The Effectiveness of Collaborative Writing for Development of EFL learners’ Individual Writing Skills
2020 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (professional degree), 10 credits / 15 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
The following study investigates the possible advantages of using collaborative writing to
facilitate development of individual EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners' writing
skills. In a comparative study on European students’ foreign language proficiency (Costa &
Albergaria-Almeida, 2015), only about forty per cent of the participating students, including
Swedish secondary students, exhibited competency in levels B1 and B2 in terms of writing
proficiency, a stage of progression which Swedish students are expected to achieve when
entering lower and upper-secondary education. As a result, a call for action is made to
address current teaching strategies for language learning, and collaborative writing is being
considered for its potential. Contemporary research regarding collaborative writing
presents mostly positive improvements on L2 learners’ writing ability, but some
disagreement exists amongst researchers in terms of which features actually improve. In
this paper, we present an overview and analysis of contemporary primary research that
investigates potential benefits of implementing collaborative writing into the
communicative classroom. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of the studies
for the Swedish educational context, including what important pedagogical considerations
must be taken into account when implementing collaborative writing. Finally, the findings
are discussed in relation to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of learning, Krashen’s comprehensible
input hypothesis, and Swain’s comprehensible output hypothesis.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö universitet/Lärande och samhälle , 2020. , p. 29
Keywords [en]
collaborative learning, collaborative writing, EFL learners, L2 learners
National Category
Humanities and the Arts
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-35163Local ID: 30938OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-35163DiVA, id: diva2:1497097
Educational program
LS Master of Arts/Science in Secondary Education
Supervisors
Examiners
2020-11-042020-11-04Bibliographically approved