The Effects of Simultaneous Use of Task-based Strategic and Careful Online Planning on EFL Learners’ Self-repairs

This research examined the effects of task-based planning on self-repairs as psycholinguistic mechanisms underlying EFL learners’ speech. To this aim, the influence of simultaneous use of strategic and careful online planning on the type and frequency of learners’ self-corrections was investigated. Sixty Iranian intermediate learners were asked to orally narrate a picture-based story under four conditions: no planning, strategic planning, careful online planning, and the integration of both strategic and careful online planning. They were subsequently asked to verbalize their thought processes during task performance based on their audio-recorded narrations. In general, the results showed that learners’ speech under careful online planning condition involved making more error-repairs and fewer different-information and appropriacy repairs. In addition, the results illustrated that strategic planning resulted in more instances of appropriacy and different-information repairs, and as such, simultaneous use of both types of planning brought about an overall increase in the use of appropriacy, different-information, and error-repairs. The outcomes of this study suggest that engaging the learners in planning can ease task demands; consequently, this task implementation option directs their attention to both form and meaning, hence promoting acquisition.