タスク構成要素の組み合わせが学習者の言語形式への焦点化に与える影響

―Open/Closedと項目数の多寡に着目して―

抄録

This research was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of task composition, thought to impact language learners' focus on form. The research involved 20 beginner and 20 intermediate Japanese language students at an American university. In each level group, the student worked in pairs and completed the tasks of giving directions and planning a trip. The tasks had the following compositions: Open with many elements, open with few elements, closed with many elements, and closed with few elements. The frequency of occurrence of Language Related Episodes (Swain & Lapkin, 1998) was used to determine whether or not the differences in tasks affected students' focus on language form.

From the result, it was understood that the effects on focus on language form differ due to the occurrence of interplay caused by the composition of elements in each task, as well as the differences in the degree of difficulty of the tasks based on the composition of said factors (Robinson, 2001a).

Previous studies (Pica, Kanagy and Falodun, 1993; Robinson, 2001a) showed that closed tasks, compared to open tasks, and tasks with more elements, compared to tasks with fewer elements, had a greater effect on focus on language forms. In contrast, the result of this research brings to attention the fact that the various characteristics discovered in previous researches may not have a synergetic effect of the two factors as believed.