intermediate L2 proficiency
Chieko Kawauchi
Kurume University, Japan
Introduction
The purpose of the study reported in this chapter is to investigate the effects that strategic planning has on L2 learners’ performance of an oral narrative task. The focus is on the role that proficiency plays in the effect of planning and also on the type of planning, which is operationalised in terms of three pre-task activities – Rehearsal, Writing, and Reading.
Many studies have found that strategic planning significantly facilitates flu- ency in L2 oral production (Crookes 1989; Foster & Skehan 1996; Mehnert 1998; Ortega 1995, 1999; Wigglesworth 1997). Language complexity also in- creases, especially 1) for more proficient learners (Wigglesworth 1997), and 2) with more cognitively demanding tasks (Foster & Skehan 1996). When it comes to accuracy, however, the effects of strategic planning are less certain.
Wigglesworth (1997), for example, showed that planning had only a limited effect on verb morphology accuracy and only with high proficiency learners.
Thus, the effects of planning on accuracy are not clear-cut and appear to be influenced by specific task types, the choice of measures for analysis, and the learners’ proficiency levels.
Previous studies suggest that the role of planning is three-fold. First, it eases the on-line processing load as well as reducing communicative stress to yield higher fluency. Second, planning helps learners to access their maximal level of lexical and structural knowledge, which, in turn, will enable them to use more complex language. Third, it facilitates the allocatation of conscious attention to form and thus helps learners to generate more accurate language.
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However, whereas several studies have considered how the effect of plan- ning varies according to the cognitive load imposed by the task there has been almost no consideration of the interaction between proficiency and strategic planning in the effect the latter has on task performance. Indeed, these studies have investigated learners with a very limited range of proficiency. They have examined mainly intermediate learners and post-beginners (Ellis 1987), inter- mediate learners (Ortega 1995), pre-intermediate learners (Foster & Skehan 1996; Skehan & Foster 1997), and early intermediate learners (Mehnert 1998).
A few studies have investigated learners with mixed levels of proficiency.
For example, Crookes (1989) carried out an experiment on a wide range of Japanese learners of English, whose TOEFL scores ranged from 460 to 620.
However, it is difficult to see how the higher and lower proficiency learners re- sponded to the tasks, since no distinction was made in his analyses. To the best of this author’s knowledge, the study by Wigglesworth (1997) is the only study that took proficiency into account. Focusing on 28 high and 23 low proficiency learners, Wigglesworth examined the effect of one-minute of planning time on a tape-mediated oral test consisting of four kinds of tasks (i.e., telephone answering machine message; picture description; summary of conversation;
and general discussion). The findings indicated that the planning time only helped the more highly proficient learners to produce more complex language (i.e., subordinate clauses) and more accurate language (i.e., verb morphology).
This was particularly true in the case of the tasks with a high cognitive load such as the picture description task. The opportunity to plan did not seem to benefit learners at lower levels of proficiency. As for fluency, lower profi- ciency learners produced fewer self-repairs than high proficiency learners in all four tasks, while higher proficiency learners improved only in the summary task, which was the most difficult. However, this study does not permit definite conclusions regarding the effect of planning time on fluency, since one group apparently monitored more than the other group. The findings from this study led Wigglesworth to conclude that “for the high-proficiency candidates, plan- ning time may improve accuracy on some measures where the cognitive load of the task is high, but that this effect does not extend to the low-proficiency candidates” (p. 85).
This finding is important in that it suggests that the effects of planning will differ according to the learner’s proficiency level. Specifically, the effects on complexity and accuracy are more likely to be found in higher proficiency learners when the task is cognitively more demanding. A similar suggestion is made by Ortega (1999), who examined the retrospective reports of learn- ers (see also Chapter 3). The participants were American learners of Spanish
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who were considered to be “at an advanced level of oral language ability” (p.
