Innovation in Language Learning

Working in pairs or small groups in activities that promote oral interaction is a common practice in foreign language (FL) classrooms. However, engaging learners in role-play, picture description, or jigsaws activities as a means of promoting peer interaction within classroom settings is not rewarding enough for today’s EFL learners. Therefore, the present study set out to investigate whether collaborative writing as a writing task promotes young EFL learners with opportunities to interact with their peers and to resolve language-related problems that are raised during the text co-construction process (Stroch, 2013). Thus, 48 EFL learners of intermediate proficiency were assigned to work in pairs (n=16) and individually (n=16) to complete a writing task. Learners who worked in pairs were audio-recorded and their talk was analyzed for language-related episodes (LREs). Additionally, the written compositions of both writing conditions (collaborative vs. individual) were analyzed in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) and in terms of overall text quality using a holistic rubric. The study found that pair learners engaged in discussion of mechanics-focused issues far more often than lexis-focused and form-focused discussions. Texts written in pairs were more accurate, and better in terms of overall quality than those produced individually. The findings encourage the use of collaborative writing in L2 settings.