EFL teacher beliefs about collaborative writing at Swedish primary school

Abstract

Writing is a key component of primary EFL education and the way it is taught can influence pupils’ language learning. To enhance written and overall proficiency, collaborative writing (CW) has been advocated, but few CW studies include teachers of young learners. Their views on writing instruction are relevant to consider, since they can have an impact on classroom teaching and pupils’ progress in EFL. This study therefore adopts semi-structured interviews with 15 Swedish EFL teachers to explore their beliefs about how CW affects 10–12-year-olds’ EFL learning opportunities. A reflexive thematic analysis generated six themes, where perceived beneficial outcomes of CW concern vocabulary expansion, writing improvement, motivation and a decrease in foreign language anxiety. Constraints, according to the teachers, relate to grouping pupils to maximise linguistic gains and finding time for CW. The study concludes that the teachers believe CW to be a multifaceted approach that potentially supports young learners as EFL users in general and writers specifically.

Keywords

• Collaborative writing
• L2 literacy
• young learners
• teacher beliefs
• reflexive thematic analysis