of task difficulty in the code complexity, cognitive complexity, and communicative stress domains. The results revealed that there were no significant differences among the task difficulty components in the four macro-genre-based text types. The findings also showed that there was no significant correlation between task difficulty of each macro-genre with those of the other genres except thoseofthe narrative and expository genres.The findings hold implications for the use of macro-genres with different task difficulty indices in task-oriented programs, teacher training, and testing.
Machine summary:
The design included the administration of short reading texts with comparable length and readability indices based on the four macro- genres followed by task difficulty questionnaire.
The descriptive macro-genre can also be found in other rhetorical modes of language including journal writing and poetry (Diakidoy, Stylianou, Karefillidou, & Papageorgiou, 2004).
Robinson and Gilabert (2007) stated that the information about the effect of task complexity on language performance could be used to guide decision-making about sequencing tasks in syllabus design used for materials in the macro-genre text types for the language learners.
Factors such as proficiency and anxiety affecting learners’ perceptions of difficulty of macro- genre-based reading texts are difficult to identify before task performance.
It is assumed that the learner’s perceptions of task difficulty of the four macro-genres as well as the components of code complexity, cognitive complexity, and communicative stress are different based on the type of genre text type they read.
To fill the gap, the following research question is posed to address the second concern of the study: How different would code complexity, cognitive complexity, and communicative stress as the components of task difficulty be in the descriptive, narrative, argumentative, and expository macro-genres?
22 BG = between groups, WG = within groups, CC = cognitive complexity Results of one-way ANOVA comparison conducted between the communicative stress of the descriptive macro-genre with those of the narrative, argumentative, and expository macro-genres indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between the groups compared in their perceptions of this component of task difficulty, F (3, 46)=.