121). The learners’ reports indicated several advantages for planning – it de- creased communicative stress and the perceived difficulty of the task while making notes helped the learners to remember what to say. In addition, the reports also indicated a number of moderating factors, such as task simplic- ity and a proficiency ceiling effect. For example, some participants reported that the stories in the task were too simple to make planning necessary. Other participants reported lexical compensation strategies and difficulties with lex- ical retrieval (e.g., “what you don’t know, you can’t remember, no matter how much extra time you’re given”). Based on these retrospective reports, Ortega claimed that “planning may be more likely to have an effect on the quality of the linguistic output with higher levels of proficiency” (p. 137). Ortega also suggested that the trade-off hypothesis (Foster & Skehan 1996) and the lack of an effect for planning on accuracy reported in previous studies should be re- considered to take account of learners’ proficiency. The implication behind this seems to be that learners with higher level of proficiency might produce more accurate language when given the chance to plan strategically and, in such a case, no trade-off effect between accuracy and copmplexity will be evident.
These claims from Wigglesworth (1997) and Ortega (1999) are note- worthy. However, further research is necessary to confirm them, since Wig- glesworth’s study is based on just one-minute of planning in a testing situation, which is different from most other studies, which were conducted in class- rooms or laboratory settings and which allowed ample time for planning, usu- ally 10 minutes. Ortega’s study did not specify how high learners’ proficiency needed to be for a planning effect to become evident
The present study focuses on three different proficiency levels to show more clearly the role of proficiency in any effect for planning. It also attempts to specify the content of planning as a pre-task activity. Most of the previous stud- ies have attempted to examine planning effects by providing a certain amount of time, 10 minutes in most of the cases, and by requiring learners to make notes to ensure that they were engaged in planning. However, it was not clear what the learners were actually doing during this period because what learners did during the planning time was often left to the individual learners them- selves. Only a few studies have specified the content of planning in the pre-task activity: Ellis (1987) employed writing prior to the task, Bygate (1996) used repetition of the task, and Sangarun (see Chapter 4) examined the differential effects of planning directed at meaning, form and meaning/form combined.
In this study three kinds of planning activities were chosen: writing a draft (Writing), rehearsing (Rehearsal), and reading a model L2 input (Reading).
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These activities frequently arise when learners are given time to plan and are left to their own devices. Ortega (1999; Chapter 3) showed that a majority of learners reported that they employed a range of strategies such as “running through it a couple of times”, “talking to oneself ”, or “reading to oneself ” (p.
127). These are examples of Rehearsal, although not necessarily oral rehearsal, unless learners are required to speak out loud. Many of the previous studies used note-making. This is close to Writing. Reading related material (L2 input) was also included in the present study to investigate the relationship between planning and noticing/filling the gap. When people plan something, they try to rehearse what they are going to say, often writing it out, and if there is a gap in their knowledge, they will look to fill this by reading related material (cf.
Prabhu’s (1987) idea of ‘borrowing’).
These strategic planning activities have a theoretical basis. Writing and Re- hearsal, which involve output, can find theoretical support in Swain’s “Output Hypothesis”. When engaged in these activities, “learners need to be pushed to make use of their resources; they need to reflect on their output and consider ways of modifying it to enhance comprehensibility, appropriateness and accu- racy” (Swain 1993: 160–161). Also, learners may attempt to attain higher flu- ency and accuracy by means of a reduction strategy when they have difficulty in accessing the target form (Faerch & Kasper 1983). The Reading activity, which is based on L2 input, relates to “noticing” (Schmidt & Frota 1986; Schmidt 1990) and “focus on form” (Long & Robinson 1998). It is assumed that learn- ers who engage in the Reading activity will notice the gap between their IL and the target language and will interact with the relevant meaning and linguistic information in the input, leading them to focus on form.
There is, however, an important difference between Writing and Rehearsal on the one hand and Reading on the other. It is likely that when learners are engaged in the Reading activity, they can draw on the linguistic forms in the input, in addition to their own IL, On the other hand, when engaged in Writ- ing and Rehearsal, learners are dependent on their own IL resources, since no other information is available to them. Therefore, these three types of activities are hypothesized to produce different effects on the subsequent performance, which will be reflected in measures of fluency, complexity, and accuracy.
