School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses
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ItemInvestigating Collaborative Writing and Collaborative Feedback Processing among Advanced ESL Learners: A Sociocultural Perspective( 2023-03)Informed by Sociocultural approaches to learning, collaborative activities in general and collaborative writing (CW), in particular, have attracted the attention of both educators and researchers in the field of second language learning (e.g., Storch, 2013). Several studies (see Storch, 2017) reported on the language learning benefits of CW and how different factors (e.g., task type) impact on the affordance of language learning opportunities. However, to date, despite research demonstrating the range of factors affecting group dynamics, the effect of group size and partner change has been under-researched. Adopting a Sociocultural perspective, this research project addressed these gaps in the literature in two separate Studies: Study 1 investigated the impact of group size and Study 2 looked at partner change. The findings were interpreted from an Activity Theory perspective to gain a deeper understanding of the interaction between individual and contextual factors affecting the participants’ behaviour. This research project was conducted in a private English college in Australia. Collectively, 23 high-intermediate to advanced English as a Second Language (ESL) students participated in the research project in two separate Studies. In Study 1 (i.e., Group size), carried out over five weeks, three pairs and three triads wrote three collaborative essays and collaboratively processed the teacher’s feedback in two Collaborative Feedback Processing (CFP) activities. In Study 2 (partner change), which was conducted over a longer period of time (8 weeks), the participants were required to collaborate in six CW and four CFP tasks. To collect data, I used a mixed-methods research design to collect both qualitative and quantitative data using a pre-study survey, Zoom video recording of the student interactions, Google Docs (CW and CFP tasks), interviews and individual essay writing tasks. It should be noted that, despite the initial in-person data collection design, due to the pandemic, the data were collected via Zoom and Google Docs to replicate face-to-face interactions as much as possible. In Study 1 which targeted group size, to analyze for patterns of interaction, I drew on Storch’s (2002) patterns of interaction framework and found that group size was not a determining factor. As per the data, in Study1 (group size) except for one pair (expert-novice) and one triad (active/collaborative/accommodating), all the other groups formed a collaborative pattern of interaction. Additionally, both pairs and triads produced similar numbers of languaging episodes (i.e., discussing language, content and organization related problems), mostly discussed lexis and content related issues and correctly resolved most of the episodes in both CW and CFP activities. The analysis of the students’ languaging also indicated that when collaborating, most of the episodes were discussed extensively (i.e., high level of engagement). Lastly, using a process-product approach, I found that those students who engaged with each other’s contributions and equally contributed to the task completion benefited the most in terms of language gains (i.e., knowledge transfer/retention). Therefore, Study 1 revealed that collaborative patterns of interaction rather than group size afforded the participants with most language learning opportunities and language gains. In Study 2, where each participant collaborated with two different partners (on 3 CW and 2 CFP activities) to see the impact of partner change, the data revealed that the change positively affected patterns of interaction. After the change, most of the students either remained collaborative or adopted a more collaborative stance. Furthermore, the change resulted in the production and resolution of more languaging episodes in both CW and CFP activities. The participants also produced more languaging episodes and discussed these more extensively after the change of partner (i.e., higher engagement with episodes), focused more on language related problems (e.g., grammar), and reduced their reliance on the teacher’s help to resolve their problems in CFP activities. Furthermore, looking at the findings from Engstrom’s (2001) second-generation AT perspective, I found that the interplay of individual and contextual factors in both studies played a significant role. More specifically, it was revealed that goals, previous collaborative experience and self and other perceived proficiency as well as the perceived value of peer contributions explained the variations between and across groups. These findings, as a result, have several important theoretical and pedagogical implications. From a theoretical perspective, this research project shed more light on how specific individual and contextual factors can impact on patterns of interaction and language learning benefits. From a Pedagogical perspective, this research highlights a number of issues for teachers to consider in implementing collaborative writing in the classroom. These include the importance of learning about individual factors before the task design, monitoring the interplay of individual and contextual factors during the task performance, and making amendments (e.g., partner change) when necessary. Finally, teachers should be aware that a few collaborative sessions are required before students learn how to effectively collaborate.
