This study is aimed to investigate whether planning with writing enhances the fluency, complexity, and accuracy of L2 oral narratives. Three groups of intermediate EFL learners at a university in Vietnam with 30 participants in each performed a picture-based narrative under one of the conditions: no planning, planning without writing (rehearsal), and planning with writing. Given 10 minutes of planning, the planning-without-writing group were told to rehearse their performance while the planning-with-writing group were told to write out the narrative in full sentences. A post-task interview was also conducted to probe what participants chose to attend to while planning.All the oral performances were transcribed and analyzed using a comprehensive set of measures for fluency, complexity, and accuracy. One-way ANOVA results showed that both rehearsal and writing before speaking had significant effects on all the three aspects of oral production, but there was no significant difference between planning with and without writing. The rehearsals and written narratives during planning, which were analyzed and triangulated with the interview data, also revealed that both planning groups, in general, had similar patterns of planning with lexical search taking most of their time. The planning-with-writing group tended to focus more on form than the planning-without-writing group. The evidence from this study furthers our understanding of the effect of planning on oral task-based performance and supports a comprehensive approach to detecting the planning effect using both general and specific measures. The findings also inform L2 researchers and teachers of the relationship between writing and speaking in L2 development.
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