Unguided Strategic Planning, Task structure, and L2 Performance: Focusing on Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency

Abstract

This replication study was conducted to complement the findings of relevant research (i.e., Tavakoli & Skehan, 2005; Ahmadian, Tavakoli, & Vahid Dastjerdi, 2015; Saeedi & Rahimi Kazerooni, 2014) and sought to investigate the combined effects of two task implementation and design variables, namely, unguided strategic planning and task structure, on second language (L2) oral discourse as measured by its complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Participants were sixty Iranian low-intermediate-level learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). The obtained results revealed that giving learners the opportunity to engage in unguided strategic planning before retelling a narrative with a tightly structured storyline not only simultaneously advantages complexity, accuracy, and fluency but also generates an exponential gain in fluency. On the whole, the findings chimed with previous research findings suggesting that task structure notably contributes to the generally beneficial effects of planning on task performance.