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Part of
Individual Differences and Task-Based Language Teaching
Edited by Shaofeng Li
[Task-Based Language Teaching 16] 2024
► pp. 161–195

Chapter 6
The effects of planning type, working memory, and anxiety on L2 writing performance

| Florida State University
| The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

This study explores (1) the effect of planning type on second language learners’ writing performance and (2) the role of working memory and anxiety in different types of planning. 48 Korean high school English as a foreign language learners participated in the study. Each learner composed a written narrative under one of the three planning conditions: pre-task planning, within-task planning, and no planning. The results showed that pre-task planning enhanced fluency, while within-task planning led to greater accuracy. Regarding the impact of individual difference factors, it was found that that working memory was a significant predictor of morphosyntactic accuracy of the pre-task planning group’s writing. Anxiety significantly predicted morphosyntactic accuracy across all planning conditions, and it was a significant predictor of the syntactic complexity of the essays written under the pre-task planning condition. Working memory and anxiety were not predictive of fluency and overall writing quality.

Keywords: second language writing, task planning, working memory, anxiety
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Literature review
    • Theoretical background
    • Planning in writing process
    • Working memory in L2 writing
    • Anxiety in L2 writing
    • Research questions
  • Method
    • Participants
    • Materials
      • Writing task
      • The working memory test
      • The L2 writing anxiety questionnaire
    • Procedure
    • Data analysis
  • Results
    • The effects of planning conditions
    • The roles of working memory and anxiety
  • Discussion
    • The effect of planning type
    • Working memory
    • Writing anxiety
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 6 June 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tblt.16.06anh
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