Task Repetition and Noticing as a Route to Semester-long Destabilization : A Cross-sectional Study of Iranian EFL Learners ’ Oral Output

Tackling learners’ erroneous oral output has always been a substantial issue for both language teachers and researchers. Taking Swain’s output hypothesis and Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis into account, this study aims at investigating the effect of taskinitiated noticing along with task repetition sessions as a route to destabilization of learner errors. The participants of the study were thirty two Iranian upper-intermediate learners. The participants were divided into two groups, an experimental and a control group. Both groups’ voices were recorded while delivering a prepared speech. The participants in experimental group were given the recorded presentation to be transcribed and compared with the original text they used while the control group didn’t receive feedback of any kind. The experimental group submitted a draft to their teacher who checked the papers and later asked them to prepare themselves for another prepared speech in the future. There was a pre-test, a treatment and a post-test. The comparison of the erroneous utterances in both groups lent support to the effectiveness of task repetition and noticing on destabilization of learners’ oral output.


Introduction
Within the last few years, there have been a large number of studies which have investigated language learning and teaching problems.Among them are studies conducted on the issue of fossilization.Although there have been several researches on the aforementioned issue, not every researcher offered an appropriate solution to the problem.Furthermore, no EFL study has investigated possible effects of noticing and task repetition on destabilization of EFL learners' fossilized errors.In our point of view, it would have been more beneficial if we paid more attention to crosssectional studies rather than longitudinal ones.Our statements do not contradict others' findings in the realm of fossilization.We only see that the balance of studies has shifted one way, which means we have just been investigating fossilization to add more and more complexity to it.To us, fossilization studies should aim at investigating ways and techniques to defossilize and destabilized language errors and not just add names to the phenomenon under investigation.
In our language schools, one central issue is that teachers thoroughly ignore defossilization of errors letting them happen repeatedly in the learners' interlanguage.Any EFL teacher here is required to increase his or her understanding of the potential causal variables of fossilization and look for an appropriate treatment for them.Astonishing reports received from our students as well as class observations show that at least in the language school we teach, some teachers not only ignore defossilization of errors but also adopt wrong teaching strategies adding more fuel to the fire.This might be either the result of their wrong belief or the result of lack of enough knowledge regarding the notion of fossilization.
Today, we had better take both teachers and students' importance into account and carry out a research which appears to be more relevant to our society.Our words do not contradict the previous findings of fossilization studies; in fact, we are of the idea of conducting a research offering an alternative as a way out.We tried to conduct a cross-sectional study on Iranian EFL learners and offer a treatment to their problem.Owing to unavailability of studies which investigated the effects of task repetition and noticing on destabilization, we were to merely define the variables.However, there have been a number of studies which investigated the effects of noticing on oral output (e.g.Mennim, 2007).Swain (2000) considers limited attention a hindrance that hampers students' noticing of structures in their L2 oral language production.Owing to focusing on meaning during conversations, Swain's students failed to succeed in ameliorating their L2 accuracy.Hence, it is possible to say that receiving comprehensible input is not a sufficient condition for input to become intake, which is a necessary stage of acquisition.Swain's output hypothesis (1995) postulates, if the learners use the L2 actively rather than just listen to it, they will be able to make more improvement in morphology and syntax.According to Swain when learners actively construct the L2 utterances, they are able to notice the gap between their interlanguage and the target language.Doughty (1999: 21) argues that the notion of noticing the gap is used to show how the learners reflect on:

Noticing oral output
the difference between what they themselves can or have said (or even what they know they cannot say) and what it is more competent speakers of the target language say instead to convey the same intention under the same social conditions.
Noticing the gap was inspired from Schmidt's (1990) Noticing Hypothesis.According to Schmidt, "noticing refers to private experience, although noticing can be operationally defined as availability for verbal report, subject to certain conditions " (1990, p. 132).He also claims that "noticing is the necessary and sufficient condition for converting input into intake " (1990, p. 129).However, there are lots researchers who disagree with Schmidt's argumentation.Mennim (2007) investigated long-term effects of noticing on oral output.The study was carried out as a part of an EFL oral presentation course at a university in Japan.A set of exercises were used to help students notice and reflect on L2 forms.Records of their noticing as well as recordings of their oral output which were tracked through the year were analyzed to find out if there were any improvements in the usage of forms noticed by the learners.The study showed that the learners were able to improve their accuracy after nine months of an academic year.

