The Effect of Task Repetition on Complexity and Accuracy of Iranian Highintermediate EFL Learners’ Narrative Writing Performance

Developments in the area of task-based language teaching (TBLT) research have heightened the need to focus on the task implementation factors in the sense that they are effective in successful language performance to occur. The present study aimed to examine the effect of task repetition, as one of the task implementation variables, on Iranian high-intermediate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners narrative writing performance. To this end, a pretest/ post-test quasi-experimental design was applied; 40 participants, with 18 to 25 years of age, were non-randomly selected and considered as two groups of the experimental and control ones. Both groups took a pre-test to ensure their homogeneity in narrative writing skill. Then, for 14 sessions, the experimental group was engaged in repetitive practice of narrative writing tasks. Three weeks after the end of the treatment, both groups performed the two post-tests. The results of independent samples t-tests showed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control one in regard with complexity on the two post-test phases (p .05), however; the results were not significant in the case of accuracy. The findings have important pedagogical implications for EFL learners and teachers, as well as useful future research directions in EFL writing for the researchers.