Collaborative Essay Writing through E-mail (original) (raw)

A Study of the Role of Using E-mail in Improving High School Students’ EFL Writing Skill

International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 2012

The present study investigates the effect of e-mail on Iranian learners of English and focuses on teaching the writing skill via e-mail. More specifically, the study investigates (a) whether using email has any statistically significant effect on improving high school students' writing skill, and (b) whether the proficiency level has any relation with students' writing improvement through using e-mail.To this end, 150 high school Iranian students were selected randomly and divided into 3 proficiency levels, namely high, mid, and low, based on their performances on an Oxford Placement Test (OPT). The participants at every proficiency level were divided into 3 subgroups to receive 3 methods of instruction, namely traditional face-to-face, through using e-mail, and through both the traditional method and using e-mail. After 3 months of instruction, a posttest was administered and the results were submitted to ANOVA. The results obtained revealed that using e-mail had a statistically significant effect on improving students' writing skills. The Scheffe post hoc results showed that the group with the e-mail treatment performed almost the same as the other 2 groups at the high proficiency level; in other words, the group at the high level did not benefit much from using e-mail; however, thelow and intermediate proficiency level participants did benefit from it. The findings are finally discussed with regard to how email can be exploited as an educational aid by teachers and learners.

The influence of nonautonomous online collaborative writing on EFL learners

International journal of English language and literature studies, 2024

Web-based collaborative writing has received significant attention in the twenty-first century. This study aims to investigate students' attitudes toward nonautonomous online collaborative writing. A mixed methods approach was employed in this study, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative aspect involved the administration of a questionnaire, while the qualitative component involved conducting interviews. The participants comprised 42 male Level 3 English language students from Qassim University in Saudi Arabia, aged 20 and 22. The findings indicated that nonautonomous online collaborative writing assisted students in efficiently completing written drafts and improved writing speed, fluency, and organization. It encouraged learners to write by guiding them through brainstorming ideas, generating an outline, and addressing spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. According to the interviews, online collaborative writing required the teacher's supervision and support to provide comments, share drafts with peers, and receive feedback from others. The teacher's guidance focused on how students create their essays, such as acquiring relevant ideas and organizing material, resulting in much-improved writing. The teacher provided students with clear directions and instructions, including what to do and what not to do at the start of the task. He also reviewed students' assignments, wrote encouraging notes, and praised them for their accomplishments. Contribution/Originality: The study seeks to determine students' perceptions of nonautonomous online collaborative writing in the English language classroom with the assistance of teachers. In other words, how do EFL students feel about combining Google Docs with collaborative writing in English with t he teacher's guidance? 1. INTRODUCTION Collaborative learning refers to the process of working together to achieve a common goal and complete a text within context (Graham, 2005). The process involves gathering, preparing and developing ideas, composting, rewriting, and proofreading (Rice & Huguley, 1994). Several studies examined various topics related to collaborative writing, such as how novices and advanced learners cooperate (Lee, 2004) and how students collaborate using Google Docs (Kessler, Bikowski, & Boggs, 2012). Other studies have shown that working together on written assignments improves students' interpersonal and overall writing skills (

The Impact of Using Email on Improving the Writing Skills Among Iranian Students

Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 2014

The need for the application of technology in education has been increased. One of the new approaches in technology is using email for learning a second or a foreign language. The present study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of using email in improving writing skills among Iranian EFL students. The participants of the study were 42 preintermediate Iranian EFL students in an English language institute in Shiraz, Iran. The participants were randomly assigned into an experimental and a control group. Each group consisted of 21 participants. The treatment continued for three weeks and 3 sessions a week. The students in the experimental group used email for sending their assignments. These students were in contact with their teacher via email and asked writing questions. In contrast, the students in the control group taught writing without using the computer in traditional way. To be sure of homogeneity of the participants, a pre-test was administered before the treatment. After three weeks treatment, a post-test was administered to check the students' improvement in writing. The findings revealed that the students in in the experimental group performed significantly better than the students in the control group.

The Impact of Collaborative Writing on the Writing Fluency of Iranian EFL Learners

Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 2013

Writing is no longer an individual activity but an interactive process through which social abilities of the learners are reinforced. To promote interaction in the writing class, collaboration has been suggested to be advantageous. The present study aimed to examine the impact of practicing in pairs on the writing fluency of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, an OPT test was administered to female EFL learners according to which 90 homogenous learners at an intermediate level comprised the research sample. Afterwards, the participants were randomly divided into two groups including a control group of 30 students, each producing a written text individually and an experimental group of 60 learners working in pairs. Since each pair produced a single text, the numbers of texts rather than the number of participants was considered. In order to compare the data collected from two groups, a t-test was used. The results obtained from the essays written in the first session of the writing phase revealed that pairs produced less fluent texts than the individual writers. More specifically, the average number of words, T-units, and clauses in individual essays was less than that of pairs. The essays written in the last session revealed that there was a considerable improvement in the use of T-units and clauses produced by pairs; however, the fluency of the written texts was not noticeably significant in comparison with the fluency of essays produced by the individuals. The findings also revealed that practicing in pairs did improve the overall quality of the learners' writing productions even though the fluency of written texts did not change significantly.