Fossilization
The term fossilization has been defined differently by different scholars since 1972.For instance, Selinker and Lamendella (1978: 187) explicitly defined fossilization in terms of: . . .a long-term freezing of interlanguage development before the language learner has achieved TL features at particular levels of linguistic structure and in all domains of discourse, though the learner has got a positive capability, chance, and motivation to improve his learning and acculturate into target language's community.
In addition to Selinker's definition of the term fossilization, other researchers in the field of SLA have offered manifold of interpretations for the term.For instance, Lowther (1983: 127) has offered the following definition of the term fossilization: "Fossilization, as presented in much of the literature, is understood to be the inability of a person to attain nativelike ability in the target language".An overwhelming majority of researchers have followed Selinker's (1972) performance dimension and its definition.For example, Ellis (1985: 48) offers the view below: Fossilized structures can be realized as errors or as correct target language forms.If, when fossilization occurs, the learner has reached a stage of development in which feature x in his interlanguage has assumed the same form as in the target language, then fossilization of the correct form will occur.If, however, the learner has reached a stage in which feature y still does not have the same form as the target language, the fossilization will manifest itself as error.
There is also a disparate view that postulates there are fossilized errors in addition to fossilized target-like structures.The point of view has originated from Vigil and Oller (1976: 282): "the conception of fossilization can be expanded to any item where grammar rules incorporate into a psychologically real grammar".
According to Vigil and Oller, A sufficient description is to be able to explain the integration of principles or rules into generating grammars in a proportionately everlasting form ignoring whether or not those principles match the norms of the target language that is being learnt.The reason is not only the fossilization of errors which are to be described, but also the fossilization of appropriate structures which match the target language norms.There are still some researchers who may just prefer fossilized forms that are not target-like.Hyltenstam (1988: 68) has been among those who offered definitions for the term fossilization.Here is his definition of the term fossilization: Fossilization -according to observations -is a process that may occur in the second language acquisition context as opposed to first language acquisition.It covers features of the second language learner's interlanguage that deviate from the native speaker norm and are not developing any further or deviant features which -although seemingly left behind -re-emerge in the learner's speech under certain conditions.Thus, the learner has stopped learning or has reverted to earlier stages of acquisition.Some researchers are of the idea that fossilization is known to be a level in the process of a learner's interlanguage.For instance, Bley-Vroman (1989: 47-9) provided the following argumentation: It has long been noted that foreign language learners reach a certain stage of learning -a stage short of success -and that learners then permanently stabilize at this stage.Development ceases, and even serious conscious efforts to change are often fruitless.Brief changes are sometimes observed, but they do not take.The learner backslides to the stable state.
As a result, fossilization in the eyes of many is interpreted as permanent stabilization and consequently the final stage of the interlanguage process.Regarding the aforementioned concept, Tarone (1994Tarone ( : 1715) ) argues that: "A central characteristic of any interlanguage is that it fossilizes -that is, it ceases to develop at some point short of full identity with the target language."IJALEL 2 (3):21-28, 2013 23 2.3 Causal variables of fossilization Han (2004: 26) offers a set of variables which are likely to cause fossilization.These variables include but not limited to: • Paucity of appropriate instruction of the language (Schmidt 1983) • Scarcity of appropriate corrective feedback (Higgs and Clifford 1982) • Satisfaction of communicative needs (e.g.Selinker and Lamendella 1978) • The learners' Age • Absence of enough written input to the learners (Schmidt 1983) • Inappropriate and wrong automatization on the part of the learner (Hulstijn 1989) • Maturation (Schnitzer 1993) • Paucity and inaccessibility to learning principles of Universal Grammar (White 1996) • When Learning hampers learning (Elman et al. 1996) • Language Transfer from the mother tongue to the target language (e.g.Selinker and Lakshmanan 1992).
Recently, there has been a growing body of studies concentrating on the differences of the ultimate attainment between children and adults.Kellerman who acknowledged the distinction in final attainment between first-language acquisition in children and second language acquisition in adults argued that: One of the most enduring and fascinating problems confronting researchers of second language acquisition (SLA) is whether adults can ever acquire native-like competence in a second language (L2), or whether this is an accomplishment reserved for children who start learning at a relatively early age.As a secondary issue, there is the question of whether those rare cases of native-like success reported amongst adult learners are indeed what they seem, and if they are, how it is that such people can be successful when the vast majority are palpably not.(Kellerman 1995: 219).
Whilst Kellerman mentioned the abovementioned argumentation regarding fossilization, two other scholars named Towell and Hawkins (1994: 2) observed the following: For most of us the acquisition of second language is less spectacular.If we are past the age of around 7-10 years the acquisition of an L2, in marked contrast to the way we acquired our first language (L1), can turn out to be rather slow, laborious and, even in talented L2 learners, tends to stop short of native-like proficiency.This stopping short has been referred to as fossilization (Selinker 1972) or incompleteness (Schachter 1990).It is one of the noticeable characteristics of second language acquisition.There have been several fossilization studies within the last few years and each has had its own definition, description and interpretation of fossilization.Three of the most significant ones are raised here.First, Han (2003) introduces two types of fossilizations which are called local and global.Global fossilization impresses the whole interlanguage (IL), so no further development would take place.Meanwhile, fossilization can also be described in its local form.In local fossilization, a specific subsystem like syntax or a specific feature like past-tense marking may be fossilized while there is an unabated development in other areas.
The second description of fossilization is that it can be either a process or a product or occasionally both of them (e.g.Kellerman, 1989).From the product perspective, fossilization is the state in which there is a long term frozen development in learning.This can be either global or local.The idea is originated from Selinker and Lakshmanan, (1992: 197) who said: "[fossilization is] the long term persistence of plateaus of non-target-like structures in the interlanguage of non-native speakers. .."From the process perspective, we shall say that the absence of improvement in one particular area of language cannot be taken as a justification for fossilization.The concept can mainly be used to refer to the hindrance of improvement.Selinker (1972) argued for fossilization as a process.Whether or not fossilization is taking place has also become a controversial issue recently.Fossilization which is interpreted as a slow or stopped development cannot always be noticed empirically via its signals, one of which is backsliding.Then it's true to say that the distinction between fossilization in form of process and fossilization in form of product in reduced to whether the concept of fossilization is referred to a state which is feasible to be investigated directly, or maybe a cognitive process, that is noticeable merely indirectly.
Within the past few years, however, the distinction between fossilization as a process and fossilization as a product has somehow vanished.For example, Han (2003Han ( , 2004) ) emphasizes that the permanent cessation of learning is not a sufficient justification for fossilization.On the product perspective, fossilization we lack a unity of ideas.One of the most significant manifestations of fossilization is that there is an absolute absence of change or development in the learners' Interlanguage.Han (2004) argues for the necessity of appreciating and perceiving the notion of fossilization at two disparate levels: at macroscopic and microscopic levels.The reason that children have always been more effective learners than adults is investigated at macroscopic level.In contrast, those linguistic features of the language which fossilize differently among learners as well as those which influence learners to differ in their overall proficiency are investigated at microscopic level.Figure 1 below which shows a two-level analysis of fossilization is taken from Han (2004: 8).

