Investigating collaborative oral task repetition as a language anxiety reduction strategy

Research on task-based language teaching (TBLT) has focused on the relationship between task repetition (TR) and the linguistic aspects necessary for the language success of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. Foreign language anxiety (FLA) is not an exception. However, very few studies have explored the influence of TR on FLA in young generations compared to adult learners. To address this gap, quantitative research based on a quasi-experimental design was conducted to investigate whether collaborative oral TR with the spot-the-difference (STD) task is effective for FLA of Japanese elementary school students and whether any discrepancy between TR modalities is generated in the influence. In all, 60 young novice EFL learners from Grade 6, randomly grouped into the control, exact TR, and procedural TR groups, participated in the experiment. The FLA levels were measured before and after the tasks over 3 weeks, and the trajectories were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Mann–Whitney U test. The findings showed that the STD task, exact TR, and procedural TR mitigated FLA, but no significant difference was found between the modalities. The paper concludes with a statement of its limitations and pedagogical implications for future research in the realm of TBLT.