489 © 2017 AESS Publications. All Rights Reserved. THE EFFECT OF FOCUS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING ON ACCURACY AND COMPLEXITY IN ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING OF INTERMEDIATE L2 LEARNERS Fatemeh Khonamri 1+ Mahmoud Azizi 2 Somayeh Fallahpour 3 1,2 Assistant Professor of the Department of English Language and Literature, University of Mazandaran, Iran 3 Islamic Azad University of Ayatollah Amoli, Iran (+ Corresponding author) ABSTRACT Article History Received: 6 March 2017 Revised: 25 April 2017 Accepted: 17 May 2017 Published: 19 June 2017 Keywords Strategic planning Accuracy Complexity Form-focused Meaning-focused Unguided. Following previous studies reporting positive effect for strategic planning on learners' task performance (Mehnert, 1998; Sangarun, 2001; Yuan and Ellis, 2004) the present research takes into account the possible effects of directing learners' attention to meaning and form of language. This study is building on information processing models and Kellog (1996) model of writing. The study randomly categorized thirty intermediate learners of English into three groups and asked them to perform an argumentative writing task under three different strategic planning conditions: form- focused, meaning-focused, and unguided-focused strategic planning condition. Their performance was analyzed by a set of one-way ANOVAs, t-tests, and measures of accuracy and complexity. The results indicate that guided strategic planning yielded greater accuracy and complexity in writing than unguided strategic planning with the learners at intermediate levels of proficiency. The results also indicate that the form- focused planners outperformed the other two groups in terms of accuracy, and meaning-focused planner better promoted their writing than form-focused and unguided focused planners in terms of complexity. Contribution/ Originality: This study contributes to the existing literature by indicating that focused strategic planning is effective in both EFL and ESL contexts. The bulk of studies in the literature were from ESL context and this study's primary contribution was examining the extent to which it worked with EFL classes as well as determining the areas in which strategic planning was mostly effective. 1. INTRODUCTION For decades, there has been a considerable body of research on task performance (Ellis, 2005). One way of accounting for language performance is by examining the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of the language produced. According to Skehan (2009) successful performance in task-based contexts include: complexity, defined as more advanced language, accuracy, in which the performer tries to make as few errors as possible, and fluency, the rate of speech production. Within the study of tasks, one construct which has attracted much attention is planning. Planning or allocation of some amount of preparation time to learner before completing the actual task is a problem International Journal of Asian Social Science ISSN(e): 2224-4441 ISSN(p): 2226-5139 DOI: 10.18488/journal.1.2017.76.489.496 Vol. 7, No. 6, 489-496 © 2017 AESS Publications. All Rights Reserved. URL: www.aessweb.com