Taking these two aspects (i.e., proficiency and planning type) into account, the present study addresses the following two research questions:
(1) What effect does proficiency have on L2 learners’ performance of an oral narrative task after strategic planning?
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(2) To what extent is the effect of proficiency on L2 learners’ performance of an oral narrative dependent upon the type of strategic planning?
Method
Participants
Japanese learners of English with different proficiency levels participated in the study: there were 16 low-intermediate EFL learners (Low EFL), 12 high- intermediate EFL learners (High EFL), and 11 advanced ESL learners (Ad- vanced ESL). The Low EFL learners were all majoring in International Politics in Kurume University, Japan, and they ranged in age from 19 to 21 years. The average length of their English study at the time of the experiment was 7.5 years. Four learners had passed the second level, and the rest of them had passed the pre-second level of the STEP test (the Society for Testing English Proficiency authorised by the Japanese Ministry of Education). These levels are approximately equivalent to 44–50 in the Secondary Level of English Profi- ciency (SLEP) Test or 420 – 480 in TOEFL (Ogawa 1990).
Both the High EFL and Advanced ESL learners were enrolled in Lancaster University, U.K., at the time of the study. The High EFL learners were students from the Junior Year Abroad Program and registered in various departments after studying an intensive pre-sessional program at the Institute for English Language Education. Their English proficiency averaged TOEFL 545, ranging from 510 to 580, and the average IELTS was 6 with a range of 5.5 to 6.5. Their average age was 22.0, ranging from 21 to 25. Most of their English study had been completed in Japan, and none had ever studied in English speaking coun- tries before. The Advanced ESL learners were enrolled in Lancaster University as full time students either in undergraduate or graduate programs. Their av- erage English proficiency was TOEFL 588, ranging from 550 to 610, and the average IELTS 6.7 with a range of 5.5 to 7.0. They were in the age range of 21 to 29, averaging 25.2. All of them had been staying in Britain or the USA for more than one year at the time of the investigation.
Materials
The study made use of a narrative task rather than an interactive task. Foster
& Skehan (1996, 1999) found that in their studies, which included interac- tive tasks, there were a few students who were too inactive to be included in
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data analysis. Learners’ outcomes are also influenced by the interlocutor’s re- confirmations, clarification requests, and recasts, which will make it difficult to analyse the effects of planning on individual learners’ task performance.
In contrast, a narrative task is considered to be cognitively more demanding than personal story telling (Skehan & Foster 1995, 1997; Foster & Skehan 1996;
Kawauchi 1998; Wigglesworth 1997), and therefore, is more likely to reveal the effects of strategic planning. Story-elicitation procedures can also prevent too much individual variation in the story lines (Ortega 1999). Ejzenberg (1992) showed that her participants reported that a narrative task was more efficient in assessing their oral ability than a dialogue task.
In this study, three different sets of pictures (i.e., Library, Jogging, and Hik- ing) were used in order to minimize the practice effect resulting from repetitive use of a single picture set. All the picture sets were chosen from the pre-first level of the STEP test and are considered to be similar in both difficulty level and story content (i.e., they depict people who are annoying and who are annoyed). Each picture set consists of a series of four pictures.
Design
The study employed a “within subjects” design, in which learners completed both the unplanned and planned tasks, rather than a “between subjects” de- sign, in which learners were assigned to either an unplanned or planned task.
By using a “within subject” design, language production under both planning and non-planning conditions can be compared to reveal differences between conditions more clearly. The basic design of the study is shown in Figure 1.
First, learners performed a task in the unplanned condition (Unplanned Task). In this stage, learners were required to make the best use of their re- sources in on-line planning. It was expected that the learners would focus mainly on meaning rather than on form (VanPatten 1990) but that they would notice the gap between what they did not know or knew only partially and what was needed. The Unplanned Task served to provide baseline data to compare with the data collected in the subsequent Planned Task.
