Investigating efl learners’ perception of narrative task difficulty

The present study was an attempt to investigate EFL learners’ perception of task difficulty. Twenty adult Iranian learners participated in this study on a volunteer basis. Drawing upon current models of task difficulty, the researchers managed to operationally define four oral narrative tasks of varying degrees of complexity. Having performed the tasks, the participants attended a round of retrospective interviews. The qualitative analysis brought to light five major themes. To explore how current models of task difficulty would explain the learners’ attitude toward task demands, these categories were juxtaposed with Skehan’s model and Robinson’s triadic componential framework. In this connection, the protocols were investigated from a cognitive, information-processing perspective on task-based language teaching and the most relevant implications were discussed.

Task-based language teaching ,

task difficulty ,

narrative task ,

resource-directing variables ,

resource-dispersing variables ,