Effects of the 4/3/2 activity revisited: Extending Boers (2014) and Thai & Boers (2016)

1 Task repetition and 4/3/2 as fluency enhancement

Task repetition – ‘the repetition of the same or slightly altered task, whether the whole task, or parts of a task’ (Bygate & Samuda, 2005: 43) – facilitates students’ L2 speech development. A great deal of attention has been directed toward the content or procedure of task repetition. In some studies, students repeated the same task procedure but with different content (Pinter, 2005). In other studies, students repeated the same task in terms of both content and procedure (Ahmadian & Tavakoli, 2010; Boers, 2014; Lambert et al., 2016; Nation, 1989; Thai & Boers, 2016). Some other studies compared the impact of these different types of task repetition (De Jong & Perfetti, 2011; Gass et al., 1999). Overall, the previous studies have shown that task repetition is particularly effective for developing L2 fluency (Bygate, 2001).

The beneficial effects of task repetition have been explained by many researchers with reference to Levelt’s (1989) model of speech production (e.g. Ahmadian & Tavakoli, 2010). According to Levelt’s model, when speakers intend to speak, they undergo a process comprising of three different stages: conceptualization, formulation, and articulation. In the first stage, learners plan what to say. In the second stage, they engage in lexical, grammatical and phonological encoding to convey the intended message. In the last stage, they turn the planned speech into production. Bygate (2001) asserts that task repetition assists language performance precisely because ‘part of the work of conceptualization, formulation, and articulation carried out on the first occasion is kept in the learners’ memory store and can be reused on the second occasion’ (p. 29).

The 4/3/2 activity is one unique kind of task repetition, whereby students repeat a monologue task three times, but with an increasing amount of time pressure (4 → 3 → 2 minutes). According to Nation (1989), this activity has three important pedagogical features:

There have been a number of empirical studies on the effectiveness of the 4/3/2 activity on L2 speech learning (e.g. Arevart & Nation, 1991; Boers, 2014; De Jong & Perfetti, 2011; Nation, 1989; Thai & Boers, 2016). First, Nation (1989) conducted a study to examine the complexity, accuracy, and fluency aspects of L2 speech among six advanced adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) who engaged in the 4/3/2 activity. Comparing the participants’ first and third speeches, Nation found significant gains especially in their fluency. Arevart & Nation (1991) replicated Nation’s (1989) study with 20 intermediate ESL learners in New Zealand. The results of their study were in agreement with those of the original study in indicating that the 4/3/2 technique allowed learners to reach a higher level of fluency. More specifically, in the third delivery of their talks, the number of hesitations reduced significantly. In addition, their speech rate was much faster. However, both Nation (1989) and Arevart & Nation (1991) reported the effects of task repetition within the 4/3/2 sequence. It is worth emphasizing that these two studies made no attempt to examine the long-term effects of task repetition and time pressure.

More recently, De Jong & Perfetti (2011) illustrated in depth the relationship between the 4/3/2 activity and L2 fluency development, controlling for the content of task repetition as one independent variable. In their study, 24 ESL students were divided into two groups. Whereas the repetition group gave a monologue on the same topic three times during the 4/3/2 activity, the non-repetition group talked about three different topics during each delivery. According to the results, the repetition group not only significantly improved their fluency over time, but also successfully transferred such gains to the contexts of new topics. In contrast, the non-repetition group’s fluency was clearly observed only when their performance was tested via trained topics.

Particularly relevant to the current study is Boers’ research (Boers, 2014; Thai & Boers, 2016). In these seminal studies, the researchers focused on the importance of time pressure by comparing the differential impact of the increasing pressure (4/3/2) and constant pressure (3/3/3) activities on L2 speech development. Interestingly, whereas the 4/3/2 group demonstrated more robust gains in their fluency than the 3/3/3 group did, no significant change was observed among the participants’ accuracy and complexity aspects of L2 speech. The results suggest that the increasing time pressure (i.e. 4/3/2) could be instrumental to the development of L2 fluency rather than L2 accuracy, since the time pressure variable induces L2 learners to prioritize fluency over accuracy in L2 speech.

Little is known about what kinds of remedial techniques can best help L2 learners improve both fluency and accuracy when doing the 4/3/2 activity. More research is needed to determine to what degree and how enhancing L2 learners’ awareness towards accuracy could be an effective strategy, especially when it is integrated into the context of task repetition. In this regard, the following two studies provide some crucial implications. Hawkes (2011) introduced conscious-raising activities before task repetition. Forty-eight Japanese students with one year’s experience of studying English at junior high school participated in this study. According to the results of the interviews, it was shown that these students were guided to pay attention to their accurate use of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary forms while using language for meaning.