Stabilization
In SLA literature, cessation of learning has been referred to stabilization (Long 2003).Fossilization and stabilization may be two different phenomena in second or foreign language learning.If they were the same, either of them would be used to refer to the concept of fossilization in SLA literature.Han (1998), and later on Selinker and Han (2001), presented a concise description of the two terms.They suggested that the two terms should not be equated with each other, simply because they discern at least three feasible cases for stabilization (as stated in Han, 2004): 1) a temporary stage of getting stuck 2) interlanguage restructuring; and 3) long-term cessation of interlanguage development.In his invaluable recent critical review, Long (2003) strongly articulated that the notion of stabilization, but fossilization, is to comprise the appropriate domain of investigation for empirical researches related to permanent cessation of development in second language learning.Long (2003) puts forward several interesting claims.These are primarily: "(1) stabilization is the first sign of (for him, putative) fossilization; (2) the difference between stabilization and fossilization is permanence; and (3) stabilization and fluctuation are mutually exclusive".Based on the aforementioned assumptions the following conclusion is drawn: "understanding the causes of stabilization (and destabilization) would seem to promise as much for SLA theory as work on fossilization" (p.490).Long (2003: 490) has also noted that, these twin processes known to be stabilization and fossilization processes may resemble in their superficial features, but might be disparate in their causal variables.Although the complexity surrounding fossilization and stabilization seem to have been minimized by long, we'd better obey the old course and differentiate between fossilization and stabilization.As a result, it seems to be essential to study stabilization within and as a subcategory for fossilization process.The disagreement between the following scholars seemingly Han (1998) and Selinker and Han (2001) on one side and Long (2003) on the other side should not be misleading for those investigating in the realm of fossilization.The disagreement between them is merely on the third case.This means there is to be a long-term stabilization as a prerequisite to signal fossilization.This is the area that has become the core of fossilization studies.

