The Effects Of Planning On Oral Performance

With economic globalization and China integrated into the world, English, as a worldwide communicative tool becomes more and more important. Oral English is a key aspect to promote the communication with the other people of the world. As an English learner, to reach the target-language-like level is a learning goal. Especially, three aspects of oral performance should be developed in a balanced way, including fluency, complexity and accuracy (proposed by Skehan 1996a, 1996b, 1998). But according to the theory of the information processing (Anderson, 1995; Van Pattern, 1990), with the limited processing capacity, learners need to prioritize what to attend to during the oral performance. Thus three different aspects of language vie for attention. So how to channel attention resources to three aspects and make them develop in a balanced way is a key point to improve and balance oral performance.This thesis recalled the related theories about planning and researches on the effects of planning on oral performance. Then it concluded that planning could balance three aspects and channel attention to one of them according to the oral communication goals. On the basis of models of speech production, especially Levelt's (1989) model of speech production, it reported that pre-task planning was directed primarily at the first stage of Levelt's model - conceptualization - while on-line planning allows time to attend more closely to formulation. In the task-based instruction, planning is also a key factor to influence the task performance. Whether there is enough time to plan before the task or on-line, there are positive impacts on the speech production.Based on the previous studies on the pre-task planning and on-line planning, the results can be found that pre-task planning has complicated impact on accuracy but positive effect on fluency; on-line planning has positive impact on accuracy although the lexical variety is sacrificed. Neither of two planning conditions can balance three aspects of the oral performance. Then this study proposed the hypothesis that if twoplanning conditions were combined to create a new planning condition (pre-task + on-line planning), the speaker could gain a balanced oral performance compared with the performance in the former planning conditions. An empirical experiment was carried out in this study to prove the hypothesis.Thirty non-English undergraduates in Wuhan University were divided into three groups with ten students in each group to participate in the experiment. Before the experiment, a pre-test was conducted to ensure that the English proficiency of three groups was equivalent. During the experiment three groups performed the same oral narrative task (picture-story retelling) in three different task conditions (planning conditions): pre-task planning, on-line planning and pre-task + on-line planning respectively. So three groups were called the pre-task planning group, the on-line planning group and the pre-task + on-line planning group respectively. In the end, what they spoke was recorded and transcribed. The data collected from the transcriptions was analyzed through ANOVAs in SPSS to find the differences concerning fluency, complexity and accuracy across three groups in the three planning conditions. The measures employed in the study were classified into the measure of independent variable (planning) and measure of dependent variables (fluency, complexity and accuracy).The findings showed that in terms of fluency, the pre-task + on-line planning group outperformed other two groups; the pre-task + on-line planning group produced almost the same complex language as the pre-task planning group but more grammatically accurate language than the pre-task planning group; compared with the on-line planning group, the pre-task + on-line planning group produced the language that was as accurate as this group but more lexically varied than this group. That is to say, under the pre-task + on-line planning condition, the learners not only pay attention to message conveyance, which is promoted by pre-task planning and reflected in greater fluency and lexical variety, but also concern themselves about form that is promoted by on-line planning and reflected in greater grammatical accuracy. So it is concluded that iflearners are able to both pre-plan and plan on-line, the problems of their limited capacity can be reduced and they can allocate adequate attention to three aspects of language.This paper falls into four chapters. Chapter One reviews the theories and studies in relation to planning and oral performance. Chapter Two introduces the research design and methodology and also illustrates in detail the experimental steps and measures used to compare the findings. Chapter Three analyzes the research result and discusses the findings of the experiment. Chapter Four gives a summary of the research and puts forward some suggestions on the future studies and language teaching.