Arab Educational Information Network

This study examined the effects of task complexity and strategic planning and no planning on written narrative production under different task complexity conditions by 120 second-year English major students from AL-Ma’aref High Institute for Languages and Translation. Task complexity was manipulated along Robinson’s (2001b) proposed task complexity dimension of Here-and-Now (simple) vs. There-and-Then (complex) in. Accordingly, three specific measures of the written narratives were targeted, i.e. complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF). Planning was operationalized at two levels: pretask planning (PTP) and no planning (NP). Participants of this study were four groups, the pre-task planning (PTP) and Here-and-Now (HN), pre-task planning (PTP) and There-and-Then (TT), no planning (NP) and Here-and-Now (HN), or no planning (NP) and There-and-Then (TT) groups. The findings of the study indicated that with respect to complexity, accuracy and fluency, the effects of both task complexity and planning conditions were found significant. More complexity, accuracy, and fluency were found in the complex task with the participants under planned condition. Also, the findings revealed that giving students time to plan before commencing the task, leading them to better performance. The pedagogical implications are discussed with reference to the influence of task complexity and planning conditions on text quality. (Published abstract)