The Influence of Source of Planning on Senior High School Learners’ Oral FL Performance

1. The Influence of Source of Planning on Senior High School Learners’ Oral FL Performance Ronggan Zhang The Affiliated High School South China Normal University 5th International Conference on ELT in China 1st Chinese Congress of Applied Linguistics Beijing, May 16-21, 2007

2. Overview • Introduction • Research questions • Pre-task planning • Methodology • Discussion • Conclusion

3. 1. Introduction • Language variation (L1 & L2) • Interlanguage: a variable learner system • Variables affecting interlanguage • Internal variables (e.g., phonetic environment) • External variables (e.g., task and planning time) • Information processing theory • Attentional resources: limited • Planning: • to free up • to redirect towards a focus on form

4. 1. Introduction • Most pre-task planning studies • ‘have not been fine-grained enough to suggest exactly how planning impacts upon performance’ (Foster and Skehan, 1999, p. 237).  Source of planning • are limited in the context of tertiary education  extend to a context of secondary education • Rationales • Practical: TBLT promoted in China (MOE, 2001) • Theoretical: ‘fine-grained’

5. 2. Research questions • What effects does pre-task planning have on beginner proficiency learners’ L2 performance in an oral decision-making task? • What effects does source of planning have on beginner proficiency learners’ L2 performance in an oral decision-making task?

6. 3.1. Pre-task planning and on-line planning • planning time = the time for planning (e.g., Mehnert, 1998; Philp, Oliver & Mackey, 2006) = ‘the planning that takes place when learners are given time to plan a task prior to performing it’ (Ellis, 2003, p. 25) • pre-task planning (e.g., Foster, 1996; Ting, 1996) • strategic planning (e.g., Ellis, 2003) • planning strategic planning (pre-task planning) on-line planning (Wendel, 1997)

7. pre-task planning on-line planning 3.1. Pre-task planning and on-line planning In my paper: • planning • pre-task planning = the planning prior to task performance • on-line planning = the planning during performance of a task • planning time = the time for planning unless particularly specified

8. 3.2. Options for pre-task planning • Researchers make decisions about the following options for pre-task planning: • Planning: with or without pre-task planning? • Guidance: Guided or unguided planning? • Detail: Detailed guided or undetailed guided? • Focus: language focus or content focus? • Source: solitary, pair, group, or teacher-led planning? • Time: how much time for planning?

9. 3.2. Options for pre-task planning Table 1. Foster and Skehan’s (1999) options for pre-task planning

10. 3.3. Source of planning • Working definition • not explicitly defined in Foster and Skehan (1999) • similar to Ellis’s (2003, pp. 263-275) participatory structure for tasks in the classroom the procedures that govern how teacher’s and learners’ contributions to the performance of pre-task planning are organised. (Slightly modified from Ellis’s participatory structure)

11. 3.3. Source of planning • Results from Foster and Skehan (1999) • Teacher-fronted condition with significant accuracy effects • Solitary planning most effective where fluency, complexity and turn length concerned • Group-based planning not significantly different from the control group

12. 4.1. Participants • 48 Grade 11 (termed Senior 2 in China) students divided into 6 groups of 8 • Learning history • Scored an average of 75-90% in the most recent mid-term exam and another five tests • Data of the final exam entered into one-way ANOVAs: no significant differences across the six groups in • the total scores (F = .592; p = .706), • writing scores (F = 1.913; p = .113), and • listening scores (F = 1.322; p = .274)

13. 4.2. Task • a balloon debate • three characters, balloon losing altitude • all other stratagems exhausted; to avoid a crash, to jettison one or more passengers. • The aim is to decide which of the three to be thrown overboard. • Decision-making task (following Foster & Skehan, 1999) • Two characters changed: • actor and politician  farmer and football star • One character retained: EFL teacher

14. 4.3. Design two levels of L2 performance, but focus on speaking here Four levels of source of planning Table 2. Research design two control groups (no planning)

15. 4.4. Planning conditions Table 3. Operationalization of options of pre-task planning

16. 4.4. Planning conditions • six planning conditions six individual sessions • regular English class, regular classroom • approximately 40 minutes each • instruction given by the researcher • PowerPoint (PPT) presentation • Group 1: Solitary planning • Group 2: Pair planning • Group 3: Group planning • Group 4: Teacher-led planning • Group 5: No planning (oral debate & writing) • Group 6: No planning (writing only)

17. 4.6. Measures • Accuracy measures • percentage of error-free clauses • number of errors per 100 words • Errors: in syntax, morphology, and lexical choice • Clause: a) a simple independent finite clause, or b) a dependent finite or non-finite clause. • Complexity measures • number of clauses perc-unit (communication unit) • number of words per c-unit • c-unit: a) one simple independent finite clause, or b) an independent finite clause + one or more dependent clauses (finite or non-finite).

18. 4.6. Measures phrases or clauses that were repeated with some modification either to syntax, morphology, or word order utterances that were abandoned before completion immediate and verbatim repetition of a word or phrase lexical items that are immediately substituted for another • repair fluency • number of repetitions • false starts • reformulations • replacements • Fluency measures • general fluency: • number of words • the number of c-units • breakdown fluency • number of pauses • total pausing time a break of 1.0 seconds or longer either within a turn or between turns the sum of pauses in each transcript

19. 4.6. Measures • Interactiveness measures • number of turns • number of words per turn ‘Greater interactiveness is associated with more frequent turns and shorter average turn length’ (Foster and Skehan, 1999, p. 230).

