Task Content Familiarity, Task Type and Efficacy of Recasts

The role of recasts has been the subject of an increasing number of second language acquisition (SLA) studies in recent years, as has been the role of tasks. Few studies, nevertheless, exist that investigate the interaction between the two. The present study makes a preliminary excursion into this unexplored domain by examining the impact of two task variables, task content familiarity and task type, on the efficacy of recasts. A total of 36 adult ESL learners participated in the study, and were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental groups: the Same Video group, the Different Video Group, the Same Notes group, or the Different Notes group. A pre-test/post-test/ delayed-post-test design was employed to detect any improvement in participants' ability to use the past progressive form--the linguistic target. Results from analyses of variance show significant main effects for task content familiarity and task type.