Impact of task preparedness on L2 oral performance and strategy use

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-226
Author(s):  
Qianqian Gu
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Task Planning ◽  
Task Condition ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Line Planning ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
On Line ◽  
Planning Condition ◽  
Planning Strategies

Abstract The present study sets out to explore the effects of pre-task planning and unpressured on-line planning on L2 learners’ oral performance and their choices of planning strategies in a dialogic task condition. Forty-eight intermediate Chinese EFL learners were invited to perform the task and were then assigned to four groups, each with a different planning condition. Complexity, accuracy, and fluency of their oral production were measured. Results indicated that in the dialogic task condition, unpressured on-line planning raised syntactic complexity. Strikingly, pre-task planning did not improve L2 performance in all dimensions. Additionally, a trade-off effect was found between complexity and accuracy. Retrospective interviews were conducted to explore strategies employed by the participants and their perceptions of task preparedness. Results showed that the participants preferred to use metacognitive strategies and social/affective strategies in the dialogic task. Both advantages and limitations were identified by the participants regarding different planning conditions.

scholarly journals EFFECTS OF STRATEGIC AND UNPRESSURED WITHIN-TASK PLANNING ON IRANIAN INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERS’ ORAL PRODUCTION

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-115
Author(s):  
Marjan Rahim Bakhtiary ◽  
Ehsan Rezvani ◽  
Ehsan Namaziandost
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Task Planning ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
Online Planning ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Planning Condition ◽  
Teaching Programs

Background/Purpose: This study is an attempt to investigate the effect of strategic planning and unpressured within-task planning on Iranian EFL learners’ oral performance.   Methodology: Following a quasi-experimental research design, 60 intermediate EFL Iranian learners were recruited as the participants of the study and they were assigned into two groups of 30. In group one, the participants were asked to perform the task under unpressured online planning condition. In group two, the learners were asked to do the task under strategic planning condition. The pre and post-tests included story-telling narratives tasks followed with a 15-minute silent movie under two planning conditions for the two groups.   Findings: The results of data analysis showed that pre-task strategic planning and within-task planning (online planning) had a positive effect on learners’ oral production; hence, planning time provided opportunity for learners to be able to produce more fluent, accurate, and complex language than no-planners. The results indicated that the participants in the strategic planning group (STPG) significantly outperformed the participants in unpressured within-task-planning (UWPG), leading us to claim that strategic planning was more effective than unpressured within-task planning in improving oral production.   Contributions: This study has numerous benefits for language teachers and specialists in content production. Teachers should incorporate strategic planning in their regular teaching programs to encourage learners to balance their level of speech. Moreover, providing learners with the ability to plan the success of a task allows them to create a more fluent and nuanced language.   Keywords: Accuracy, complexity, fluency, strategic planning, unpressured within-task planning.   Cite as: Bakhtiary, M. R., Rezvani, E., & Namaziandost, E. (2021). Effects of strategic and unpressured within-task planning on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ oral production. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 6(2), 97-115. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss2pp97-115

scholarly journals Impacts of Resource Dispersing and Resource Directing Task Dimensions on EFL Learners’ Oral Production

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Elham Ansari ◽  
Sajad Shafiee
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
Knowledge Group ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Demand Condition

This study was primarily aimed at investigating the effects of simultaneous use of reasoning demand (resource-directing) and prior knowledge (resource-dispersing) on fluency, accuracy, and complexity of L2 oral performance. More, specifically, an attempt was made to investigate how EFL oral production could be affected by ±reasoning demand and ±prior knowledge in the local context of Iran. Thirty male and female Iranian intermediate EFL learners whose mother tongue was Persian and whose age ranged between 23 and 29 were chosen as the participants in this study, and a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was utilized. Assigned to two experimental conditions, participants were engaged in a narrative task in which two different wordless picture stories were chosen for data collection. Such statistical operations as t tests and MANOVA were applied to analyze the data. The results obtained from t tests revealed that in ±reasoning demand condition, both complexity and accuracy significantly improved whereas the results for fluency were not statistically significant. In addition, with regard to the ±prior knowledge group, similar results were obtained. In the end, conducting MANOVA revealed that both groups were not different in the pretest; however, utilizing the same procedure for the posttest illustrated a difference between the two groups in terms of their accuracy and complexity, but not their fluency. The results bear some implications for L2 oral production and practice as controlled by teachers and practitioners in EFL contexts.