Van de Guchte, Braaksma, Rijlaarsdam & Bimmel (2016) evaluated the effects of repeating speaking performance after learners’ attention were directed to form during the main task. In this experimental study, a total of 48 Dutch participants learning German as a foreign language first received explicit metalinguistic information on the accurate use of target grammatical structures (the German dative case after a preposition and the German comparatives). Subsequently, the participants were divided into two groups (Task Repetition, No Repetition). Their pre- and post-test performance was then assessed via a range of outcome measures of metalinguistic knowledge and written/oral production. According to the results, although there were no significant differences in their oral performance, the repetition group outperformed the non-repetition group especially in terms of written accuracy. This suggests that the awareness activity can be successful in drawing learners’ attention to form, especially when their performance is elicited on written modes, wherein they are allowed to reflect on what they have learned from prior awareness activities.

Taken together, the aforementioned literature provides four broad conclusions. First, repeating the same task multiple times significantly impacts L2 learners’ fluency in particular (e.g. Bygate, 2001; Lambert et al., 2016). Second, if such task repetition is carried out under increasing time pressure conditions (4/3/2), it could further enhance the transferability, generalizability, and robustness of L2 fluency development (e.g. De Jong & Perfetti, 2011; Thai & Boers, 2016). Third, the 4/3/2 activity benefits fluency but not accuracy aspects of L2 development, since it induces learners to prioritize fluency over accuracy (Boers, 2014; Thai & Boers, 2016). Fourth, there is an indication that some awareness activities may be needed in the 4/3/2 activity in order to lead to both fluency and accuracy development. For these reasons, in this study we introduced corrective feedback (CF) as accuracy enhancement during the 4/3/2 activity and scrutinized the differential effects of task repetition, time pressure, and CF on L2 fluency and accuracy development.

2 Corrective feedback as accuracy enhancement

Corrective feedback has been an area of interest to both second language teachers and researchers since the inception of the field of second language acquisition (Lyster, Saito, & Sato, 2013; Nassaji, 2016). The term CF is defined as ‘the form of responses to learner utterances containing an error’ (Ellis, 2006, p. 28). Whereas the main function of CF is to signal that learners have made errors (i.e. negative evidence), different types of CF can include target forms (i.e. positive evidence) with a different degree of explicitness (e.g. less explicit recasts to more explicit metalinguistic information).

From a theoretical perspective, CF is believed to be effective for L2 learning, especially when it is provided during communicatively authentic tasks, since it encourages learners to notice, understand and acquire form while maintaining their primary focus on meaning (Ellis, 2006). The proponents of the Skill Acquisition Theory also argue that communicative focus on form via CF can promote learners’ gradual transition from controlled to automatic use of language (DeKeyser, 2017). To date, there have been ample studies evidencing the effect of CF on L2 accuracy development in the context of grammar learning (for meta-analytic reviews, see, for example, Li, 2010 and Lyster & Saito, 2010) and speech learning (e.g. Lee & Lyster, 2016; Saito & Lyster, 2012).

Interestingly, a majority of CF studies have exclusively focused on how providing CF could facilitate L2 grammar and speech learning when learners are involved with communicatively authentic tasks. To our knowledge, however, few studies have tested the efficacy of CF in the context of task repetition. One such exception is Saito & Akiyama’s (2017) longitudinal intervention study. A total of 30 Japanese EFL students engaged in a weekly dyadic conversation task with native speaking interlocutors via a video conferencing tool over the course of 10 weeks. The native speaking interlocutors provided CF, when the Japanese students’ linguistic errors significantly impaired successful understanding. The results showed that the participants enhanced both accuracy and fluency. However, the operationalization of task repetition was loose. Not only was the structure of each task (e.g. topics, turn taking, time pressure, intervals of repetition) uncontrolled, but the focus and frequency of CF was also inconsistent during task competition.

As shown in Task-Based Language Teaching literature, L2 learners can greatly improve their fluency (but not accuracy) through repeating the same task multiple times, especially under increasing time pressure (4, 3, 2 minutes) (e.g. Thai & Boers, 2016). Thus, it would be interesting to delve into the extent to which adding CF (accuracy enhancement) to the 4/3/2 activity (fluency enhancement) could impact L2 fluency and accuracy development. Here, we tested this topic by conducting a quasi-experimental study with a pre- and post-test design.

