Mind Sets and IFL: Texts and Tasks

Interlanguage development, mainly as far as written production is concerned, may be facilitated in learners who are trained to elaborate an input, which is recognized as ‘meaningful'', through noticing and attention management tasks, and through tasks focusing on production, which have an influence on the re-organization of forms and meaning. Therefore, the action-research aimed at verifying how written performance in ab initio students reflected the integration of language and content. Measures for written production during TTC (Text and Task Course) were: Holistic Rating (fluency and creativity), Accuracy Ratios (intelligibility index and error index) and Complexity Ratios (dependent and coordinate clauses per t-units ratio and re-elaboration of a model or text type). Data seemed to confirm the hypothesis that the positive results in written production, after a relative short time of instruction, were influenced by the training TTL (Texts and Tasks Learners) received in the TTC.