Abstract

This pilot study investigated the effects of three different planning conditions on the complexity, accuracy, lexis, and fluency of Spanish English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ oral production. Twenty participants engaged in three same-type tasks involving individual oral performance under strategic planning conditions, individual oral performance under careful online planning conditions, and individual oral performance under collaborative planning conditions between peers of different proficiency level. The oral productions were measured along the four dimensions of complexity, accuracy, lexis, and fluency. The performance of all the participants was audio recorded and the recordings of the core participants were transcribed, coded, segmented, and analysed. The findings suggested that collaborative work between lower and higher proficiency learners yielded improved speech in terms of accuracy, lexical sophistication, and fluency (although not in terms of complexity) in comparison with the speech they produced individually under both strategic planning conditions and careful online planning conditions. According to the findings, therefore, pairing learners of different proficiency levels in the EFL classroom might have positive learning effects.