Some Effects of Task Type on the Relation between Communicative Effectiveness and Grammatical Accuracy in Intensive ESL Classes

Abstract

Two language characteristics, Communicative Effectiveness (CE) and Grammatical Accuracy (GA), were investigated in 130 grade 5 students in intensive ESL classes. Using different types of elicitation tasks in across-sectional study, it was found that CE and GA are not independent, but the relation between the variables differs as a function of task type. In a short-utterance sentence production task, CE and GA appear to develop simultaneously. In an extended-discourse story retell, GA reaches a plateau with some subjects while CE continues to develop. Suggestions for classroom application of these findings are discussed.