Pushed and Non-pushed Speaking Tasks in an EAP Context: What Are the Benefits for Linguistic Processing and Accuracy?
Pushed and Non-pushed Speaking Tasks in an EAP Context: What Are the Benefits for Linguistic Processing and Accuracy?

Summary/Abstract: This article reports on a mixed methods study investigating the effectiveness of pushed and non-pushed speaking tasks in a UK university setting with upper-intermediate students. Specifically, the study addressed a) if a pushed speaking task produced more language related episodes (LREs) than a non-pushed speaking task, b) the differences in the types of LREs produced by each task and c) whether a pushed speaking task resulted in more accurate usage of past narrative forms. Results showed that the pushed storytelling task produced significantly more LREs than the non-pushed task and it also identified that the most common LRE type for both pushed and non-pushed learners related to some form of output correction. The pushed group achieved greater accuracy gains from pretest and posttest scores but these gain scores were not found to be statistically significant. The study concludes that creating a push during spoken output activities can increase the occurrence of opportunities for linguistic processing, and subsequently interlanguage development, to occur.

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