The current study is framed within the SLA theories of formulaic language acquisition and task planning. The key question to be answered is whether directing learners’ attention to the target Chinese formulaic sequences (FSs) during the pre-writing planning stage will prompt students to use such vocabulary more accurately, and consequently affect their written performance in terms of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) measures. Given a mixture of results in previous studies concerning the role of pretask planning on complexity, accuracy and fluency both in oral and written language production, the goal is to find out which task conditions or task instruction contributes to variations in Chinese as a second language (L2 Chinese) learners’ written language production. Following Sangarun (2001, 2005) and Rott (2009), the study compared different pretask planning conditions through a quasi-experimental design based on their particular foci: content focused planning (CFP), language focused planning (LFP), content and language focused planning (CLFP), and planning with minimal guidance. The four pretask planning conditions were manipulated through the use of different planning sheets with pre-designed guidance on language forms, content or both. A total number of 67 CFL learners from an intensive study-abroad program in Beijing, China initially participated in the study. Participants’ written outputs were analyzed using a battery of CAF measures. Another three separate measures captured the target FS use, namely, the total number of target FSs per essay, non-target FS use and the ratio between correct use of FSs and total number of FSs.Results indicated that planning instructions with an explicit guidance on linguistic forms (LFP) and on both forms and content (CLFP) were both more effective than other types of planning in promoting the use of the target FSs. The proportion of accurately used FSs and combined target and non-target FS use were positively related to one of the complexity measure (clauses per TTCU). Moreover, it was found that there were no trade-offs between accuracy and complexity measures, suggesting that learners from the CLFP group were likely to attend to both form and meaning in pretask planning.Finally, the results suggest teaching and learning L2 Chinese formulaic language through writing instruction with carefully designed writing prompts and pre-writing guidance. It is likely that planning with a focus on form will prompt learners to use more target FSs and use them more accurately which promotes L2 learners’ language development in complexity, accuracy and fluency.
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