Planning Time: A Mediating Technique between Fluency and Accuracy in Task-Based Teaching

Task-based instruction is arguably associated with fostering fluent L2 speech distant from native-like accuracy. Of several methodological options recommended for accounting for accuracy problems of meaning-first approaches to language teaching, planning time has been explored in this study. Three groups of English majors watched a cartoon and narrated their accounts of watching under no-planning, undetailed pre-task planning and detailed pre-task planning conditions. To measure the accuracy and dysfluency of their L2 production, the collected data were coded for the number of error-free clauses, the number of total clauses and also for repetitions, false starts, reformulations and replacements. One-way ANOVAs run on the data revealed that detailed pre-task planning might result in more accurate and less dysfluent language than undetailed pre-task planning which in turn might lead to more accurate and less dysfluent language than no-planning condition.