The Effect of Alignment on the Listening and Speaking Continuation Task

This study aims to examine the effect of alignment on the listening and speaking continuation task (LSCT). A total of 47 Chinese L2 English learners were recruited as participants for the study. They were divided into two groups and were instructed to complete two separate continuation tasks with different input languages (English and Chinese). The scripts of oral continuation performed by the participants were analyzed from four aspects: word frequency, accuracy, fluency, and complexity. The results indicated that the effect of alignment exists in LSCT, especially in terms of lexicon and accuracy. When conducting English LSCT, participants tended to use more frequently the words that appeared in the audio story and paid more attention to the morphological characteristics of words, and participants achieved higher accuracy when the input language was English. However, there was no significant difference in terms of fluency and complexity between English and Chinese LSCT. 本研究旨在探究听后续说任务中的协同效应, 47名中国二语学习者参与实验, 并被分为两组进行听中续英、听英续英两类续说任务。研究者将所有被试的续说音频转录为文本, 并从词频、准确度、流利度、复杂度四个层面展开分析。研究结果显示, 听后续说任务中存在协同效应, 主要体现在词汇及准确度层面。被试在进行听英续英任务时更倾向于使用故事音频中出现的词汇, 同时更加注重词汇形态。此外, 被试也在听英续英任务中表现出了显著更高的准确度。然而两个组别在流利度和复杂度层面并没有显著差异。本研究揭示听后续说任务能够有效激发二语学习者与听力故事的协同效应, 进而提升其整体口语表现, 研究结果为听后续说任务的课堂教学应用及二语口语测试应用提供了实证支撑。