Comparing peer planning to individual planning and its results on the oral performance in an English as a foreign language classroom

Abstract

Communicative Approach has brought a broad niche of research on its own. Some categories have been outlined several times by many authors because of its capacity to elicit the way language teaching and learning might benefit a classroom in different ways . Tasks are much explored in this sense, bringing students from the old fashioned focus-on-form way of learning to a brand new way of discovering languages, focusing especially on the performance of the task itself and thus, being able to learn in an immersive environment. Studies have notched the importance of pre-task activities, such as planning time for performing tasks in order to deliver a well-developed language outcome in a task-based classroom. In order to seek hints for language classroom improvements, researchers started to point out that the environment also plays an important role in it, enabling students to find interest in many different factors within classroom activities, such as peer activities and group discussion. Studies point out that peer planning can influence the outcome of a task, if requirements are matched and students feel interest in this particular kind of classroom environment. This particular research aims to compare the results from a pair of students performing two similar tasks under two different conditions. First, students who are going to participate will plan a task individually and then perform it, and then students will pair up to plan for performing another task. The data collection suggested that the comparison between individual planning and peer planning did not represent any significant difference in terms of fluency outcome on this particular corpus, although one of the students seemed to like planning in pairs. Peer planning tasks have then proved to enrich classrooms with attractive content in a sense. Results might be relevant for broadening possibilities for classroom planning and management to reach a desirable result. Language learning and teaching development might be influenced by students if they engage with the task together, opening a window for meaningful language knowledge negotiation and further outcome.