Guided planning, task complexity and second language oral development

Abstract

This thesis reports on a mixed methods experimental research study carried out at a university in Japan. The study investigated the effectiveness of two types of guided planning treatment towards specific language forms. Specifically, English relative clause types OS and OPREP as well as 3rd person singular and plural. Two groups of Japanese second year intermediate level learners performed a series of oral narrative tasks that increased in complexity over a three week period. Both groups were placed under different planning conditions. One condition involved ‘guided planning’ which consisted of continuous guidance towards English relative clauses and 3rd person singular and plural. The other condition ‘guided and unguided planning’ consisted of initial guidance towards the target forms and then the learners received unguided planning during the rest of the task sequence. During the treatment, both groups were interviewed about their planning strategies.
It was hypothesized that the guided planning group would produce greater developmental gains in accuracy compared to the guided and unguided planning group. Learners’ L2 speech was measured in terms of fluency, accuracy and complexity. The results showed that the guided planning group produced significantly greater gains in fluency and accuracy compared to the guided and unguided planning group. In addition, both groups focused on form during the task sequencing treatment.
No previous studies have appeared to investigate the effects of guided and unguided planning with tasks that are sequenced over time. As a result, the findings of this study appear unique in reporting the benefits that guided planning and task complexity produces on L2 oral development in terms of fluency, accuracy and complexity.