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This study draws on two different but potentially commensurable research areas: task-based research in SLA, and first (L1) and second (L2) language writing. Task-based research has been primarily concerned with the effects of task design and implementational variables on the fluency, complexity, and accuracy of language in oral production. Psycholinguistically oriented writing research has typically used data collected from think-aloud protocols to identify the strategies used by writers and to model the mental systems responsible for the production of written text. Clearly, these are very different traditions. However, as Kellog (1996) noted, it is reasonable to assume that processes involved in oral and written production have much in common. Thus, we maintain, much is to be gained by drawing on insights from both research areas.
TASK-BASED RESEARCH: THE EFFECTS OF PLANNING
A number of studies have investigated the effects of planning on L2 learners' performance of oral narratives (e.g., Ellis, 1987; Foster & Skehan, 1996; Ortega, 1999; Robinson, 1995; Skehan & Foster, 1997, 1999; Wendel, 1997; Yuan & Ellis, 2003). These studies showed that giving learners the opportunity to plan a narrative before they speak it (i.e., pretask planning) resulted in significant gains in both fluency (whether measured in terms of temporal variables such as number of syllables per minute or hesitation variables such as frequency of reformulations) and complexity (measured most commonly in terms of the degree of subordination). However, these studies produced mixed results when the focus was accuracy, as measured, for example, by the percentage of error-free clauses. Although Ellis found that pretask planning led to increased accuracy in the use of regular past-tense verbs in oral narratives in English, Wendel found no effect on accuracy in Japanese learners' narrative productions. Other studies have also produced mixed results where accuracy is concerned. For example, Ortega found that pretask planning led to greater accuracy in the use of noun modifiers in L2 Spanish but not in the use of articles. Overall, these studies demonstrated that pretask planning aids fluency and complexity but not necessarily accuracy in L2 learners' oral narratives.
Although a number of studies have investigated the effects of pretask planning, only a few studies have examined on-line planning (i.e., the planning that occurs during a speech event). Drawing on Levelt's (1989)...