Unplanned task
Planning activities:
Writing, Rehearsal or Reading
Questionnaire Planned
task
Figure 1. Design of the study
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Table 1. Data collection for the study
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
Week 1 Library task (Cycle 1) Hiking task (Cycle 1) Jogging task (Cycle 1) 1. Unplanned task 1. Unplanned task 1. Unplanned task 2. Planning: Reading 2. Planning: Rehearsal 2. Planning: Writing 3. Planned task 3. Planned task 3. Planned task Week 2 Jogging task (Cycle 2) Library task (Cycle 2) Hiking task (Cycle 2)
1. Unplanned task 1. Unplanned task 1. Unplanned task 2. Planning: Rehearsal 2. Planning: Writing 2. Planning: Reading 3. Planned task 3. Planned task 3. Planned task Week 3 Hiking task (Cycle 3) Jogging task (Cycle 3) Library task (Cycle 3)
1. Unplanned task 1. Unplanned task 1. Unplanned task 2. Planning: Writing 2. Planning: Reading 2. Planning: Rehearsal 3. Planned task 3. Planned task 3. Planned task
In the second stage, learners were separately assigned to one of the three Planning Activities. Since they already know the content of the picture story, it is highly likely that their main focus in this stage would be on attending to form and also on resolving problems they had in the Unplanned Task. In the third stage, after the Planning Activity, the learners completed a questionnaire designed to provide information about their planning. The questionnaire was expected to minimise the immediate practice effect of repeating the task in the next stage.
Finally, the learners performed the same task again (Planned Task). Since the research questions focus on how each of the three Planning Activities (Writ- ing, Rehearsal, and Reading) affects subsequent task performance, the learners performed each planning activity with a separate task in three weekly sessions.
Thus, they performed a total of three tasks, each task consisting of one cycle (i.e., Unplanned – one of the pre-task activities – questionnaire – Planned), as shown in Figure 1. In this way, the present study combines Bygate’s (1996;
Chapter 2) task repetition with a planning activity.
Procedures
The data for the Low EFL learners were audio-recorded in a language labora- tory as part of a regular English class, and those for the High EFL and Advanced ESL learners were collected individually in the author’s office. The study was conducted in three weekly sessions as shown in Table 1.
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First, learners were asked to describe the set of pictures assigned to them without any preparation. Two minutes were provided to describe the story, fol- lowing the guidelines of the STEP test. Second, learners were told that they would do the same task again, but before that they were asked to do one of the three Planning Activities. Specific instructions were given for each activity. For the Writing activity, they were told to write out what they had wanted to say when they performed the Unplanned Task. Following many previous studies, the time allowed was 10 minutes. No detailed planning instructions (e.g. “try not to write out everything in detail” (Mehnert 1998: 89) or “try not to write full sentences” (Ortega 1999: 123)) were provided, since it was considered that restrictions such as those given in the previous studies would be ignored. As Ortega (1999) found, learners reported that they were “running through it a couple of times,” “talking to myself ” and “rereading myself ” (p. 127) while planning, which is presumably done at the sentence level as well as the phrase level. For Rehearsal, they were told to rehearse by saying aloud what they had tried to say in the Unplanned Task as often as they wanted until the 10-minutes time limit was up. For Reading, they were provided with a model passage of the picture story (i.e., L2 input) and told to read it silently for the allotted 10 minutes and to think how they could redo the task.
When the learners had finished the assigned planning activity, they were asked to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 7 written questions about the degree of attention to language (e.g., vocabulary, gram- mar, structure, and pronunciation) as well as the usefulness of each planning activity. The learners were asked to choose on the scale of 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much so).
After the questionnaire was completed, the learners carried out the two- minute Planned Task. When producing both the Unplanned and Planned nar- ratives, they were allowed to look at the picture set to which they were assigned.
To encourage the use of past tense forms, an introductory sentence written in the past tense was provided for each of the picture sets, and learners were required to start with it when they told the story.