enhancing automaticity through task-based language learning
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Applied Linguistics 28/2: 309–315 � Oxford University Press 2007
doi:10.1093/applin/aml057 Advance Access Published on 4 April 2007
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Enhancing Automaticity ThroughTask-based Language Learning
1ISABELLE DE RIDDER, 2LIEVE VANGEHUCHTEN, and3MARTA SESENA GOMEZ1Flemish Council for Education, 2University of Antwerp, 3University of Salamanca
In general terms automaticity could be defined as the subconscious condition
wherein ‘we perform a complex series of tasks very quickly and efficiently,
without having to think about the various components and subcomponents
of action involved’ (DeKeyser 2001: 125). For language learning, Segalowitz
(2003) characterised automaticity as a more efficient, more accurate, and more
stable performance. As such, automaticity is often associated with systematicity
and a merely instructional approach. However, task-based learning seems
not incompatible with automaticity either, since it incorporates activities that
respect ‘transfer-appropriate processing and other positive features of commu-
nicative practices’ (Segalowitz 2003: 402) and thus allows students to creatively
apply previously acquired knowledge in new communicative contexts. In order
to test this assumption, an experiment was conducted at Antwerp University
with a group of intermediate-level students of Spanish. Two groups were
evaluated: an experimental group and a control group. The control group
attended a traditional communicative course, whereas the experimental group’s
course had a task-based component built into it. The results of the experiment
indicate that the experimental group outperformed the control group for
automatization (as defined by a number of criteria).
RESEARCH AIMS AND RATIONALE
Automaticity is a concept that seems to rapidly win ground in language
learning theory. Segalowitz (2003) defines automaticity for language learning
as a more efficient, more accurate and more stable performance. Moreover,
an advanced level of automaticity seems to lead to near-native performance
(DeKeyser 2001; Hulstijn 2002). Even though empirical research on
automaticity is still in its early stages, research in cognitive psychology as
well as in second language acquisition suggests that automaticity is best
achieved by repeated creative use of the language rules taught in a context of
authentic communication (DeKeyser 2003). From this point of view, a
communicative task-based approach offers several advantages, since this
language learning method allows students to creatively transfer previously
acquired knowledge to new communicative contexts (Nunan 1989; Zanon
1999; Nation 2001; Robinson 2001). In order to examine whether the task-
based approach indeed offers the appropriate setting to enhance automaticity,
an experiment was conducted with 68 intermediate-level students of Spanish
as a foreign language for Business and Economics.
HYPOTHESIS
In the task-based approach, the students’ task guarantees that the linguistic
contents, although vital to the development of the exercise, do not determine
its structure. Instead, the class is process-oriented: the focus is on the process
that underlies the successful completion of the task. In this way, the task-
based approach avoids the pitfalls of the traditional communicative method,
such as the lack of systematic revision, of student-centred activities, and of
authentic communicative settings. In other words, the task-based approach
allows structured repetition and creative transfer of knowledge items.
Therefore, we hypothesized that the task-based approach leads to a higher
level of automaticity than the traditional communicative approach. We have
defined automaticity by a number of criteria (see below) and expected the
task-based approach to increase results on all of these criteria.
METHOD
Design
The control group took a one-year integrated course where knowledge items
were introduced indirectly, further assimilated in a focus-on-form phase,
and finally practised in a course-content related communicative situation.
As far as the experimental group is concerned, we varied the transfer
conditions with a task-based component: the so-called practicas comunicativas.
Through creative skill training activities, students engaged in different
communicative situations, unrelated to the actual course but organized
in such a way that the participants were compelled to use the previously
acquired lexico-grammar. Both groups were evaluated on their level of
automaticity after completion of the course.
Subjects
A total of 68 students participated in the experiment: 35 in the control group
and 33 in the experimental group (30 male students (13 in the control
group and 17 in the experimental group) and 38 female (22 in the control
group and 16 in the experimental group)). The subjects were assigned
randomly to the two groups. They were all between 20 and 23 years of
age. The subjects were students of business and economics at the University
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of Antwerp. During the experiment, they were in the third year of a four-
year programme in Economics. Their native tongue is Dutch, and they had
all passed the beginners’ course Spanish for Business and Economics. The overall
beginners’ oral exam results of both groups did not differ significantly (t-test
analysis).