Task-based language teaching
The notion of task has become of paramount significance within the last few years.A large number of studies have investigated it as a substantial element in classroom teaching and syllabus design.Some of these studies introduced different types of tasks to language pedagogy.Target tasks and pedagogical tasks are good cases in point.According to (Ellis, 2003) the interaction inside the classroom, the tupe of instruction that is learner-centered, and authentic use of the language use have all been primarily emphasized in task based language teaching.Ellis (2003) defines task as following: A task is a work plan that requires learners to process language pragmatically in order to achieve an outcome that can be evaluated in terms of whether the correct or appropriate propositional content has been conveyed.To this end, it requires them to give primary attention to meaning and to make use of their own linguistic resources, although the design of the task may predispose them to choose particular forms.A task is intended to result in language use that bears a resemblance, direct or indirect, to the way language is used in the real world.Like other language activities, a task can engage productive or receptive, and oral or written skills, and also various cognitive processes (Ellis, 2003: 16).
The value of using tasks in classrooms has been investigated by different scholars and each one added emphasis to the usefulness of tasks.Many researchers have investigated tasks from cognitive point of view which considers the effect of the characteristics of a task on performance as well as the influence of different situations where tasks are carried out (Skehan, 2003).Bygate (1996) was among those who investigated the effectiveness of tasks and task repetition.At the end of one of his (1996) studies, Bygate argues that task repetition is advantageous for better performance.Gass, et al.

Microscopic analysis of fossilization
General failure Inter/intra-learner Differential failure (1999) also emphasized that task repetition leads to amelioration of proficiency, vocabulary sophistication and morphosyntax.

The Present Study
It is assumed that utilizing tasks may be helpful for learners to produce good language.The present study aims at investigating task characteristics which trigger noticing and hence promote learning.This is quiet natural that neither the teacher nor the learner can take the advantage of error correction while a learner is delivering a prepared speech.Moreover, when teachers do not provide learners with feedback, it is more likely that one particular feature is repeated by the learner several times and finally fossilizes.To put it more straightforwardly, the present study aims at investigating whether providing language learners with a second or third chance to produce a story orally would be fruitful for foreign language learning and lead to destabilization of their previous stabilized errors.Consequently, this paper seeks to find an answer to the following research question: Does task repetition that promotes noticing would be helpful in semester-long destabilization of learner errors?

Design
The present study included a control group and an experimental group.The study had specifically a pre-test, a treatment which was administered through handing out the original text and finally, and a post-test.The first prepared speech was considered the pre-test, the comparison of the summarized text as well as the model text along with the task repetition were considered the treatment.The third prepared speech was considered the post-test of the study.
Each participant was given an excerpt taken from a book called Select readings (intermediate).The participants were told to read the text at home and prepare themselves for an oral presentation in the subsequent session.They were asked to summarize the text into a paragraph of about 150 words long, but keep the structure used in the passage.Students' voice was audio-recorded while they were delivering the prepared speech.The recordings' transcription was then used by the participants to find any mismatches between the original text and what the participants uttered while delivering the prepared speech.They were then asked to deliver the same prepared speech in the second session taking the gaps they noticed into account.The same process was followed for the second prepared speech and students were asked to repeat the same task in the third session.

Participants
The participants of the present research were 32 Iranian EFL students who were studying English for communication at a language school in Chalous, Iran.The participants' ages ranged between 20-26 years old.To assign the proficiency level of the participants an OPT test was administered to select the 32 participants of the study from among 35 language learners at the language school.The sample size of the study from a given population of 35 students was calculated based on Morgan's (1970) table for determining sample size for research activities.The participants who scored between 30 and 40 were invited to take part in the study.Those who were called on were considered to be upperintermediate language learners.

Materials
For the purpose of providing the participants with an appropriate task, a passage was chosen.The difficulty of the passage was assigned by both the book, Select Reading Intermediate, and the application of the SMOG readability formula (Developed by Harold C. McGraw, Office of Educational Research, Baltimore County Schools, and Towson, Maryland).The readability of the passage was at intermediate level.

Tests
Two of the audio recorded presentations (i.e. the first and the third audio recorded prepared speeches) of the study were considered to be the pre-test and the post-test of the research.The transcriptions of the audio-recorded presentations were analyzed to be used in data analysis section of the research.

