Korean Advanced EFL Learners’ Attentional Allocation during Task Planning and Its Influence on Speaking

Abstract

This study investigated what advanced-level EFL learners pay attention to while planning and performing a speaking task, and how this cognitive process affects their subsequent task performance. A total of 21 English-major college students performed an oral presentation task after provided with 10-minute planning time. Their task performances were analyzed in terms of fluency, complexity and accuracy. Furthermore, in order to investigate the participants’ attentional allocation during task planning as well as task performance, retrospective interviews were conducted right after task performance. The analyses of the data showed that the learners placed most attention to conceptualization of ideas during pre-task planning and to fluency of speech while performing a task. On the other hand, little attention was paid to formulizing utterances and pursuing complexity and accuracy. It was also found that the learners’ attention to fluency, complexity or accuracy during task planning did not always lead to successful performance in the aspect. While speech rate and lexical diversity were more susceptible to attentional control, accuracy and syntactic complexity were not much affected by learners’ planning in advance. The findings are discussed in relation to the roles and limitations of pre-task planning in L2 performance and pedagogical implications.