Fluency, Accuracy and Complexity

A general alternative to researching tasks can be termed the cognitive approach. Researchers in this tradition, such as Peter Skehan, are less concerned with interactional features and more interested in the cognitive demands that different tasks make, the way they lead learners to attend to certain aspects of performance. They also investigate the effects that different conditions might have on the carrying out of tasks. Such research approaches emphasise the three performance areas of complexity, accuracy, and fluency.

Accuracy relates to a learners belief in norms, and to performance which is native-like through its rule-governed nature. It is concerned with a learners capacity to handle whatever level of interlanguage complexity he has currently attained. How well is language produced in relation to the rule system of the target language? Focus on accuracy implies a greater level of control, and perhaps with this, more conservatism in the approach to communication, with the learner possibly avoiding more demanding language forms in order that error can be avoided.

Complexity and its attendant process of restructuring, relates to the stage and elaboration of the underlying interlanguage system. How ambitious is the language which is produced? What range of structures does the learner master? Focus on complexity emphasises the learners capacity to use cutting edge language, and to try to use the target language in the most advanced way.

Fluency concerns the learners capacity to mobilise an interlanguage system to communicate meanings in real time. What language can the learner produce in real time without undue pausing or hesitation? It relies upon more lexicalised modes of communication, as the pressures of real-time speech production are met only by avoiding excessive rule-based computation. So, focus on fluency emphasises the learners capacity to engage in real time processing and to produce language at a speed and with a flow more similar to that of a native speaker.

The three performance areas are then taken to have developmental implications, in that new language, development, and interlanguage restructuring is associated with greater complexity, and the two other areas reflect how new language is brought under greater degrees of control and routinisation, first with an avoidance of error, and second, more demandingly, with the capacity to use language in real time. So it is fundamental to engage the learner in tasks which maximize the chances that there will be a balance between these different goals, which are in some degree of mutual tension. The first one between fluency and the two others, the second one between restructuring and accuracy.

In L1 the language user has developed strategies to make meaning primary in his communication. This includes compensation strategies in production and inferencing skills in comprehension. Drawing on knowledge of the world, of the immediate context or of preceding discourse enables him to fill the gaps. In order to meet real-time language pressure, he draws upon lexical language processing (relying on phrases such as if you see what I mean, the thing is) unless he needs to express his meaning with greater precision. Then he relies on more complex and accurate wording.

The L2 learner however has a lower command of the language. His proficiency often impedes the operation of that dual-mode system lexicalised or more precise rule-governed mode. He will rely more on his strategic competence, including single words and gestures. Under time pressure he will draw upon prefabricated chunks and phrases which he has stored during his acquisition period, and which are faster to activate because faster and easier to process and to produce in the memory system.

TABASCO, Viareggio 2006, SLA, Accuracy Complexity Fluency

The danger in Task-based approach is that focusing primarily on the task the learner will focus on getting meanings across. He will aim for fluency, without further concern for accuracy and complexity. There is no incentive for structural change towards an interlanguage system with greater complexity, given the acceptable fluency and the capacity to solve communication problems. These advantages may be bought at too high a price if it compromises continuous language growth and interlanguage development. In order to guarantee longer-term progress, the teacher will have to include sections in order to stretch this interlanguage. The teacher will sometimes have to diminish

Handouts p. 1

TABASCO, Viareggio 2006, SLA, Accuracy Complexity Fluency Handouts p. 2

the time and processing load because of the limited working memory and attentional resources to tailor meanings more precisely. The pre- and post-stage of the task can offer opportunities to draw the learners attention to the importance of accuracy or complexity. Another problem concerns the (resource-, task- or learner-related) degree of complexity of the task in order to achieve the right level of challenge.

Task repetition makes the learners benefit in terms of better performance for instance by means of a carrousel presentation. Some of the cognitive work undertaken on a previous occasion to internalise the information, to organise it prior to verbalisation, and to verbalise it is still accessible during the repeated performance, and frees up capacity for new cognitive searches. The previous experience of a specific task aids speakers to shift their attention from processing the message content to working on formulations of the message. A basic challenge to language teaching is to provide students with practice at improvising the expression of their opinions, so that they get better at the task.

Empirical findings from task research

From research on tasks, there are some generalisations which can be offered regarding consistencies in language performance as a result of particular task characteristics.

Research suggests that structured tasks, i.e. ones with a clear time line or overall structure for students to follow, have a clear influence on the learners fluency and some influence on accuracy.

If the information being manipulated is very familiar, then students will tend to be fluent, and with greater accuracy.

If the task involves some negotiation of outcomes and giving a justification for it, this leads to markedly greater complexity of language use.

Finally, interactive tasks produce markedly more accuracy and complexity, while monologic tasks lead to more fluency.

These findings suggest that teachers can to a degree predict how the type of task chosen will lead the language activity of their students. It would also seem possible, to some degree at least, to choose tasks which advantage certain aspects of performance and which promote focus on form where this is appropriate. Teachers could, therefore, choose the tasks containing characteristics which would improve performance in specific domains, e.g. choosing tasks containing clear macrostructure if they want to develop fluency and accuracy.

Researchers have also explored the influence of the manner or conditions in which tasks are done. Regarding what happens before a task, the most active area has been to investigate the effects of giving learners time to plan before they do a task. Following early research by Crookes (1989) and Ellis (1987) a number of studies have tried to establish how task performance is influenced by planning, and almost all the research supports the idea that planning will influence complexity and fluency of language use.

The findings with accuracy are not so clear. Some suggest that accuracy increases with planning time but other studies do not support this claim. Certainly the accuracy effect is smaller than for other performance areas. Although it has been proposed that certain conditions are more likely to generate accuracy effects (e.g. not giving learners instructions; online planning), using planning to dependably influence accuracy remains a challenge. There has also been research into the effects of giving learners things to do after a task. Skehan and Foster (1997, 2003) have shown that with interactive tasks, giving learners a post-task activity (such as the need to re-do a task publicly after the task has been done privately, or the requirement that learners transcribe one minute of their own task performance subsequent to the task itself) leads to significantly greater accuracy. This trend towards greater accuracy grows as time goes on - by the second and third weeks of a study, participants who have been required to engage in some sort of post-task activity showed significantly greater accuracy than in the first week of the study, suggesting that the channelling of attention selectively towards accuracy is an influence which grows in impact. In addition, the greater the quality of the interaction, the greater there is found a trend to accuracy. All these findings are clearly relevant to ways tasks can lead to a greater degree of Focus on Form.

Adapted from Peter SKEHAN. 1997. A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford: OUP & from Peter Skehans contribution to TABASCO. 2003. Whose learning is it anyway. Antwerpen: Garant.