Procedures
As a part of their class participation, the participants of both experimental and control group were given the Persian translation of the first lesson of the book Select Readings.The assigned book and its lessons were at intermediate level.
For the first stage, the participants were supposed to work individually inside the classroom and translate the lesson into English.Their translations were collected, photocopied and then returned to the participants along with the original text of the lesson.The photocopied translations were then used by the researcher to investigate the fossilized errors.The participants of the experimental group were supposed to read the first lesson of the book and present it orally inside the classroom three times.They were told to summarize the lesson into a paragraph of about 150 words long.They were also told to use the same structures of the book in their summaries and were granted the permission to take a short look at the notes they took beforehand while they were presenting it orally in the class.It took each participant 3 -5 minutes to present his or her speech.The reason behind using select readings intermediate in this study was that the participants were not supposed to cope with the issue of choosing a subject for their presentation.The participants of the control group were taught through the normal traditional classroom procedure, just receiving the correction of their translation errors.The participants of the experimental group were thoroughly informed of the procedure of the study.For the first session, they read the story at home and summarized it into a paragraph of about 150 words long.They presented the story individually inside the classroom while a voice recorder was recording their voice.The participants took their audio recordings home, transcribed them and made corrections to their errors by noticing the gap between their presentation's transcription and the summary of the lesson.They showed their papers to their teacher for any possible reformulations.The same task and the same procedures were repeated for the second and the third session.The three presentations took place within 7 language school weeks in which students attend their class two sessions a week.Presentation one was delivered in week 1, presentation two was delivered on week 4 and presentation three was delivered on week 7.It should be mentioned that all our thirty two participants of the study took part in the last presentation which was considered the post test of the experiment.The transcriptions as well as the initial translation became the subject of the analysis.

Analysis
Overall, there were 45 pages of the participants' oral presentation transcription in the experimental group as well as thirty two pages of Persian to English translation.The papers were used to investigate whether or not noticing along with task repetition resulted in destabilization of the participants' interlanguage errors in both groups.
The total number of errors made by the participants in the translated papers was 89 for experimental group and 91 for control group.Table 1 presents the abundance of errors and error corrections made by each participant in different stages of the study.The above table shows how the participants in the experimental group successfully noticed and corrected their errors in the two times the task was repeated.It can be seen that the participants in the control group noticed a great majority of their errors, but were deprived from the two presentations which the other group's participants had.Without any warning in advance, in week 7 of the study all participants were called to retell the story again.Table 2 shows how they performed in the post-test of the study.The difference in the number of errors committed by the participants in control group and experimental group was very significant.The mistakes corrected by the participants in the first three phases of the study in which the tasks were repeated mainly fell into the following category.

Collocational errors
The most frequent errors in the participants' oral presentations were the usage of collocations.It was the area that most Iranian EFL learners have got problems with.The pilot study as well as the interview with the teachers at the language school also lent support to the overall result of the study.As a result the researcher decided to investigate how task repetition and noticing the gap tasks may be helpful in deffosilizing collocational errors.In the present study, although the learners were exposed to correct collocations in the original text given to them, their interlanguage errors which seemed to be fossilized were repeated several times in their presentation.Their collocational errors were of both lexical and grammatical collocations including: Noun + Verb collocations, Adjective + noun collocations, noun + preposition collocations as well as Verb + adverb collocations.

Discussion and Conclusion
A total number of 89 collocational errors were made the in the experimental group's translation.The participants in the control group made 91 mistakes in their translations.It should be mentioned that the participants had errors and mistakes in other areas of language.Because the researcher was only interested in defossilization of collocational errors, those errors were thoroughly ignored.
Taking statistics into account, we can see that the most problematic area of language with Iranian EFL learners was collocations.Even though, not everyone can guarantee that no part of the original text given to the participants was told by, it appeared they took the advantage of task repletion and the audio transcription of their own presentation, which lead them notice the gap between IL and the TL.After the third oral presentation, it was concluded that the decrease in the number of errors made by the learners in their translation, task 1, 2 and 3 was the result of task repletion along with noticing the gap phenomenon.
The findings of the present research illustrates that the type of task used in this study and its repetition can be helpful in providing learners with a chance to notice their interlanguage errors and make and attempt to defossilize them.As the final point, it is to be said that the findings of the present cross sectional study only lent support to the effectiveness of task repetition and noticing on semester long destabilization of errors and cannot be generalized to long term defossilization.

Table 1 .
Number of Errors and Error Corrections.

Table 2 .
Participants' performance in the post-test.