Planning and Focus-on-form in Task-Planning and Focus-on-form in Task-Based Language LearningBased Language Learning

Ryo Nitta

University of Warwick

TBLT ConferenceLeuven, 2005

IntroductionIntroduction

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)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 PlanningStrategic 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 ResearchSummary of the Previous Research

Fluency Complexity Accuracy Source

Strategic

Planning

Positive Positive Limited e.g., Crookes (1989), Foster & Skehan (1996)

On-line

planning

Negative Positive Positive e.g., Ellis (1988), Yuan & Ellis (2003)

Focus-on-Form InstructionFocus-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 Identifying a Link between Planning and Focus-on-Formand 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 QuestionsResearch 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 Research Hypotheses for Task Performance Analysis (1)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 Research Hypotheses for Task Performance Analysis (2)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 DesignResearch Design

Research Stages Contents Comments

1. Pre-Task General instruction

2. Task Task (rehearsal)

Task 1

↓

Task 2

↓

Task 3

3. Post-Task Retrospective interview

NP SP OP

↓ ↓ ↓

SP OP NP

↓ ↓ ↓

OP NP SP

TaskTask

• 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 ImplementationTask Implementation

Before Task During Task

No-planning (NP) 30 seconds 2 minutes

Strategic planning (SP) 10 minutes 2 minutes

On-line planning (OP) 30 seconds unlimited

ParticipantsParticipants

• 27 Japanese speakers of English (male = 11, female = 16)

• Length of residence: mean = 11.86 (months), SD = 13.74, Range = 0.25 (i.e., 1 week) - 41.00 (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.

FluencyFluency

1. Pruned speech rates2. Mean length of run3. Total length of pauses per minute4. Number of end-clause pauses per 100 words5. Number of mid-clause pauses per 100 words6. Number of filled pauses7. Number of dysfluencies (i.e., false-starts,

reformulation, repetition and self-correction)

ComplexityComplexity

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

AccuracyAccuracy

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 AnalysisFactor 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 Repeated measures MANOVA

Effects Value F Hypothesis

df

Error

df

Sig

Between-participants

Proficiency .487 8.08 3 23 .001*

Within-participants

Planning .283 8.45 6 20 .001*

Planning*proficiency .524 3.03 6 20 .028*

Univariate test of within-participant Univariate test of within-participant effecteffect

Source Measure Sum of Squares

df Mean Square F Sig. Location of Sig.

Planning MLR 12.21 2 6.10 9.75 .001* NP>OP, SP>OP

GID 144.65 1.28 113.39 8.84 .003* SP>NP, OP>NP

Error-free 2041.17 2 1020.59 4.36 .018* OP>NP

Planning*

Proficiency

MLR 2.99 2 1.49 2.38 .103

GID 39.91 1.28 31.29 2.44 .122

Error-free 2276.64 2 1138.32 4.86 .012*

ANOVAs in Two Proficiency GroupsANOVAs in Two Proficiency Groups High Low

Measures F Sig. Location of Sig.

F Sig. Location of Sig.

Pruned SR 20.14 .001* NP>OP

SP>OP

22.31 .001* SP>NP

NP>OP

MLR 7.04 .004* NP>OP

SP>OP

4.78 .018*

Mid-clause pauses 1.79 .188 12 .001* NP>SP

OP>SP

Dysfluencies 5.31 .012* SP>NP

OP>NP

10.83 .001* OP>NP OP>SP

Grammatical integration

6.18 .020* SP>NP

OP>NP

4.61 .020* OP>NP

Error-free clauses .04 .957 7.6 .003* OP>NP

TL Verb forms .3 .744 6.28 .006* OP>NP

Specific Accuracy Measures

High LowProficiency Group

70

72

74

76

78

80

82

84

Est

imat

ed M

arg

inal

Mea

ns

planning

NP

SP

OP

Percentage of Targetlike Article

High LowProficiency Group

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

Est

imat

ed

Mar

gin

al M

ean

s

planning

NP

SP

OP

Percentage of Targetlike Verb Forms

ImplicationsImplications

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 StageNext 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