The Effects of Pre-task Planning on Low-level and Advanced-level Learners’ Oral Performance

Abstract

Planning effects are generally believed to enhance oral performance among language learners, yet effects on accuracy have not been clear-cut. Despite the widespread adoption of planning in research studies, the literature has few attempts to combine the planning effects with mixed levels of proficiency. Based on experimental research involving two groups of advanced-level and low-level proficiency EFL learners, this thesis examined the effects of pre-task planning on narrative productions, and how differently these affect the two different levels. Two sets of picture series were provided in two tasks. Participants were to describe a complete story according to the picture series in three minutes. The first task was implemented directly, while the second task was conducted after a ten-minute pre-task planning opportunity. Students’ oral narratives were measured in two aspects: complexity and accuracy. Complexity was scored with four indices: the number of clauses per t-unit, the average length of t-unit, the amount of subordination per performance, and word types. On the other hand, to measure accuracy, five separate markers of past tense verb forms were examined, which were the past tense of verb forms of verb be, auxiliary verbs, regular verbs, irregular verbs, and general accuracy, that is, a sum of these four markers. The results support the trade-off effect in that there is competition between complexity and accuracy: the advanced-level learners benefited in one marker of accuracy (the irregular past verbs), but were not affected on complexity; on the other hand, learners with low proficiency gained the most in a marker of complexity (word types), but failed to significantly improve in accuracy. In the long run, EFL educators should consider proficiency gap, which is a factor that influences planning effects. In EFL classroom environments, teachers need to consider learners’ English levels in order to provide more valid and efficient planning conditions.