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Article published In: ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 171:2 (2020) ► pp.153–190

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The effects of instructional focus and task type on pre-vocational learners’ ability in EFL oral interaction

ORCiD logo with link | Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
 | University of Amsterdam
 | University of Amsterdam
 | University of Amsterdam
 | Leiden University
Published online: 25 June 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.18027.van
Abstract
Little is known about the effect of diverging pedagogies on the development of interactional oral skills in a foreign language. In a controlled study, we evaluated three newly developed instructional programmes that were situated in the same training context, but that differed in instructional focus and type of task. These were compared to the effects of business-as-usual instruction. Multilevel analysis revealed that all experimental groups outperformed the ‘business-as-usual’ control group on oral interaction skills (N = 199), with similar results for the programmes. Positive effects were found on interaction skills for trained contexts of use only. No transfer was found to tasks in other contexts of use. We conclude that receiving contextualised oral interaction instruction is beneficial to the development of pre-vocational learners’ interaction skills.
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • L2 interaction pedagogy
      • Focus-on-forms instruction and tasks
      • Information gap tasks
      • Interactional strategies instruction
      • Context-dependency of instruction
    • The present study
  • Method
    • Participants
    • Design
    • Interventions
      • Control condition
      • Focus-on-forms interaction with pre-scripted tasks (F-PS condition)
      • Focus-on-forms interaction with information gap tasks (F-IG condition)
      • Strategy-focused interaction with information gap tasks (S-IG condition)
    • Procedure
    • Measures
      • EFL oral interaction
      • Interaction strategies
      • Vocabulary
      • Experience
      • Gender and home language
    • Analysis
  • Results
    • Effect of the intervention on EFL oral interaction
    • Effect of the intervention on interaction strategies
  • Discussion and conclusions
    • Limitations and suggestions for future research
    • Implications for practice
  • Notes
  • References
References (99)
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