TEACHING OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

- WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS -
Direction.
Based on your reading, write your summary (ies) and comment(s) as precisely
and clearly as possible in designated box (also review and refine/revise your
presentation slides (presenters) to submit together with your comments).
Title of the article
The Effects of Pre-task, On-line, and both Pre-task and On-line Planning
on Fluency, Complexity, and Accuracy The Case of !ranian EF"
"earners# $ritten Production
!ession "."." #osition $udience
!ummaries (%&&'%(& words)
The results of the study indicated that pre-task planning impacted the fluency %i&e&
syllables per minute'
of the EF" learner#s (ritten production significantly) ho(e*er, it did not ha*e significant effect
on the complexity
and accuracy of the (ritten performance& The findings of this study are partially in line (ith the
findings of the
studies %$endel, +,,-) Ortega, +,,,) .uan, /00+) .uan and Ellis, /001) and Ellis and .uan)
/002' (hich re*ealed that the opportunity for pre-task planning results in significantly more
fluent and complex language& !n addition the findings are in total agreement (ith 3ahimpour 4
5afarie %/0++'& They found that pre-task planning had a significant effect on fluency, but no
effect on complexity and accuracy& As Ellis and .uan, /002 argued, the greater fluency in the
case of PTP group is because pre-task planning makes content and organi6ation planning easier&
!t may also help increase "/ (riters# confidence to (rite clearly and effecti*ely possibly
reducing their need to get in*ol*ed in extensi*e monitoring& This (as indicated in the
participants# ans(ers to post-task 7uestionnaire in (hich 8,1 reported that they focused on
content and rhetorical planning& Furthermore, Ortega %+,,,' argues, (hen the task is not
challenging the learners may not find pre-task planning of much *alue& Thus, it can be surmised
that !ranian EF" learners did not find the task challenging and therefore pre-task planning (as
not so much helpful to them in producing a complex text& Another possibility is that !ranian EF"
learners (ere not familiar (ith planning strategies (hich in turn resulted in no impro*ement in
their (riting in terms of complexity&
Pre-task planning group also had less dysfluent language compared to the other planning groups
but it (as not
statistically significant& 9immerman %/000' found that (riters ha*e more re*isions (hen they
(rite in their "/ than in their "+) thus, one of the effects of allo(ing time for pre-task planning
may be to reduce the number of re*isions undertaken in "/ (riting, resulting in more
resemblance to "+ (riting&
)omment (%%('%(& words)
!n this study, planning (as operationali6ed at three le*els: pre-task planning %PTP',
on-line planning %O"P', and pre-task planning plus on-line planning %PTP;O"P'& The
participants performed the task in their normal classroom setting& !n the PTP condition,
participants (ere re7uired to (rite the story (ithin +< minutes and to produce at least /00 (ords&
!n this (ay, the participants (ere pressured to perform the task (ith limited chances for on-line
planning& A pilot study (ith similar number of participants had been carried out to determine the
time to be permitted to (rite the story& !n the pilot study, there (as no time limit, and the
participants# different times (ere noted& The results of the pilot study indicated that the fastest
(riter completed the story in +< minutes, (hereas the slo(est took /0 minutes to finish the task&
The +<-minute time (as selected for (riting the main task in order to a*oid extensi*e on-line
planning on the part of the participants&
The participants (ere gi*en a sheet of paper to (rite notes but (ere told not to (rite out the
complete story& The
notes (ere taken a(ay before they started (riting the task& According to Ellis 4 .uan %/002, p&
-0', =remo*ing the
notes ensured that the language elicited by all the tasks (as produced (ithin the specified time
limit>&
As for the O"P condition, the participants (ere told they could take as much time as needed to
(rite do(n the story and the researcher ensured that they began (riting immediately& The
researcher noted the time the participants spent on the task to check that this (as actually longer
than the time taken by the other t(o groups& ?nlike the other t(o groups, ho(e*er, the
participants (ere not re7uired to (rite a minimum of /00 (ords, @as this may ha*e been
interpreted as re7uiring them to (rite 7uickly> Ellis 4 .uan %/002, p& -0 '& Therefore, the
participants in this condition (ere gi*en no time for pre-task planning but ample time for on-line
planning
Dwifatma *a+hmat !uminta ,,,&&,",%,&-&