The Effects of Pre-task Planning on the Writing Fluency of Iranian EFL Learners

Abstract

According to Nunan (2004), Task-Based Language Teaching is an approach to the use of tasks as fundamental units of planning and language instruction in language teaching. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of pre-task planning on the fluency of the argumentative essays written by Iranian male and female EFL learners with an intermediate proficiency level. For this purpose, an IELTS Writing Task was administered to a population of 100 EFL learners studying at an English institute in Isfahan. Based on their scores, a sample of 50 intermediate level students were selected and randomly divided into two homogenous groups, 25 each. These samples served as control and experimental groups respectively. The role of gender differences was also investigated in this study. Accordingly, the learners in control group were taught by a structure-based traditional approach while the learners in experimental group were taught by a task-based approach. In order to compare the collected data of the two groups, several t tests were utilized. The obtained results of the written essays by the male students revealed that pre-task planning improved fluency. On the other hand, the comparison of the essays written by the females in both group revealed that they produced more fluent texts.