Effects Of Planning Condition, Linguistic Complexity And Anxiety On EFL Learners’ Retelling Performance

Language learners’ oral performance and proficiency are assessed in terms offluency, accuracy and complexity. Many scholars have investigated how tasks influenceoral performance. Retelling, as one kind of oral task, has been investigated by scholarswith a focus on how single factor such as planning condition affects retellingperformance in terms of fluency, accuracy and complexity. Little research has beenconducted in terms of the retelling content. Moreover, even less research has beenconducted on how multi-factors such as planning condition and anxiety influence theretelling performance.This study attempts to investigate how planning condition, linguistic complexityand anxiety influence retelling performance in terms of content, fluency and accuracy.The research questions are as follows.1Do planning condition, linguistic complexity and anxiety influence the retellingcontent?1.1Do planning condition, linguistic complexity and anxiety each influence theretelling content?1.2Do planning condition, linguistic complexity and anxiety have any interactionfor the retelling content?2Do planning condition, linguistic complexity and anxiety influence the retellingfluency?2.1Do planning condition, linguistic complexity and anxiety each influence theretelling fluency?2.2Do planning condition, linguistic complexity and anxiety have any interactionfor the retelling fluency?3Do planning condition, linguistic complexity and anxiety influence the retellingaccuracy? 3.1Do planning condition, linguistic complexity and anxiety each influence theretelling accuracy?3.2Do planning condition, linguistic complexity and anxiety have any interactionfor the retelling accuracy?The present study consists of three2×2×2mixed designs. There are twoplanning conditions: with the two minutes’ pre-task planning time and without thepre-task planning time. Linguistic complexity has two levels: simple and complex.Anxiety, measured by an adapted questionnaire, falls into two levels: low and high. Theretelling performance is measured in terms of content, fluency and accuracy.The subjects were sixty English majors chosen from classes at Nanjing Universityof Technology. In the second week of May, all the subjects participated in the storyretelling task in a language lab without the pre-task planning time. A week later, thesame subjects did the retelling task in the same place with the two minutes’ pre-taskplanning time. Each time the participants retold both simple and complex stories.Finally, the valid data from forty-eight subjects were transcribed and measured by thechosen indexes of content, fluency and accuracy. The corresponding data weresubmitted to SPSS13.0and analyzed by three mixed ANOVAs. The major findings ofmixed ANOVAs are listed as follows:1. Anxiety exerts a significant main effect on the retelling content (F=4.47, p <.05,η~2=.09). Planning condition and linguistic complexity have significant maineffects on the retelling content (F=83.49, p <.05, η~2=.65; F=35.55, p <.05, η~2=.44), which are moderated by the interaction of planning condition and linguisticcomplexity (F=5.15, p <.05, η~2=.10). Regardless of linguistic complexity, theadvantage of the planned condition over the unplanned condition is significant. Inspite of planning condition, the advantage of the simple language over the complexlanguage is also significant.2. Planning condition and linguistic complexity have not only significant main effects(F=28.02, p <.05, η~2=.38; F=40.91, p <.05, η~2=.47) but also interactioneffects on fluency (F=9.60, p <.05, η~2=.17). In the simple language andcomplex language tasks, the mean differences in favor of the planned condition arestatistically significant. In the planned condition, the mean difference between thesimple language and the complex language reaches statistical significance. But inthe unplanned condition, a smaller mean difference between simple language and complex language fails to be statistically significant.3. Linguistic complexity demonstrates a significant main effect on accuracy (F=16.10, p <.05, η~2=.26). Planning condition and anxiety interact to affect accuracysignificantly (F=4.66, p <.05, η~2=.09). In the low anxiety group, the meandifference in favor of planned condition is statistically significant. But in the highanxiety group, the mean difference in favor of the unplanned condition doesn’treach statistical significance. However, in the planned and unplanned conditions,the mean differences between low anxiety and high anxiety group don’t reachstatistical significance.These results lend support to Krashen’s Input Hypothesis and Skehan’s LimitedCapacity Hypothesis. They also have important pedagogical implications. On one hand,the materials for language teaching tasks must be comprehensible in terms of linguisticcomplexity so as to enhance EFL learners’ understanding. On the other hand, directionsin retelling tasks can be tailored to specific teaching aims such as adding pre-taskplanning time for EFL learners’ better performance in a new task. Last but not the least,EFL teachers had better create a more relaxed environment according toanxiety-provoking factors. EFL learners are recommended to task control of anxietylevel using some strategies so as to improve oral performance.