Course materials
The first three stages of the course coincided for both the experimental and
the control group and this fitted in with the concept of a communicative
course with a strong systematic or focus-on-form component: presentation,
explanation, exercises. The fourth stage was different in that the control
group used the acquired knowledge in a similar context, whereas the
experimental group creatively applied the acquired knowledge to a new
context. This meant that besides the classes and the related homework, the
students of the control group were asked to compose an individual dossier.
For this, they had to read 12 texts on Spanish companies drawn from the
specialist business press. Next, in preparation of an oral test, the students
were invited to independently further gather information for the dossier and
to prepare a brief presentation of each of these companies.
The experimental group followed the same course as the control group,
but without the individual assignment. Instead, a fourth task-based phase
was added: the practicas comunicativas. The final objective was to shoot an
advertising spot for a brand new product. Each workshop addressed a specific
aspect of the task, and the students were invited to draw on their knowledge
of the world as well as on their specialist-economic background and
(meta)linguistic knowledge of Spanish in order to do so.
Instrumentation and observation
In the case of both groups, automaticity was graded for the two oral
discourses: the oral examination and the advertisement. Automaticity is a
vast concept; it has many different facets. Since it affects all aspects of
language learning at once (Segalowitz 2003), we have defined the assessment
criteria on the basis of the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (2001). These criteria were adjusted
to the specific purposes of the course and, in a more concrete manner,
to what was supposed to be acquired knowledge after completing the
course successfully.1 The main criteria were: pronunciation, fluency,2
intonation, sociolinguistic competence, lexical competence, and
grammatical competence. Each of these criteria was broken into discrete
sub-criteria:
� Pronunciation: distinctness, intelligibility, naturalness;
� Fluency: pauses, reformulating phrases, fillers, recurrences;
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� Intonation: clearness, intelligibility, naturalness, melodic phrasing;
� Sociolinguistic adequacy: adjustment to the situation, use of tu/usted;
� Lexicon: mastery of the core vocabulary, lexical adjustment to the
situation, use of phraseology, richness of the lexicon;
� Grammar: morphology and syntax of the present and past tenses, use
of the pronouns, use of ser/estar, use of por/para, use of prepositions,
use of concordance rules.
Two independent raters used video-recordings to evaluate the oral
performances of both groups for each of these (sub-)criteria. Scores are on
a scale of 1 to 4 (0 stands for ‘not applicable’, 1 for ‘insufficient’, 2 for
‘sufficient’, 3 for ‘good’, and 4 for ‘outstanding’). The agreement between the
scores of both raters was measured by computing the Pearson Product
Correlation Coefficients. For all criteria, these coefficients lay between .900�
and .998� (significant at the .01 level). For the purposes of the present
analysis, both evaluators decided on one final score. The scores were added
up per major evaluation criterion in order to obtain six final percentages
(calculated on the basis of a maximum score).3
Procedure
Both the control and the experimental group took two classes of fifty
minutes on a weekly basis during two terms of twelve weeks each. There was
a gap of seven weeks between the two terms. In addition, the students of the
experimental group attended the practicas comunicativas: five times 60 minutes
per term, so 10 hours in total. The control group followed exactly the same
schedule, with the exception of the 10 hours of practicas comunicativas, which,
in their case, were replaced by individual preparation towards an oral
examination (see above).
RESULTS
Table 1 describes the statistics for the six major criteria, expressed in
percentages. The results were analysed with an independent samples t-test.
All statistical tests were performed at .05 level. The results indicate that:
(a) The control group outperformed the experimental group on
pronunciation [t (66)¼�3.53, p (two tailed)¼ .001�] and
intonation [t (66)¼�2.73, p (two tailed)¼ .008�]. This contradicts the
hypothesis.
(b) The experimental group outperformed the control group on grammar
[t (66)¼ 6.06, p (two tailed)¼ .000�], vocabulary [t (66)¼ 5.51, p (two
tailed)¼ .000�], and social adequacy [t (66)¼5.52, p (two
tailed)¼ .000�]. This was hypothesized.
(c) No significant difference could be established on fluency. This also
contradicts the hypothesis.
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DISCUSSION
As far as the knowledge items (lexicon and grammar) and the level of
sociolinguistic competence are concerned, the experimental group signifi-
cantly outperformed the control group. Nevertheless, with regard to fluency,
no significant difference could be established. As far as the criteria of
pronunciation and intonation are concerned, the control group significantly
outperformed the experimental group. Since we expected outperformance by
the experimental group on all of the criteria, these results partly contradict
our hypothesis.
