Abstract:
This study investigates the benefits of e-collaborative and collaborative writing tasks on the perception of Iranian EFL learners in a process-oriented approach. The study involved 74 intermediate Iranian EFL students at Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch. They were divided into three groups by random assignment as two experimental groups and one control group. The experimental groups were required to perform their tasks in collaboration; only one of these two groups had access to the Telegram Application outside the classroom. The control group, however, followed the conventional method of learning how to write. The participants were required to write two journals during the course. They were asked to write about their understanding, attitude, and experience on the writing activity. There were 136 diary entries to be analyzed in order to discover the themes in them. These themes were literally the emerging concepts in the diary entries related to research question of the study about the participants’ perception. After the identification of these dominant themes, content analysis was performed to interpret the data. According to the results of the study, a high percentage of students’ satisfaction showed positive perceptions of e-collaborative activities, and they reported that the instructional implementation of an e-collaborative writing project with a five-stage writing process did assist EFL learners to accomplish a collaborative writing task.
Machine summary:
com Abstract This study investigates the benefits of e-collaborative and collaborative writing tasks on the perception of Iranian EFL learners in a process-oriented approach.
According to the results of the study, a high percentage of students’ satisfaction showed positive perceptions of e-collaborative activities, and they reported that the instructional implementation of an e-collaborative writing project with a five-stage writing process did assist EFL learners to accomplish a collaborative writing task.
Thus, collaborative writing has defined as the process which provides participants the opportunity to explore, discuss, cooperate and develop learning capabilities (Dobao, 2012; Heidar, 2016; Noël & Robert, 2004).
One research examined the effect of collaborative interaction on the development of writing skill in a homogeneous and heterogeneous context which showed a significant improvement in both groups after applying collaborative interactions among learners (Maftoon &Ghafoori, 2009).
The learners of the experimental group with e-collaborative tasks, (EG1), needed to use Telegram Application in order to share their writing assignments and assist the members of their group to complete them when they were not in the class.
However, the students in EG1, experienced both collaboration and Telegram Application, expressed considerable change in their perception of writing at home and using the internet and specifically of time and concentration.
This may offset the benefits of collaborative writing activities as the tasks are aimed at helping students acquire the academic communicative competencies and skills that they need through interactions in order to improve their writing (Manathunga Hern ndez-Leo, 2015; Prinsen, Volman, Terwel, & van den Eeden, 2009; Shehadeh, 2011).