Effects of task repetition and feedback on integrated listening-to-write performances and perceptions of English for Academic Purposes university students

Bandman, John and Brunfaut, Tineke (2025) Effects of task repetition and feedback on integrated listening-to-write performances and perceptions of English for Academic Purposes university students. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

The use of tasks prevails in second language (L2) teaching in many contexts nowadays. A particular pedagogic technique that is thereby sometimes used is that of task repetition. Task repetition studies have been conducted to explore the effects repetition has on L2 production in terms of the complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) of the task performance. The majority of studies’ findings suggest that as students focus their attention on learning a task’s requirements, CAF dimensions compete with one another. This aligns with Skehan’s Trade-Off Hypothesis (1998a), which posits that at the initial task performance, the L2 learner focuses on meaning, but when they repeat the task, they focus more on improving form (grammar). Most studies have explored effects on oral performances, while fewer are available on written performances, typically elicited with independent writing tasks. In many L2 teaching and assessment contexts, however, writing constructs have broadened to include integrated tasks. To the best of my knowledge, very few studies have yet investigated repetition effects of such tasks, including listening-to-write tasks. A first aim of this study was therefore to investigate the effect that task repetition has on a listening-to-write task in terms of the CAF of the writing performance. Additionally, given the listening input, it also explored effects of knowledge summary and knowledge transfer from the listening into writing. Furthermore, as feedback is considered an important pedagogic tool, the study also examined the effect of feedback on task repetition. Finally, the study wanted to explore learners’ perceptions of this kind of task and repetition. Data were collected from 64 upper-intermediate university students in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme in the United States, randomly split into two groups: feedback and no-feedback. Each student completed the task, then repeated the task one week after the first performance, then two weeks after the second performance. The feedback group received coded metalinguistic and holistic feedback within two days after their first two performances. To gauge student perceptions, a task perception questionnaire was administered after the third performance. Mixed-between-within ANOVA analyses revealed significant main effects of task repetition for both groups for the majority of CAF measures, knowledge summary and knowledge transfer. At the second performance, for both groups, there was evidence of competition among some of the CAF dimensions, i.e., a trade-off, which partially aligns with trade-off effects revealed in earlier studies. More specifically in the second performance, for the feedback group, there was a partial trade-off between accuracy and some complexity measures where there were no significant improvements; for the no-feedback group, there was a trade-off between accuracy and some complexity and fluency measures where there were significant declines. In the third performance, for the feedback group, there was less competition between the CAF dimensions, which aligns with Sample and Michel’s (2014) finding that trade-off effects disappear in the third performance. For the no-feedback group, trade-off effects did not disappear. No significant main effects of feedback were found between the feedback and no-feedback groups’ written performances. However, there were interaction effects between feedback condition and repetition for some of the CAF measures, thus feedback had positive pedagogic effects with the help of repetition even though there were no main effects in isolation. In terms of perceptions, regardless of whether students had received feedback, they overall held positive views about this task and about repeating tasks. This study suggests that using and repeating integrated listening-to-write tasks in upper-intermediate L2 learning is worthwhile even if the students do not receive feedback.