Collaborative to Individual Writing: An Investigation of Student Performance and Perceptions

Sookyung Cho (조수경)

Collaborative to Individual Writing: An Investigation of Student Performance and Perceptions

Modern English Education
Abbr : MEESO
2012, 13(4), pp.167-184
Publisher : The Modern English Education Society
Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Language Teaching

Sookyung Cho ¹

¹한국외국어대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how English as a foreign language (EFL) learners progress from collaborative writing to individual writing in terms of accuracy, complexity, and fluency. Previous research on collaborative writing has focused on comparisons between learners who worked in pairs or groups with learners who worked individually. However, no research to date has explored the same learners’ experiences of collaborative and individual writing and their written products. In order to better understand the effects of this phenomenon, the current study compares the collaborative and individual written texts of 15 Korean EFL learners and, focusing on four students, also explores how learners’ perceptions and attitudes towards collaborative writing affect their actual writing. The analysis reveals that, in overall, learners’ writing improved through the experiences of collaborative writing. Also, students who produced higher quality individual works than collaborative had more positive views on collaborative writing than those who produced lower quality writing individually. The results of this study imply that collaborative writing can be beneficial in second language contexts and that instructors should inform students of its benefits to ensure students take advantage of the collaborative writing experience.

KEYWORDS

collaborative writing, individual writing

Citation status

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