Role of Pre-Tasks in Second Language Writing

Abstract

This paper reports a study conducted to explore the relationship of task complexity and L2 writing. Task complexity was varied on one dimension: presence (absence) of the pre-tasks. The results showed that when pre-tasks were administered to students (15 M. Phil students), structural complexity and lexical variety of student writing increased. It is, therefore argued that writing tasks in classroom should be preceded by pre-tasks which help with organization and content.