Does Planning Make Perfect? The effects of Different Pre-Task Planning Conditions on L2 Speech Performance

Abstract

This article reports on a study which investigated the effects of different pre-task planning conditions on L2 speech performance. Twenty-six learners of English from a language institute performed an oral task in which they were required to describe three pictures, for one minute each, under the following conditions: no-planning, oral planning and written planning. Participants’ oral performance was examined in terms of fluency (speech rate unpruned and speech rate pruned), grammatical accuracy (errors per 100 words) and lexical density (proportion of words produced with grammatical and lexical properties). Speech measures were statistically compared according to planning conditions, following a within-subjects design. Results show that, in general, planning has positively affected L2 oral performance, especially fluency. Learners performed better when they had at least one minute to work on their output when compared to having no planning time available. However, when the oral and written conditions were compared, none proved more efficient than the other, possibly due to how they were operationalized. Interpreted differently, this can be indicative of the benefit of pre-task planning, regardless of the form it takes. This small-scale study may contribute to theoretical discussions regarding second language speech production and the pedagogical treatment of speech planning in the L2 classroom.