The Impact of Collaborative Writing on English Continuation Tasks of Senior High School Students

Abstract

This study aims to apply collaborative writing to the teaching practice of continuation tasks. More specifically, it attempts to explore: 1) The differences between texts produced by pairs and those finished by individuals; 2) The characteristics of collaborative dialogues during the co-authoring process; and 3) Students’ attitudes towards the use of collaborative writing in continuation tasks. The collected data indicated that collaborative writing had a positive impact on the English continuation task of senior high school students, and that the effect of interactive alignment noticed in continuation tasks was greatly highlighted in the process of collaborative continuation. The analysis of the collaborative dialogues produced evidence that pair work offers students the chance to co-construct texts, pool their language and idea resources, and thus complete more linguistically complex and grammatically accurate texts. According to the survey of students’ perceptions to collaborative continuation tasks, most of the students in the study had a positive attitude to their collaborative writing experience despite some reservations. Finally, pedagogical implications for adopting collaborative continuation are provided based on the study.

Keywords

• collaborative continuation
• collaborative dialogues
• co-authoring process
• interactive alignment