The effects of two methods of on-line planning on L2 task-based speaking performance and strategy use

Studies on on-line planning have been based upon the same definition in the past few decades, and they have operationalized on-line planning in similar ways. Drawing upon theories in cognitive psychology, the present study sets out to propose a revised definition of on-line planning that aims at capturing a greater variety of on-line planning behaviors. Two methods of eliciting on-line planning were implemented: providing students with listener’s feedback between two consecutive rounds of task performance, and providing them with criteria for successful task performance. Their effects on second language (L2) narrative task performance and the use of planning strategies were investigated with 90 Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) who were first-year English majors. To assess the quality of task performance, complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) measures and a measure of story completeness were employed. Post-task interviews were conducted to explore planning strategies. Results from the quantitative and the qualitative analyses suggest that utilizing listeners’ feedback successfully elicited an increased number of on-line planning activities. Participants under this on-line planning condition also produced significantly more complex and accurate output than the non-intervention group.