1 Participants

This study was conducted at a university in Vietnam. The participants were composed of 36 Vietnamese EFL learners (7 males and 29 females) who volunteered to participate in the study. Their ages ranged from 18 to 21 (M_age = 20.2 years). All of the participants reported that they had been learning English for at least 7 years prior to the project. None of them had any experience abroad. Not surprisingly, the participants had few opportunities to use English for communicative purposes outside their classrooms. The participants majored in a wide range of fields: education, information technology, history, law, literature and social work and had to take two General English courses per week at the university. Based on their self-reported TOEIC scores, the participants’ English proficiency levels ranged from pre-intermediate (370 out of 990) to intermediate (690) (M = 493.1).

2 Procedure

The participants were randomly divided into the three different groups, each of which consisted of 12 students (1) Control, (2) 4/3/2, and (3) 4/3/2 + Accuracy Enhancement (AE). All of them engaged in three individual tutoring sessions (Sessions 1, 2, 3) which took place in a quiet room at the university. Each session lasted for 20 minutes, and the participants repeated a monologue task on one of three different topics (Topics A, B, C: for details see subsequent sections). The interval between these sessions was three days. The nature of instructional treatment was different between the three group conditions as follows:

Departing from the previous 4/3/2 literature, which looked at participants’ change in fluency and accuracy performance within one single session (e.g. Thai & Boers, 2016), we further aimed to elucidate the extent to which such gains could be generalizable across different sessions. To this end, we tracked participants’ fluency and accuracy at three different time points: the 1st and 3rd delivery of the first session (T1, T2) and the final delivery of the third session (T3) (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Design of current study.

3 Content of treatment

In this section, we detail the way task repetition, 4/3/2 (increasing time pressure) and accuracy enhancement (corrective feedback) were operationalized.

4 Speech analyses

c Measuring accuracy

In previous task-based instruction literature, to track changes in accuracy more precisely, the error frequency of a certain specific feature has been analysed via obligatory context analyses (for the same procedure, see Van de Guchte et al., 2016; Yang & Lyster, 2010). Accordingly, the current study investigated the effects of CF on the participants’ accurate use of the target structure (English past tense) in obligatory contexts. We measured accuracy by dividing the number of target-like forms by the number of obligatory contexts. Furthermore, we used another coding scheme: the acquisition of irregular and regular forms. It has been shown that L2 learners acquire irregular and regular forms at a different rate with the former being mastered more easily and promptly than the latter: a similar developmental pattern in first language acquisition (see Pinker & Ullman, 2002). First, any instances of past tense in obligatory contexts were grouped into either regular or irregular forms. Second, they were coded for Targetlike or Non-targetlike. Table 1 provides some information (e.g. means and standard deviations) regarding raw number of regular and irregular past tense errors.

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Table 1.

Group means and standard deviations for regular and irregular past tense errors.

Group	Regular past tense						Irregular past tense
	T1		T2		T3		T1		T2		T3
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Control	7.50	2.74	8.08	3.91	6.58	3.20	5.25	3.57	6.25	4.26	6.83	4.97
4/3/2	4.67	2.30	6.75	2.59	7.08	2.39	8.33	5.39	10.92	8.20	9.25	6.95
4/3/2+AE	6.25	2.34	7.00	3.54	6.00	2.00	10.67	6.38	4.75	4.22	2.58	1.88

Notes. AE = accuracy enhancement.

1 Fluency change (T1 to T2) and generalization (T1 to T3)

According to the results of nonparametric Mann-Whitney tests, prior to the project, the three groups did not significantly differ in articulation rate (p = .319–.928), mid-clause pause ratio (p = .775–.877), final-clause pause ratio (p = .119–.443) and repair ratio (p = .713–.977). As summarized in Table 2, the results of nonparametric Wilcoxon Signed Ranks tests showed that the 4/3/2 group significantly changed speed (articulation rate) and breakdown (mid- and final-clause pause ratio) fluency aspects of language within the first session (T1 to T2) ; and generalized such gains to a different topic context (T1 to T3) with relatively large effects (d = 0.96–2.35). Interestingly, although the 4/3/2+AE group’s articulation rate and final-clause ratio demonstrated comparable change with large effects (d = 1.09–2.53), their performance in mid-clause pause ratio did not reach statistical significance (p = .028 for T1–T2, .041 for T1–T3). In terms of repair ratio, there was no significant change among any of the three groups (p > .008). In short, the results indicated (1) that the 4/3/2 activities could lead participants to attain generalizable change in various dimensions of fluency; and (2) that adding AE to 4/3/2 may negatively impact participants’ breakdown fluency within clauses in particular.

