IMPACT OF TASK PLANNING ON FLUENCY, ACCURACY, AND COMPLEXITY IN WRITING A CASE STUDY ON IRANIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

This study attempted to explore the effects of task planning on young Iranian EFL learners' writing proficiency. More specifically, the study was intended to examine such effects on the three dimensions of language proficiency, namely complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). In this study, 30 young Iranian University students with the intermediate level of proficiency were selected from Khatam ol-Anbia University in Tehran, Iran. All the participants were randomly assigned into the control and experimental groups. The Oxford placement test was run in order to make sure that the two groups were homogeneous. Afterward, a series of writing tasks were developed to examine participants' performance in writing. In the experimental group, the participants were supposed to do task planning based on the instruction they received from the instructor, while in the control group, participants, although instructed about the planning, were not required to do so. The results of the study indicated that task planning had positive effect on almost all the dimensions of language proficiency. This implies that EFL teachers can be very hopeful to successfully apply task planning in their classes because learners are willing to adapt themselves to this new area of language teaching. Eventually, it is believed that the results of such research will encourage EFL teachers and learners to use task planning and have more positive attitude towards it.