This study investigated how task difficulty affects cognitive processes during self correction in L2 English oral production. Previous studies have explored this issue based on the taxonomy of self correction behavior proposed by Kormos (1999) which classifies self corrections into different-information repair, appropriacy repair, and error repair. This study sought to determine whether learners focus more on concept, lexis, grammar, or phonology when self corrections occur. English learners were given two direction-giving map tasks: one which is cognitively more demanding in generating message (Task High), and the other cognitively less demanding (Task Low). Each task was followed by a stimulated recall interview to determine the learner’s cognitive processes when a self correction was observed. Their comments were categorized into four cognitive stages: conceptualization, lexical encoding, grammatical encoding, and phonological encoding. We hypothesized that Task High would induce more conceptualization than Task Low. The participants focused on the conceptual aspect more frequently than the grammatical aspect during Task High, while no difference in cognitive process was found in Task Low. The results also revealed that, while there was no significant difference in conceptualization between high-proficient and low-proficient learners, the more proficient learners tended to focus more on grammatical aspects than lexical.
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