The Effects of PreTask Planning on Iranian EFL Undergraduates’ Argumentative Writing Task Performance

Despite the growing body of research documented on pretask planning in oral and written domain, the results of pretask planning studies are still inconsistent in second language writing research (e.g. Ellis Yuan, 2004; Johnson, Mercedo, Acevedo, 2012; Johnson Nicodemus 2016; Ong Zhang, 2010). The current study set out to investigate the effects of two planning conditions (pretask planning and no planning) on the argumentative writing task performance of Iranian EFL undergraduates in terms of multiple measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). To this end, 44 Iranian EFL undergraduates majoring in English literature at the University of Tehran were recruited based on convenience sampling to participate in this study. Employing a counterbalanced ‘within participants’ design, the participants were required to perform an argumentative writing task under both pretask planning and no planning conditions. In the pretask planning condition, in addition to 17 minutes for performing the task, the participants were provided with 10 minutes to plan prior to the task, whereas in the no planning condition, they were not provided with any time to plan. The results of paired sample ttest failed to reveal any significant difference between writing task performance in terms of measures of CAF under pretask planning and no planning conditions. Thus, it was shown that pretask planning did not benefit any of the measures (CAF) of argumentative writing task. Possible explanations for the results of this study and pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.