Effects of Strategic Planning Time on L2 Paired Oral Test Performance

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haizhen Wang ◽  
Fangqi Song
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Test Scores ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Task Condition ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Planning Time ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Oral Test ◽  
Verb Forms

AbstractPlanning, as a task condition, is hypothesized to influence L2 test performance and thus test scores (Skehan, 1998). This study investigates the effects of lengths of strategic planning time on L2 paired oral test performance, moderated by L2 proficiency. It aims to determine whether differences in performance result from 0, 1, 2 or 3 minutes of planning time, and whether planning time and proficiency interactively affect performance. The participants were 72 Chinese EFL learners, divided into four groups, each performing the same dialogic task with 1 or 2 or 3 minute planning time or none. All speech recordings were rated by two trained raters, and the transcripts of the speech samples subjected to a discourse analysis, measuring fluency features of Rate A and Rate B, complexity features of syntactic complexity, syntactic variety and lexical variety, and accuracy features of error-free clauses and correct verb forms. Findings show a stable accuracy, higher fluency in the planned condition, and greater syntactic complexity when learners are given 3 minutes’ planning time. No interaction is found between planning time and proficiency.

The effects of pre-task planning on EFL learners’ oral performance in a 3D multi-user virtual environment

ReCALL ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 232-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian ChengChiang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Language Production ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Task Planning ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
L2 Learners

AbstractPrior research on pre-task planning examines its effects on the quality of second language (L2) learners’ planned output. Planning mitigates the cognitive overload placed upon L2 learners’ oral performance, thus improving language production. Despite the pedagogical benefits, studies on pre-task planning on L2 learners’ oral output are conducted mostly in a lab or class setting. Whether or not similar effects of pre-task planning can be evidenced in three-dimensional (3D) multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs), such as Second Life (SL), is still less explored. Hence, this study investigates whether pre-task planning could enhance the quality and quantity of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ task-oriented, voice-based outcomes in SL. Nine EFL learners worldwide participated in this 10-session virtual class. Data were collected through students’ oral presentations in performing real-life simulated tasks related to their home cultures and interests. Yuan and Ellis’s (2003) framework of T-units measures was adopted to analyze their linguistic performance measured by complexity and accuracy. Results indicated that EFL learners showed statistically significant improvement on grammatical complexity on the levels of syntactic complexity and variety (but not on lexical variety) and on linguistic accuracy across all measured levels (error-free clauses/T-units/verb forms). It is suggested that pre-task planning can be seeded in task-based instruction either in a classroom-based or 3D MUVE setting to optimize the quality of learners’ linguistic performance. Tasks that are real-world oriented and targeting learners’ cultural repertoires and world knowledge also positively impact their virtual learning experiences. These significant implications add new research and pedagogical dimensions to the field of computer-assisted language learning.

Complexity at the phrasal level in spoken L1 and very advanced L2 French

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-201
Author(s):  
Inge Bartning ◽  
Klara Arvidsson ◽  
Fanny Forsberg Lundell
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
On Line ◽  
Post Modification ◽  
L1 And L2

This article examines linguistic complexity in the noun phrase in spoken L1 and L2 French. Research on linguistic complexity in L2 has often concentrated on syntactic complexity, subordination in particular. In this study, we focus on syntactic complexity at the phrasal level, i.e. in the noun phrase, following the assumption put forward by Norris and Ortega (2009: 564) that internal NP complexity provides an important measure of very advanced learners. The present study examines pre- and post-modification in the noun phrase in the oral production of very advanced non-native speakers (NNS) and native speakers (NS) elicited through an on-line retelling of a clip from Modern Times. The results confirm our main hypothesis, that there are differences between NS and NNS: NS use more complex NPs, NPs with a higher mean number of words and more NPs with multiple modifiers.

scholarly journals The Effects of Pre-task Planning on Iranian EFL Learners’ Accuracy of Writing Performance

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Sharafi-Nejad ◽  
Shohreh Raftari ◽  
Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail ◽  
Lin Siew Eng
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Task Planning ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Written Production ◽  
The Third ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Planning Condition

This study aims to investigate the effects of guided task-based planning on the accuracy of Iranian EFL learners’ writing performance. Participants were forty eight EFL learners' studying at Islamic Azad University in Kerman, Iran. They were randomly divided into three experimental groups of sixteen students: one group with meaning-based pre-task planning; the other group with form-based pre-task planning; and the last one with meaning and form based pre-task planning. Participants in the form-based planning were taught how to plan the form of their written production in five minutes for eight following sessions. In meaning-based planning condition, the learners were given instructions about planning the content of their argumentative writings in five minutes for eight sessions. In the third group, however, the learners were helped to focus both on form and content in five minutes for eight following sessions. Then, they engaged in planning. The three groups received the same pre-test as post-test and the same topic in each of the eight sessions with the same examples. After collecting and analyzing the pretest and posttest data, the results showed the significantly superior effects of form- and meaning-based pre-task planning on the accuracy of the writing performance. 

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