20. 4.7. Data analysis • Data transcribed and coded: • only data from farmer, football star, and teacher • only the first 5 minutes of the recorded interaction • Data from one participant who had contributed fewer than 8 c-units was discarded. • Inter-coder reliabilities • 10% of the data double coded • Pearson’s correlation coefficients: • c-units (r = .976), • error-free clauses (r = .929) • repetition (r = .978)

21. 5. Results 5.1. Descriptive statistics

22. large SD (relative to the mean) (similar to Foster & Skehan, 1999) Table 4. Basic descriptive statistics for oral production standardized and expressed per 100 words Errors per 100 words presenting much larger SD (relative to the mean) than percentage of error-free clauses

23. 5. Results 5.2. Underlying constructs • Factor analysis to find out • whether the measures in these three sets of variables (fluency, accuracy, and complexity) are related to one another and • whether they really represent three distinct factors. • interactiveness measures also included to see • whether they measure a distinct aspect of language performance

24. complexity Table 5. Results from the factor analysis speech accuracy repair fluency breakdown fluency general fluency Four factors explain cumulatively 73.99% of the variance interactiveness

25. Table 5. Results from the factor analysis complexity repair fluency interactiveness

26. 5. Results 5.3. Source of planning • One-way ANOVAs to explore • whether any of the independent variables (solitary planning, pair planning, group planning, teacher-led planning, no planning) generated significant results.

27. Group 1 (solitary planning) Group 4 (teacher-led planning) Table 6. Results from the ANOVAs on the planning variable general fluency interactiveness

28. Table 7. Descriptive statistics on three measures

29. 6.1. Discussion: Source of planning • Results with significant planning effects • Measures: • numberof c-units (general fluency) • number of turns (interactiveness) • error-free clauses (accuracy, approaching significance) • Locations: • All between solitary planning and teacher-led planning

30. 6.1. Discussion: Source of planning • Each condition may be characterized: • Solitary planners: • less interactive; less fluent, and less accurate • Pair planners and group planners • perform more or less the same. • Teacher-led planners: • more interactive; more fluent, and more accurate • Non-planners: • less accurate and less fluent (similar to solitary planners) • but more interactive than solitary planners

31. 6.1. Discussion: Source of planning • A clear role for the teacher in pre-task work. • 73.39% error-free clauses • channelling attention to a focus on form, not a focus on forms (Long and Crookes, 1992; Long and Robinson, 1998) • ‘If you threw me out, many people might…’ repeated in examples, but not explicitly taught or noted • More interactive performance • a warm-up for the oral debate • more ready to speak up with not enough chances to speak during teacher-dominated planning

32. 6.1. Discussion: Source of planning • Trade-off effects: complexity vs. both fluency and accuracy (not either fluency or accuracy) • Solitary planners • less accurate and less fluent • most complex (descriptive statistics as in Table 8) • Teacher-led planners • more fluent and more accurate • least complex (descriptive statistics as in Table 8) • Possibly due to participants’ low proficiency level

33. Table 8. Descriptive statistics on complexity measures

34. 6.2. Discussion: Pre-task planning • Seemingly conflicting results: • Planning effects: • Significant differences: solitary vs. teacher-led • No planning effects: • No significant differences: planners vs. non-planners • Combinations of results: • pre-task planning did have effects • but differed • on different measures, and • in different conditions of sources of planning.

35. 6.2. Discussion: Measuring beginners’ L2 oral discourse • Measuring beginners’ L2 oral production: ‘problematic’ (Ellis, 2003, p.115) • Factor analysis in the present study: • Mixed and sharing two factors: • Measures of complexity, interactiveness, breakdown fluency, and general fluency • Contributing almost the same to both factors: • Complexity measures • Factor analysis in Mehnert (1998): • Complexity measures: single factor, only high loadings • Subjects: L2-German, intermediate level adult learners

36. 6.3. Implications • Pedagogic implication: • a clear role for the teacher in the pre-task work • Implications for pre-task planning research: • Trade-off between complexity and the other two aspects (fluency and accuracy) • confirming the competition • making the picture more complicated • Interactiveness, complexity, breakdown fluency, and general fluency did not clearly differentiate • Contrast to Skehan’s (1996a, 1996b, 1998) distinction

37. 7. Conclusions • Effects of pre-task planning found • but differed on different measures, and • in different conditions of sources of planning • Teacher-led planning vs. Solitary planning • fluency, accuracy, and interactiveness • complexity • A trade-off between complexity and the other two aspects, i.e., fluency and accuracy • Complex nature of beginner proficiency learners’ L2 oral discourse

38. Thank you! • The research reported here is part of my dissertation work in the University of Leeds. I thank all my tutors who contributed to my success of study, particularly my supervisor Dr. Wenxin Wang. All remaining mistakes are my own. • Address correspondence to Ronggan Zhang, the Affiliated High School of South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510630, P.R. China; email: r.zhang03@members.leeds.ac.uk.