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Table 2.

Group means, standard deviations, significant change/generalization and effect size for fluency performance.

	T1		T2		T3		Change (T1 to T2)			Generalization (T1 to T3)
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	z	p	d	z	p	d
Articulation rate:
Control	2.69	0.34	3.00	0.57	2.84	0.39	−2.35	.019	0.66	−1.17	.239	0.41
4/3/2	2.67	0.26	3.02	0.36	3.13	0.33	−3.05	.002*	1.11	−3.05	.002*	1.54
4/3/2+AE	2.59	0.45	2.86	0.35	3.05	0.39	−2.11	.034	0.66	−2.51	.012*	1.09
Mid-clause pause ratio:
Control	0.20	0.08	0.10	0.06	0.18	0.09	−3.05	.002*	1.41	−.869	.398	0.23
4/3/2	0.21	0.14	0.10	0.07	0.10	0.08	−2.98	.003*	0.99	−2.90	.004*	0.96
4/3/2+AE	0.20	0.10	0.13	0.05	0.12	0.07	−2.91	.028	0.88	−2.04	.041	0.92
Final-clause pause ratio:
Control	0.27	0.06	0.24	0.04	0.21	0.06	−2.11	.034	0.58	−2.27	.023	1.00
4/3/2	0.30	0.06	0.22	0.05	0.18	0.04	−3.05	.002*	1.44	−3.05	.002*	2.35
4/3/2+AE	0.33	0.06	0.23	0.05	0.19	0.05	−2.90	.004*	1.81	−3.05	.002*	2.53
Repair ratio:
Control	.018	.010	.011	.011	.015	.014	−1.95	.050	0.66	−1.02	.308	0.24
4/3/2	.019	.019	.007	.006	.007	.004	−1.68	.091	0.85	−1.88	.059	0.87
4/3/2+AE	.020	.021	.006	.004	.009	.007	−1.96	.050	0.92	−1.72	.084	0.70

Note. * indicates statistical significance, p < .008 (Bonferroni corrected). AE = accuracy enhancement.

2 Accuracy change (T1 to T2) and generalization (T1 to T3)

The results of nonparametric Mann-Whitney tests demonstrated the three groups’ accuracy performance was comparable at the outset of the project, p = .590–.713 for regular past tense accuracy and p = .152–.443 for irregular past tense accuracy. The results of nonparametric Wilcoxon Signed Ranks revealed significant change (T1 to T2) and generalization (T1 to T3) among the 4/3/2+AE group’s irregular past tense error ratio with large effects (d = 1.04, 1.42). The findings here suggest (1) that 4/3/2 only may not impact on L2 accuracy development; (2) that AE may be facilitative of participants’ more targetlike use of irregular past tense; and (3) that the role of fluency and accuracy enhancement in the acquisition of regular past tense remains unclear at least in the context of the current study.

1 Increasing time pressure

Replicating the previous 4/3/2 literature (e.g. Nation, 1989), we aimed to investigate how to help L2 learners further enhance fluency during task repetition by testing the effect of increasing time pressure, i.e. 4/3/2. According to the results, repeating a task with an increasing amount of time pressure considerably stimulated more fluent speech across both speed and breakdown fluency dimensions to a great degree. However, the participants who received 4/3/2 only did not improve their accurate use of L2 English. These findings are in line with previous 4/3/2 studies (Boers, 2014; Nation, 1989; Thai & Boers, 2016). These results were also compatible with those of the online-planning studies (Ahmadian & Tavakoli, 2010). All in all, we echoed these researchers who have argued that when learners are under time pressure to perform a task more rapidly, they are to prioritize meaning conveyance over linguistic accuracy. This relative focus on meaning rather than form may result in L2 fluency, but not accuracy development, i.e. a weakness of the 4/3/2 activity (Boers, 2014; Thai & Boers, 2016).

2 Adding accuracy enhancement to 4/3/2

The current study is one of the first attempts to test the role of accuracy enhancement, operationalized via delayed corrective feedback, in the context of task repetition. In the previous task repetition literature, it has been shown that L2 learners are likely primed to speak fluently rather than accurately during task repetition (Van de Guchte et al., 2016). Here, we attempted to draw their attention to accuracy via the delayed CF technique, wherein we gave metalinguistic information to participants while they were repeating a task. In this way, we finally tested to what degree and how providing CF during the 4/3/2 activity could impact L2 fluency and accuracy development simultaneously. As predicted, the results showed that the 4/3/2+AE group significantly enhanced not only speed and breakdown fluency, but also refine the accurate use of irregular (but not regular) past tense.

