Innovation in Language Learning

New technology is changing the fundamental process of writing and communicating. An increasing amount of communication now occurs in text-based form on social network sites, emails and mobile phones. Mobile technology means communication and learning can take place at anytime and in any place. These developments are having a significant effect on the process of learning and specifically writing for EFL learners. In addition to making it easier for students to share documents with each other, receive feedback from the teacher and make multiple edits, mobile technology also facilitates student collaboration with their tutor to co-construct a text.

Writing is a dynamic process so it is important to be able to reinterpret and integrate new perspectives into writing theories. Process Writing is a popular theory of writing which emphasizes the process of writing not the product by breaking the writing process down into several stages – planning, drafting, peer review, tutor feedback, redrafting and final product.

In the 1990’s Process writing itself came under attack. A Post Process Theory developed that emphasized that writing was not just a body of knowledge that could be taught but that other factors were also important such as the situation where the writing takes place, the audience it is meant for and the dialogue that occurs between students and the tutor. Writing should be seen as a social construct not an individual one. The tutor should “actively collaborate” [1] with the student to construct the text and the students with each other. This collaborative approach is supported by Vygotsky’s [2] socially constructive perspective of learning which argues that human development is essentially based on social interaction – we learn from each other, specifically, from a “more able” other. This is now referred to as “scaffolding”. Such scaffolding can occur among peers when collaborating in pair or group work. [3].

The developments in technology have made this “Post Process” approach a reality. Using apps or websites like “Quip” or “Google Docs”, students can now co-construct a text with their tutor and receive feedback in real time due to synchronous online dialogue. This presentation will consider the effects of mobile technology on the process of writing and illustrate with examples taken from a research project of EAP students at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi.