Working memory, L2 proficiency, and L2 speech performance across different task types

This study investigates how different task types influence the second language (L2) speech performance of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners, how working memory capacity (WMC) is associated with that performance, and how L2 proficiency moderates the relationship between WMC and L2 speech performance across story retelling, independent speaking, and picture narration tasks. The participants were 86 Chinese EFL university undergraduates. Data were collected through a sociodemographic questionnaire, a speaking span test, and three monologic oral tasks. Results showed that distinct tasks elicited varying L2 speech performance, with the influence of WMC on L2 speech performance depending on task types. Specifically, higher WMC was associated with increased syntactic complexity in the story retelling task, and greater accuracy in the independent speaking task. Furthermore, the moderating role of L2 proficiency in the relationship between WMC and L2 speech production exhibited different patterns across different task types. Notably, the positive role of WMC in speed fluency was evident only at higher proficiency levels across all three tasks, whereas the positive relationship between WMC and syntactic complexity was observed only at lower proficiency levels and was specific to the story retelling and the independent speaking tasks. The study concludes with implications for task design to better serve EFL learners’ L2 speaking skill development.