Exploring task effects on register variation in second language learners’ writing
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Task-based research often focuses on the main effects of task variables on measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency of second language (L2) writing performance. This study aimed to extend this line of research by examining the main and interaction effects of task type, learner L2 proficiency, and L2 study on register variation in L2 learners’ writing. Each of 42 Chinese learners of English as a foreign language responded to independent and integrated writing tasks before and after nine months of English language study. Each essay ( N = 168) was rated on level of formality and tagged for various lexico-syntactic features. Overall, integrated essays were judged to use more formal language and were more informationally dense than were the independent essays. More proficient students were judged to use more formal language than did less proficient students. After instruction, students’ writing became more formal, more informationally dense, and more narrative. The findings and their implications for the teaching and assessment of L2 writing are discussed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.027 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".