In a broader sense, the findings here lend empirical support to the previous task-based instruction studies which emphasized the pedagogical potential of focus on form before students proceed to any types of task repetition activities (Hawkes, 2011; Van de Guchte et al., 2016). In the current study, the participants in the 4/3/2+AE group engaged in the 4/3/2 activities and received delayed CF on English past tense, resulting in fluency and accuracy improvement. On the one hand, the participants were encouraged to enhance all aspects of fluency (speeding up while reducing the number of pauses, repairs and repetitions) thanks to increasing time pressure, as their burden on conceptualization declined through task repetition (Thai & Boers, 2016). On the other hand, delayed CF aided the participants to pay attention to form, even though they concurrently worked on fluency (Li et al., 2016).

In a narrower sense, however, our discussion here (more is better) needs to be considered tentative and interpreted with caution. Notably, the findings presented in this article also hinted not only the potentials of combined accuracy and fluency activities, but also the limits of such composite approach. If we closely look at the details of our fluency and accuracy analyses, the results indeed bring to light the trade-off relationship between fluency and accuracy enhancement and development, i.e. fluency enhancements risks accuracy development (Skehan, 2014).

When comparing the performance of those who received 4/3/2 only versus both 4/3/2 and AE activities, it is important to remember the following slightly different improvement patterns. The 4/3/2-only group greatly developed two dimensions of fluency (speed, breakdown), respectively. In contrast, the 4/3/2+AE group lacked significant improvement in terms of the relatively difficult aspects of L2 fluency (mid-clause pause ratio) and accuracy (regular forms) development (see Tables 2 and 3).

In previous L2 fluency research, this particular dimension of breakdown fluency (mid-clause pause ratio) is thought to relate to L2 learners’ linguistic encoding processes (selecting appropriate linguistic forms for the intended message) (Kormos, 2006). Whereas L2 learners quickly reduce the number of pauses at clause-final positions (relevant to conceptualization), they may need more experience/practice to demonstrate significant, tangible and robust change in their mid-clause pause ratio (for more than three times of repetition, see, for example, Lambert et al., 2016; for more than 1 year of immersion experience, see, for example, Saito et al., 2018). When it comes to the L1 acquisition of English irregular vs. regular forms, it has been argued that different processing systems are used with the former being linked to exemplar-based learning and the latter to rule-based learning (Pinker & Ullman, 2002). In the context of L2 learning, there is some evidence (1) that L2 learners of English acquire irregular prior to regular past tense forms in naturalistic (Bardovi-Harlig & Comajoan, 2008); and instructed settings (Yang & Lyster, 2010).

Following this line of thought, we would like to argue that 4/3/2+AE can facilitate L2 learners’ overall fluency and accuracy learning only; however, we have yet to know whether 4/3/2+AE could be the most optimal option for promoting all dimensions of L2 speech. When we carefully analysed the participants’ L2 fluency from multiple angles, we did find some evidence of trade-off: Adding accuracy enhancement (CF) seemed to elicit more attention to linguistic accuracy, which could in turn stop learners from reducing mid-clause pauses and enhancing the rule-based learning (the acquisition of regular past tense forms).

3 Theoretical interpretations of the effects of fluency and accuracy enhancement

In terms of utterance fluency, the results showed that the two experimental groups (4/3/2 only, 4/3/2+AE) significantly improved their articulation rate and final-clause pause ratio. Therefore, it seems that the increasing time pressure component might have helped students enhance these two aspects of fluency. Although the 4/3/2+AE group received CF and thus should have assigned attentional resources into form and accuracy aspects to some extent, they could maintain the enhancement of fluency in articulation rate and final-clause pause ratio as much as the 4/3/2-only group did. One explanation for this observation could be that the prompts were so easy that participants may not have needed to process much cognitive resource during conceptualization (particularly on discourse levels). On the other hand, the improvement in mid-clause pause ratio was observed among the control and 4/3/2 only groups. These findings suggest that attention to meaning would enhance the formulation processes which mid-clause pause ratio is supposed to reflect (i.e. disruptions of speech processing) (Kormos, 2006). However, when it comes to the consolidation of formulation processes, it was only the 4/3/2 only group that succeeded in doing so. They sustained the improvement at the third time point. Those findings indicate that the time pressure in addition to sufficient amount of attention to meaning are necessary for automatization of language-related processing (i.e. formulation).