Effect of Practice Type (Drill-based, Task-variation, and Task Repetition) on Learning English Subjunctives and Modals by Persian Intermediate EFL Learners

Many researchers have emphasized the necessity of practice for proceduralization and automatization of L2 knowledge in language learners. The kind of practice, though, has ever remained a vague concept and there is almost no clear-cut definition as to what type of practice is meant by scholars. In fact, new theories and approaches suggest different practice types after invalidating the previous ones. This study investigated the effect of three practice types including drill-based practice, task variation and task repetition on learning English subjunctives and modals by Persian EFL learners at the intermediate level. Forty adult EFL learners were randomly assigned to three groups each receiving one of these three types of practice as the treatment. The results of a multiple choice comprehension test and a production test including a picture cued sentence completion and an oral translation task indicated that all these practice types had significant effects; however, the drill-based group outperformed the other two groups. The findings show that drills might have more contribution to proceduralization hence automatization of the declarative knowledge suggesting that this kind of practice, which has been invalidated in literature, if applied correctly, might regain prominence in teaching and learning a second language.