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Article published In:
Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 35:2 (2022) ► pp.480–512

Task-modality effects on young learners’ language-related episodes in collaborative dialogue

ORCID logo | Universidad de Cantabria
ORCID logo | Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, UPV/EHU

In adult learners’ collaborative dialogue, oral+written tasks have been found to promote a greater incidence and resolution of language-related episodes and to demand higher levels of accuracy than oral tasks thanks to the extra time learners have to reflect on their written outcome. No previous studies have tested whether asking learners to attend to accuracy in both modalities would yield similar results. The present study with 23 dyads of young English learners supports the superiority of the oral+written modality in the promotion of learning opportunities, even if learners are encouraged to focus on form in the oral modality, a result reinforced by the incorporation of target-like resolved episodes in the written product. However, the intragroup analysis reveals that young learners focus on meaning in equal terms, present low rates of target-likeness, and do not elaborate their resolutions, all of which can be ascribed to their younger age and developing metalinguistic awareness.

Keywords: task modality, language-related episodes, collaborative dialogue, English as a foreign language, young learners
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Collaborative dialogue and LREs
    • 2.2Task modality and LREs
    • 2.3Task motivation
  • 3.Research questions
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Instruments
    • 4.3Data collection
    • 4.4Data analysis
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 12 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.20020.gal
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