The lack of difference at the level of fluency might be explained by the fact
that the discourse that was presented to evaluate the experimental and
the control groups was to a considerable extent prepared and studied in
advance. This may explain the absence of reformulating phrases, pauses,
fillers, etc., which normally characterize spoken discourse and determine the
level of fluency.
The fact that the control group outperformed the experimental group
on pronunciation and intonation might be due to the fact that in the
experimental group the students are each other’s conversational partner,
whereas the students of the control group during their oral examination
enter into a conversation with the evaluator, a native or near-native speaker.
In the case of the experimental group, a possible explanation is therefore
that the L2-learner will not run counter to the L2-accent of his fellow
students and that this has a reinforcing effect on the non-native level
Table 1: Descriptive statistics of the results on the six major criteria inpercentage
Criterion Condition Mean SD Min. Max. N
Pronunciation Control 74.76 22.28 25.00 100.00 35
Experimental 58.58 14.36 33.33 83.33 33
Intonation Control 70.71 23.02 25.00 100.00 35
Experimental 54.92 24.59 25.00 100.00 33
Grammar Control 63.27 18.18 28.94 89.47 35
Experimental 88.89 16.59 43.75 100.00 33
Vocabulary Control 65.89 23.64 25.00 100.00 35
Experimental 91.18 11.90 44.44 100.00 33
Social adequacy Control 68.57 29.61 25.00 100.00 35
Experimental 85.92 22.48 25.00 100.00 33
Fluency Control 67.50 24.47 25.00 100.00 35
Experimental 74.00 25.74 25.00 100.00 33
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of this group (pronunciation and intonation). In contrast, it seems
plausible that the students of the control group will try their utmost
during the official exam to adjust their speech to that of the evaluator.
Further experimental settings should therefore take into account the nature
of the dyad.
CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH
The initial hypothesis seems to have been partially confirmed. The
experimental group only outperforms the control group for the criteria of
social adequacy and grammatical and lexical knowledge. Therefore, the
conclusion can be drawn that the task-based approach stimulates the process
of automatization to a larger extent than a purely communicative course
with a strong systematic component. However, given the very different
nature of the task-based approach, the question could also be posed to what
extent the better performance of the experimental group is not due mostly
to a higher motivation, and, if such is the case, whether this motivation is
an intrinsic part of the task-based approach, as has been suggested by Estaire
(1999). Thus, the question whether each task-based activity in se is able
to arouse enough motivation and influence the automatization process in
the same way, needs further examination.
Moreover, the results presented here are preliminary: more research is
needed in which the different criteria are isolated, so that their exact relation
to each other and to the automatization process can be established. The
experiment reported upon took place in a specific learning environment over
a specific period of time. It remains to be seen if different settings (different
languages, contexts, language levels, etc.) and testing over a longer term
will corroborate the above results.
One final consideration concerns the psychological similarity between
the learning context and the transfer context. Research has shown that the
greater the psychological similarity of the learning and transfer contexts,
the higher the degree of automaticity (Segalowitz 2003). Given the fact that
the basic principle of the task-based approach is to offer not new contents
but only new contexts, which moreover are being created mostly by the
students themselves, it can be stated that the psychological similarity
between the learning context and the transfer context is considerable
within this approach. Therefore, we share the opinion of Segalowitz
(2003: 402) that ‘future research will have to determine which dimensions
of psychological similarity (e.g. whether the learners’ intentions, feelings,
etc., are important, or whether only linguistic contexts are important) are
relevant to the establishment of automaticity that is transferable to new
situations’.
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NOTES
1 If the student passes the course
Spanish for Business and Economics
Intermediate Level, his/her compe-
tence can be put on a par with the
European C1-level in the matter of
reading proficiency, and with the
B2-level in respect of the remaining
skills.
2 Although automaticity is often con-
sidered to be a part of fluency (for
instance Wood 2001), there is no
foregone conclusion on what is the
connection between both concepts in
a second language acquisition context
(Segalowitz 2003: 384). In this report,
fluency is considered as a criterion
for determining the progress in the
automatization process, and is defined
as the ‘ability in the second language
to produce or comprehend utterances
smoothly, rapidly and accurately’
(ibid.), without the concept of auto-
maticity being made subordinate to
the concept of fluency.
3 The ‘‘0’’ scores were counted as
‘‘missing’’.
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