Task-generated interaction, cognitive complexity and self-repair

Abstract

Task-based instruction has attracted a lot of research interest from among applied linguists and syllabus designers. It is argued that the tenets of Task- based instruction are in line with the principles of naturalistic language acquisition. Motivated by this rationale, the present descriptive study investigated the task-induced interaction among three groups of students (each 20 male undergraduate students at Azad University of Bonab, Iran). The participants, who were randomly assigned to three groups, were asked to transact the task at hand in dyadic condition with the lead researcher in his office. The participants had Persian and Turkish as their first language and they were from different educational background; electioneering engineering, computer engineering, civil engineering, accounting, etc. The materials employed were a decision-making task at three level of cognitive complexity. The employed tasked were differed in the amount of cognitive complexity or task complexity. The first group of the participants performed the simple task, the second group transacted the mid task and the latter group did the complex task. The descriptive statistics revealed that as the cognitive complexity of the tasks increased, the amount of selfrepair enhanced. With this in mind, the present study claims that task complexity provide more opportunities for L2 development such as opportunities for self-repair on the part of the learners.

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