The effects of pre-task planning on L2 writing: Mind-mapping and chronological sequencing in a 1st-year German class

Grounded in scholarship on task-based language learning (Ellis, 2003; Robinson & Gilabert, 2007; Skehan & Foster, 2001; Skehan, 2003) and second language (L2) writing (Byrnes & Manchón, 2014; Ojima, 2006), this quasi-experimental study examines the performance of 26 first-year learners of German on three written summary tasks with different levels of complexity. The first task served to establish a baseline for subsequent analyses. For the second and third tasks, participants completed either a mind-mapping pre-task or a chronological sequencing pre-task, using a counterbalanced design. All essays were analyzed for complexity, grammatical accuracy, fluency, lexical choice, lexical accuracy and propositional content. Results from non-parametric Friedman's ANOVAs indicated several significant differences between participants' performance on the baseline task compared to both treatments, but no significant differences between the pre-task types. Further analyses revealed significant correlations between the amount of ideas learners generated on the pre-task and on the subsequent writing tasks. These findings offer new insights into the role of pre-tasks in the L2 writing process, especially among first-year learners, a population in need of further study (Adams, Amani, Newton, & Alwi, 2014; Manchón & de Haan, 2008; Nitta & Baba, 2014; O'Brien, 2004).