The effects of planning time on complexity, accuracy ...accuracy, whereas online planning encouraged L2 learners to use a repertoire of their grammatical structures and compose more
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Asian-Pacific Journal of Secondand Foreign Language Education
Abdi Tabari Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign LanguageEducation (2016) 1:10 DOI 10.1186/s40862-016-0015-6
ORIGINAL ARTICLE Open Access
The effects of planning time on complexity,accuracy, fluency, and lexical variety in L2descriptive writing
Mahmoud Abdi Tabari
Correspondence:[email protected] Department, OklahomaState University, 205 Morrill Hall,Stillwater, OK 74074, USA
This study investigates the effects of pre-task planning and online planning on L2writing production (complexity, accuracy, fluency, and lexical variety). Seventy-eightintermediate EFL learners were randomly divided into three groups (n1/3 26): pre-taskplanning, online planning, and no planning. Participants were required to write adescription elicited through a pictorial task. Analysis of the descriptions and theresults of a series of one-way ANOVA showed that the participants who completedthe task under the pre-task planning condition composed more fluent texts.However, those who conducted the task under the no planning condition wrotemore lexically varied texts. In addition, the participants who completed the taskunder the online planning condition outperformed those who worked with the taskunder the pre-task planning condition in the case of lexical variety. This studyproposes the trade-off effect between fluency and lexical variety. The findings alsoreveal that choosing suitable task-based implementational conditions can help L2writers improve the complexity, accuracy, fluency, and lexical variety of their textualproducts. Finally, the implementational conditions for pre-task and online planningshould be equally available for L2 writers if they want to present their actual output.
IntroductionIn recent years there has been increasing interest in examining differential effects of
planning time conditions on complexity, accuracy, and fluency (henceforth CAF) in
English as a second language (ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. Previ-
ous research has revealed that the impact of task design features (e.g. structured, less
structured, and unstructured tasks) and implementational conditions (e.g. planning
time conditions) induces second language (L2) learners to direct their attention to
different dimensions of language performance (Ellis and Yuan, 2004; Tavakoli and
Skehan, 2005; Markee and Kunitz, 2013; Ong, 2014; Ahmadian, Tavakoli, and Vahid
Dastjerdi, 2015). Although extensive studies have investigated the nature and effects of
task design features and implementational conditions on the CAF triad, there are still
inconsistent findings. In particular, planning time for L2 writing is often perceived to
have different influences on its product (Ellis, 2009; Ahmadian, Tavakoli, and Vahid
2016 The Author(s). Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internationalicense (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,rovided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, andndicate if changes were made.
Abdi Tabari Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education (2016) 1:10 Page 13 of 15
Since the present study had a quantitative rather than qualitative design, the partici-
pants’ feelings and perceptions as they were performing the descriptive task were not
taken into account. It was the first potential limitation of this study, however, future
research can undertake a mixed-methods design to show how participants in different
planning time conditions feel about the task and how they take advantage of the plan-
ning time (i.e. if they pay attention to the content, form, or organization of the
descriptive elements). In addition, given that the cognitive processes of writing are
complex, the qualitative analysis of the participants’ written output provides strong
evidence in favour of interpreting these processes. The second limitation was the meas-
urement of the four dimensions of L2 written output. Since the present study used a
specific measure to examine a particular facet of the dimension in question, future
planning research can use multiple measures for assessing different facets of the dimen-
sion in question. The third limitation was related to the context in which the present
study was implemented. This study was conducted with Iranian EFL learners at the
intermediate level; hence, the results need to be interpreted with careful caution. The
last limitation was carrying out a cross-sectional study over a short period. Needless to
say, longitudinal studies can provide deeper insights into how manipulating the
planning time conditions might influence L2 written output as measured along the
dimensions of complexity, accuracy, fluency, and lexical variety.
AppendixGeneral instructions (all instructions were given in Persian)
The picture shows a big living room with some furniture. You are asked to describe in
English what you see in the picture.
Instructions for each planning group
Group 1: No planning
You have just seen a picture. This picture includes a set of items. Now I would like
you to describe this picture in detail in English. Imagine that someone has never seen
this picture and this is his or her first time to learn about the items in the picture from
you. Please try to describe the picture as detailed as you can. Additionally, you have
only 8 min to write at least 10 sentences about the picture. If you want, you can write
more than 10 sentences. You can begin like this; “I can see…”
Group 2: Pre-task planning
You have just seen a picture. This picture includes a set of items. Now I would like
you to describe this picture in detail in English. Before you begin to write, you have
10 min to plan what you intend to write. Imagine that someone has never seen this
picture and this is his or her first time to learn about the items in the picture from you.
Please try to describe the picture as detailed as you can. To help you prepare, you are
Abdi Tabari Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education (2016) 1:10 Page 14 of 15
provided with pieces of paper and a pen to write down your notes. Please do not write
a complete sentence either in Persian or in English. You have 8 min to write at least 10
sentences. If you like, you can write more than 10 sentences. You can begin like this; “I
can see…..”
Group 3: Online planning
You have just seen a picture. This picture includes a set of items. Now I would like
you to describe this picture in detail in English. Imagine that someone has never seen
this picture and this is his or her first time to learn about the items in the picture from
you. Please try to describe the picture as detailed as you can. You can take as long time
as you need while describing the picture. If you write something wrong or something
you do not like, you can change and modify them. You can write more than 10
sentences if you like. You can begin like this; “I can see…..”
Competing interestsThe author declares that he has no competing interests.
Received: 22 July 2016 Accepted: 7 September 2016
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