Do EFL Learners Write with Greater Lexical Complexity: Effects of More Sophisticated Vocabulary Prompt in the Continuation Task

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.220131.086How to use a DOI?

Keywords

the continuation task; vocabulary prompt; lexical complexity; alignment; EFL

Abstract

The continuation task, a reading-to-write task that requires students to make the given plot a complete story, is gradually gaining prominence in the National Matriculation English Test in China. Previous empirical studies revealed that alignment effect existed in the continuation task and as students with different proficiency levels actively interact with the source text, their writing performance was facilitated. The present study attempts to investigate whether a more sophisticated vocabulary prompt could facilitate EFL learners’ writing performance in the task, specifically from the perspective of lexical complexity. Our findings confirmed the expected alignment effect and discovered that greater lexical complexity resulted from an increase in the concreteness and imageability of the content words, which was viewed as an evidence of a better grasp of the nature of narrative writing required in the continuation task. In addition, the results suggest that the alignment effect is formed due to the activation for more concrete scenes.

Copyright

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.

Open Access

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Ziyang Wang
AU  - Xinan Zhou
AU  - Meifang Li
AU  - Dali Hong
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/02/01
TI  - Do EFL Learners Write with Greater Lexical Complexity: Effects of More Sophisticated Vocabulary Prompt in the Continuation Task
BT  - Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Education, Language and Art (ICELA 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 468
EP  - 474
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220131.086
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.220131.086
ID  - Wang2022
ER  -