The effects of collaborative writing: a study of EFL secondary students working in pairs and groups of three

Abstract

Several studies have investigated the benefits of collaborative writing. However, research focussing on the different types of groupings (pairs vs. groups) and the advantages that each type might bring to the classroom is still scarce. Hence, the present study seeks to analyse the potential of collaborative writing tasks in a foreign language learning environment by analysing a narrative text produced by 11-12 year-old secondary school EFL learners working individually (n=49), in pairs (n= 9) and in groups of three (n= 12). Participants in the study wrote an individual narration (the pretest); then pairs and groups were created and they were asked to write down a second narration collaboratively (the experiment). The final narration was once again done individually (the post-test). The texts were analysed for analytic measures (accuracy, fluency and mechanics) and for global-scale measures (adequacy, coherence, cohesion, grammatical accuracy, mechanics and lexical range). Their recorded interactions were scrutinized for LREs and the final questionnaire was analysed to gauge students’ perceptions. The findings revealed that, first, overall, when working in pairs and groups students wrote slightly more accurate but equally fluent texts than when they wrote them individually. Second, the improvement was more noticeable when writings were analysed according to the global scale measures. Third, that collaboration seemed to also affect individual writing and students’ motivation positively as evidenced in their final writings and the questionnaire. These findings provide further support for the use of collaboration in EFL settings even among low level proficiency learners.