Comparing Collaborative Writing Activity in EFL Classroom: Face-to-Face Collaborative Writing versus Online Collaborative Writing Using Google Docs

Asian Journal of Education and Training

Collaborative writing is acknowledged as one of the most beneficial writing exercises for improving writing skills. This study aimed to look at the errors of online collaborative writing using Google Docs and face-to-face collaborative writing, as well as to find out how satisfied students were with both modes. Purposive sampling was used to pick 32 Thai second-year English major students (19 females, 13 males) from Writing II. A record form of the error kinds derived from Norrish (1983) a questionnaire, and a semi-structured interview were used as instruments. Frequency and percentage were the statistics used. The data revealed that 346 errors were discovered in online mode, while 389 errors were discovered in face-to-face mode, which was at a higher level. The most common types in the online mode were sentence fragments, while the most common kinds in the face-to-face mode were determiners. Grammars were presented to students in both modes, followed by lexis and mechanics. Further...

Model of Teaching Writing Skill Through Email at Serambi Mekkah University and Muhammadiyah University, Indonesia

Researchers World : Journal of Arts, Science and Commerce, 2016

The aim of this research is to produce a model of teaching English writing skill in an effective way for students of English Education Program in Indonesian Universities. The current research involves using the Research and Development for trying to seek a learning model for students of English Writing course. The teaching model arranged can be implemented conceptually and operationally. The models were developed based on theories of teaching writing. This research was conducted in the city of Banda Aceh. The model of teaching writing combines 3 aspects as a foundation. First, lecturer's input, Second, lecturer's correction, and third, written communication between students with foreign partners via email. The results showed a positive effect on the application of the model of learning writing. And in general it can be concluded that the teaching of writing by using the internet as a medium for writing exercises can be done to help students extending the exercise.

Effects of Collaborative Writing on EFL Students' Paragraph Writing Performance: Focus on Content and Coherence

2022

This study attempted to examine the effects of collaborative writing on EFL students’ paragraph level writing performance focusing on the two aspects of writing: content and coherence. Two batches of Grade 11 students at Felegebirahn Secondary School in Amhara Region, Ethiopia were selected for the study group based on the mean scores of the paragraph writing performance test given before the intervention. These two batches of students were randomly assigned into two groups: experimental (n=44) and control (n=44) using lottery system to conduct the study. The students in the experimental group were made to practice paragraph level writing tasks collaboratively; while the students in the control group were made to practice the same writing tasks individually for 12 weeks. The main instrument used to collect the data was paragraph writing test. Students’ questionnaire and semi-structured interview were also used to gather data regarding students’ attitude towards using collaborative writing in EFL classes. The paragraph writing test results were used to examine and compare students’ paragraph writing performance before and after the intervention. T-test was employed to analyze and interpret if the paragraph writing performance tests mean differences with-in the groups and between groups were statistically significant or not. The findings revealed that the students who practiced the writing tasks or activities collaboratively have brought more significant improvements on the content and coherence of the paragraphs they produced after the training than students who practiced the writing tasks individually. It was also noted that the students in the experimental group had exhibited positive attitude towards collaborative writing. This was confirmed by majority of the respondents from the attitude questionnaire and interview data that students finally enjoyed and were motivated to write in English after their engagement in collaborative writing. It was concluded that practicing writing tasks collaboratively in EFL writing classes can improve students’ performance to incorporate relevant and coherent ideas or sentences while students write paragraphs in English. Therefore, it was recommended that using collaborative writing in EFL writing lessons must continue and be adopted on wider scale.

The Effectiveness of Collaborative Writing Strategy in Improving Essay Writing Skills of University Students in the EFL Context

AL-ISHLAH: Jurnal Pendidikan

Essay writing skills are able to predict a person's success in higher education because the processes involved when composing it are indeed able to hone the abilities or skills of a student in academic life. This study aims to improve the essay writing skills of English Education students by applying the collaborative writing strategy. Classroom Action Research design is applied to answer the research questions, and then there are two cycles conducted successfully in the research. Each cycle consists of several stages, namely planning, implementation, observation, and evaluation, divided into three meetings. The research data were collected by assessing students’ writing in each cycle and analyzed using the band score from NCTE. The study results indicate an increase in the quality of students' essay writing skills after doing the writing process through Collaborative Writing in several aspects of writing. The effectiveness of this strategy was seen that more than 75% of stu...

The Effect of Collaborative Writing on Iranian EFL Learners' Task Achievement in Writing and Their Perception

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2017

Collaborative writing has gained interest in the last decade; however, as stated by Shin, Lidster and Sabraw (2016) more research is required to delve into various aspects of this multifarious class activity. This true experimental research examined the effect of writing collaboratively on task achievement of Iranian EFL learners in writing. Oxford Placement Test was given to 60 language learners in the city of Kashmar, Iran, as the test of homogeneity. Considering +/-1 standard deviation of the mean score, 40 learners were chosen to pursue the purpose of the study. These learners formed an experimental group and a control group with 20 participants in each. Collaborative writing was implemented in the experimental group and individual writing was used in the comparison group. The participants in the experimental group were later interviewed and their perception toward collaborative writing was investigated. The findings of the study through t-test revealed that the experimental gr...