Retrospective Analysis of the Usefulness of Task Repetition in German (L2)

Abstract

This paper aims to obtain an insight into the usefulness of task repetition based on retrospective comments in a questionnaire. In the context of formal language teaching, there is an insufficient trepresentation of task repetition, although the findings of numerous studies indicate several positive changes in overall speech performance. Therefore, researchers emphasize the necessity of implementingtask repetition to achieve automation and proceduralisation of knowledge. The study involved 14undergraduate students of German studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Split, who gave a presentationin German and repeated it after one week. A retrospective analysis displays that the participants claimvarious benefits of task repetition, such as the ability to pre-identify possible language difficulties andeasier access to the lexemes in the mental lexicon, as well as a more effective resolving of lexicaldifficulties. Based on their answers, it is argued that the use of rehearsed formulas has resulted in severalpositive effects such as the formation of more complex and appropriate expressions, the ability to selectmore lexemes with similar meanings, more accurate use of grammatical forms and syntactic structures,and more effective speech monitoring. The analysis of the students’ answers revealed a very positiveassessment of task repetition, which aims at improving overall speech performance.

Keywords

• task repetition
• speech fluency
• retrospective analysis