the impact of pre-task planning vs. on-line planning on writing performance: a test of accuracy, fluency, and complexity

The aim of the current study was to compare the influence of online planning and pretask planning on the performance of efl university students enjoying different levels of proficiency regarding accuracy, fluency and complexity. to this end a group of 134 efl learners with different proficiency levels were asked to write narrative tasks under two planning conditions (pretask planning and online planning). the results of the investigation showed that neither online nor pretask planning affected the accuracy of writing. it was also revealed that online planning led to more fluent written language than what pretask planning did, and that pretask planning, compared to online planning, caused the students to produce more complex written language. another finding of the research was that students with higher proficiency levels outperformed their lowproficiency counterparts considering accuracy, fluency and complexity during both online and pretask planning. in other words, no interaction was found between planning conditions and proficiency levels.