The Effects of Task Types on Communication Strategies in SLA: Looking Back and Forward

Studies on the effects of task types on Communication Strategies (CSs) in second language acquisition (SLA) have been carried out for more than two decades and have made great contribution to the development of second language teaching and acquisition. This paper mainly reviews the existing empirical studies to investigate how different task types employed can lead to the application of various CSs by L2 learners. The existing literatures are reviewed under the scope of three periods: the initial attempts, further investigation and recent studies. It is found that existing research has demonstrated well that both the frequency and the type of CSs are influenced by the tasks under completion. Albeit more systematic and rigorous studies are still called for to further support the findings of some studies and further CS research from newer and broader perspectives are still needed. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for SLA in English as second language (ESL) classrooms.