The Effects of Different Planning on Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency in L2 Written Tasks

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of different planning variants on syntactic complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) in L2 written tasks. Within the cognitive informationprocessing approach of SLA, it was motivated by vague usage and inconsistent effects of planning on L2 performance. First, 459 undergraduate students performed two written narrative tasks. The first task was a proficiency task and the second, main one had three different planning conditions: no planning, pre-task planning, and online planning. The participants were divided into intermediate and advanced levels by the proficiency task results. After the data of 38 subjects were excluded through screening by the main task, writings of the final 421 participants were then evaluated in terms of CAF. Findings revealed that the intermediate learners’ planning benefits CAF enhancement, but the advanced learners’ planning is less beneficial, which indicates that planning is a compensating strategy for L2 learners’ limited attentional resources. Specifically, no planning led to greater accuracy, pre-task planning enhanced fluency, and online planning improved greater syntactic complexity. The results of this research will hopefully aid to understand how L2 performance is controlled by the attentional manipulation of planning, depending on L2 proficiency. The study also suggests that online planning in L2 written tasks might be empirically different compared to that in L2 spoken tasks.