The Effect of Pre-Task Planning Time on L2 Learners’ Narrative Writing Performance

Building on Baddeley’s cognitive psychology (2007) and Skehan’s Limited Attentional Capacity Model (2009), this article reports a study of the effects of pre-task planning time (strategic planning time) on Malaysian English learners’ written narratives elicited by means of a picture composition. 50 first-year undergraduate students studying at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Penang were served as the participants of this study. All the participants achieved band four from Malaysian University English Test (MUET). They were randomly selected and divided into two equal groups of with pre-task planning time and without pre-task planning time. Each group was asked to narrate a story under the two different conditions. Participants in pre-task planning time group was required to plan for their performance for 10 minutes and take notes before they performed the tasks, whilst the participants in without pre-task planning time group began writing immediately. The learners’ writing performance was measured for complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). Independent samples t-test was employed to analyze the collected data. Results indicated that pre-task planning time had no effect on the accuracy of the learners’ writing performances, but led to more fluency and complexity.