Planning and Focus-on-form in Task- Based Language Learning Ryo Nitta University of Warwick TBLT Conference Leuven, 2005

Introduction 1.Two research traditions in SLA: planning and focus-on- form 2.The study: analysis of task performance and verbal protocols 3.Findings of task performance analysis 4.Implications 5.Issues for the second stage

Types of Planning (Ellis, 2005) Planning Pre-task planning Within-task planning Rehearsal (task repetition) Strategic planning Pressured Unpressured (on-line planning)

Strategic vs. On-line Planning 1.Strategic planning Information-processing model Skill-learning model 2.On-line planning L2 Monitoring (Morrison & Law, 1983) Careful within-task planning (Yuan & Ellis, 2003)

Summary of the Previous Research FluencyComplexityAccuracySource Strategic Planning Positive Limitede.g., Crookes (1989), Foster & Skehan (1996) On-line planning NegativePositive e.g., Ellis (1988), Yuan & Ellis (2003)

Focus-on-Form Instruction The noticing issue: Do learners have the cognitive resources to notice the gap between their IL utterances and the TL utterances around them? The interruption issue: Is a pedagogical intervention that does not interrupt the learner’s own processing for language learning even possible? The timing issue: If so, then precisely ‘when’, in cognitive terms, should the pedagogical intervention occur? (Doughty, 2001)

Identifying a Link between Planning and Focus-on-Form Theoretical issue: Strategic planning facilitates a learner- driven focus-on-form (Ortega, 1999, 2005) Methodological issue: A process-product approach to planning. How do L2 learners plan during strategic planning time? (Ortega, 1999, 2005; Sangarun, 2005)

Research Questions Do different planning conditions differently influence the oral performance? How do L2 speakers plan their speech on-line when their performance is underway? Do they focus on form in on- line planning more frequently than strategic and no- planning conditions?

Research Hypotheses for Task Performance Analysis (1) Hypothesis One: Strategic planning (SP) will give more positive influence on fluency, complexity and accuracy than no-planning (NP). Hypothesis Two: On-line planning (OP) will give more positive influence on complexity and accuracy, but more negative influence on fluency than NP. Hypothesis Three: OP will give more positive influence on complexity and accuracy, but more negative influence on fluency than SP.

Research Hypotheses for Task Performance Analysis (2) Hypothesis Four: The effects of SP will interact with the different proficiency levels. Hypothesis Five: The effects of OP will interact with the different proficiency levels.

Research Design Research StagesContentsComments 1. Pre-TaskGeneral instruction 2. TaskTask (rehearsal) Task 1 ↓ Task 2 ↓ Task 3 3. Post-TaskRetrospective interview NPSPOP ↓↓↓ SPOPNP ↓↓↓ OPNPSP

Task Story-telling tasks x 3: 6 picture cartoons taken from a popular story-telling resource book for EFL learners (Heaton, 1975). Different, but clearly structured tasks (cf. Tavakoli & Skehan, 2005) The first obligatory sentence was given to encourage the use of past tense forms in each task, following Ellis (1987).

Task Implementation Before TaskDuring Task No-planning (NP)30 seconds2 minutes Strategic planning (SP)10 minutes2 minutes On-line planning (OP)30 secondsunlimited

Participants 27 Japanese speakers of English (male = 11, female = 16) Length of residence: mean = (months), SD = 13.74, Range = 0.25 (i.e., 1 week) (i.e., 3 years and 5 months) High vs. Low Proficiency: 6-point global ratings by three raters to judge the NP speech. The average scores were used to categorize high and low proficient groups.

Fluency 1.Pruned speech rates 2.Mean length of run 3.Total length of pauses per minute 4.Number of end-clause pauses per 100 words 5.Number of mid-clause pauses per 100 words 6.Number of filled pauses 7.Number of dysfluencies (i.e., false-starts, reformulation, repetition and self-correction)

Complexity 1.Syntactic complexity: the number of clauses per AS- unit (Foster, Tonkyn and Wigglesworth, 2000) 2.Discoursal complexity: the number of discourse organization devices (Ejzenberg, 2000) Chaining integration devices Grammatical integration devices

Accuracy 1.Global measures: percentage of error-free clauses (e.g., Foster & Skehan, 1996) 2.Specific measures: Percentage of target-like verb forms (Yuan & Ellis, 2003) Percentage of target-like article (Crookes, 1989)

Factor Analysis On the whole, the results of three factor analyses represent three independent dimensions, fluency, complexity and accuracy. Mean length of run was selected for MANOVA analysis as a fluency component. The number of grammatical integration devices was selected as a complexity component. The percentage of error-free clauses was selected as an accuracy component.

Repeated measures MANOVA EffectsValueFHypothesis df Error df Sig Between-participants Proficiency * Within-participants Planning * Planning*proficiency *

Univariate test of within-participant effect SourceMeasureSum of Squares dfMean SquareFSig.Location of Sig. PlanningMLR *NP>OP, SP>OP GID *SP>NP, OP>NP Error-free *OP>NP Planning* Proficiency MLR GID Error-free *

ANOVAs in Two Proficiency Groups HighLow MeasuresFSig.Location of Sig. FSig.Location of Sig. Pruned SR *NP>OP SP>OP *SP>NP NP>OP MLR *NP>OP SP>OP * Mid-clause pauses *NP>SP OP>SP Dysfluencies *SP>NP OP>NP *OP>NP OP>SP Grammatical integration *SP>NP OP>NP *OP>NP Error-free clauses *OP>NP TL Verb forms *OP>NP

Specific Accuracy Measures

Implications 1.Trading-off between fluency and form Fluency and accuracy Fluency and complexity 2.Interaction between fluency and proficiency Monologic story-telling task type? Dual mode? 3.Interaction between accuracy and proficiency 4.Form-focused effects of on-line planning

Next Stage 1.To identify the mental operations in the three planning conditions. 2.To identify different mental operations between high and low proficient speakers. Strategic planning  High proficient speakers On-line planning  Low proficient speakers