online planning

Research evidence reported to date demonstrates the differential effects of manipulating second language (L2) task conditions on the resultant production as measured in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The present study was aimed at adding to the available body of findings by exploring the synergistic effects of two task condition variables, namely online planning and immediacy (± Here/Now) on L2 oral discourse. For this purpose, 60 Iranian intermediate learners of English as a foreign langue (EFL) were asked to perform the task of narrating a story based on a sequenced set of pictures under four conditions (i.e., Here/Now and pressed online planning, Here/Now and careful online planning, There/Then and pressed online planning, There/Then and careful online planning). The results of statistical analyses revealed that carefully planning speech while performing the task consistently assists complexity and accuracy, but negatively affects fluency of speech. Besides, it was observed that carrying out the same task using the past tense without contextual support (i.e., There/Then), if coupled with careful online planning, simultaneously enhances complexity and accuracy. Performing a task in Then/There also reduces fluency. Interestingly, it was also found out that the opportunity to carefully plan online while performing the task in There/Then exponentially increases complexity and accuracy with strong negative effects on fluency. Lastly, pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed regarding the contribution of task condition to directing learners’ attention and their L2 speech quality.

This study examined the effect of rehearsal, strategic, and online planning on the intermediate undergraduate EFL learners’ writing complexity, accuracy, fluency (CAF), lexical variety, and the cognitive psychological performance of attentional allocation to linguistic aspects during planning . To this end, 80 intermediate university students were randomly divided into three experimental groups and one control group. The participants’ performance was compared based on measures of Wigglesworth and Storch’s (2009) fluency, Storch and Wigglesworth’s (2007) accuracy, Foster and Skehan’s (1999) complexity, McKee , Malvern, and Richards’ (2000) vocd-D model of lexical diversity. The study focused on rehearsal, strategic, and online planning in argumentative writing tasks. Retrospective interviews were conducted right after task performance to examine the participants' attentional allocation under three planning-time conditions. It was revealed that rehearsal task planning resulted in higher CAF and lexical variety in comparison to the other groups. Noticeable variation was also evidenced in the participants’ attentional allocation in terms of CAF across different time planning conditions. It was also shown that the learners paid more attention to the conceptualization of ideas during pre-task planning through sentences or clauses while performing a task. Little attention was paid to formulizing complex or accurate utterances. The findings have numerous pedagogical implications for EFL teachers, university instructors, and EFL students.

The present study investigates the efficacy of preparation time in four speaking tasks of TOEFL iBT. As the current pre-task planning time offered by ETS is very short, 15 to 30 seconds, we intended to explore how the test-takers’ speaking quality would change if the preparation time was added to the response time, giving the respondents a relatively longer online planning opportunity. To this aim, two groups of TOEFL iBT candidates were studied under pre-task and online planning conditions. Totally, 384 elicited speaking samples were first transcribed and then measured in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). The results yielded by a series of One-way MANOVA revealed the online planning group significantly outperformed the pre-task planning group in terms of accuracy and fluency across all four speaking tasks. Although with less robustness, the online planners had significantly higher speech complexity represented by lexical diversity and left-embeddedness. The results obtained through this study may challenge the efficacy of the currently provided preparation time in TOEFL iBT speaking subsection.