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ItemInvestigating Written Corrective Feedback from the Perspective of Sociocultural Theory and Activity Theory( 2022)The current study attempted to address an overarching question – why students often fail to learn from written corrective feedback (WCF). To answer this question, I investigated the nature of L2 writing teachers’ WCF and students’ responses to WCF, and probed into the factors shaping the WCF practices and responses. Two main theories guided this study. Sociocultural theory (SCT) helped evaluate the effectiveness of the WCF teachers provided – by exploring to what extent the feedback accorded with learners’ language development. Activity Theory allowed for a deeper understanding of teachers’ and students’ feedback-related behaviours by highlighting the interplay of individual and contextual factors shaping these behaviours. This study was situated in a private language institute (primarily an IELTS/TOFEL training institute). This is a context with a profit orientation and customer focus potentially leading to a teacher-student relationship different from that in university or school settings where many previous studies of WCF have been conducted. Six teachers, 23 students and one administrator participated in the study. Data collected included semi-structured interviews, retrospections and students’ drafts of essays along with teachers’ feedback. The essays were analysed quantitatively to investigate the nature of teachers’ WCF, students’ responses in revision (e.g., acceptance/rejection), and whether teachers’ feedback aligned with students’ accuracy development. The interviews and retrospections were analysed qualitatively to explore the factors shaping teachers’ and students’ feedback-related behaviours. The findings on the teachers’ WCF centre around the explicitness and quantity of WCF. In terms of feedback explicitness, the teachers tended to provide primarily direct WCF (i.e., direct corrections). A key reason for this, as reported by the teachers, was that indirect WCF (e.g., underlining errors) seemed more time-consuming due to the re-reading and extra clarification it entailed. Moreover, the teachers often failed to align the quality of WCF with the ongoing development of their students. In other words, they seldom decreased the explicitness of WCF when learners showed progress. As for the amount of WCF, the teachers generally marked only a portion of errors rather than providing comprehensive WCF (and the percentage of marked errors remained relatively similar throughout the course). The teachers’ heavy workload and their beliefs were identified as the most important reasons explaining their behaviour. In addition, the teachers tended to mark more errors for students with higher proficiency. This behaviour could be partially attributed to a context-related factor. Higher proficiency students were more likely to achieve a higher IELTS score, and higher IELTS scores usually led to more bonuses awarded to the teachers. In terms of students’ response to WCF, two major types of response were found: revision of essay based on feedback, and clarification seeking when feedback was not understood. Students’ revision behaviours, or the lack thereof, were found to be related primarily to their goals, habits and the influence of their peers. The students’ clarification-seeking tendency (or the lack thereof) could be attributed to their self-consciousness and/or the relationship they formed with their teachers, from whom they mostly sought clarification. Several pedagogical implications are proposed. For instance, more discussions between teachers and the administrator are encouraged so that institutional polices on teaching and feedback might be adapted to facilitate the teaching of L2 writing and feedback provision. Teacher-student discussions are also recommended to foster mutual understanding and help align goals of all stakeholders. Furthermore, teachers could benefit from more professional development sessions, where they could develop their feedback literacy – for instance, they could gain an understanding of how WCF fits more broadly into writing pedagogy (see Lee, Luo & Mak, 2021), realise the need to reflect on their own practices and think about how to adapt these to suit different students.
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ItemInvestigating Online Collaborative Writing Among Arabic L2 Students( 2021)Collaborative writing (CW) activities have captured the attention of second language instructors and researchers over the past two decades, reporting their potential benefits for the second language (L2) learners. With the growing interest in web 2.0 tools and their affordance for collaboration, online collaborative writing tools (e.g., Google Docs) have been increasingly implemented in second language classrooms. To date, most of the studies that examined the nature of students’ interaction and collaboration in online collaborative writing mode have been conducted in English as L2 classes or European languages over a short period of time. This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the nature of students’ online interaction when completing CW tasks in Arabic as a second language (ASL) classes in Saudi Arabia. This study was conducted in two Arabic language institutes in Saudi Arabian universities. Thirty-one ASL students participated in this study which was implemented online outside the regular classrooms over a 15-week semester. The participants formed eight pairs and five triads and jointly completed four collaborative writing tasks (two argumentative and two descriptive). The participants were required to complete each task over two weeks using Google Docs for writing their texts, supplemented with WhatsApp chat for their discussion. The study used a convergent mixed methods design that involved the collection of qualitative and quantitative data from online and offline sources (comments, history revision, texts in Google Docs, WhatsApp chat, interviews, questionnaire, observation notes, DocuViz). Drawing on Storch’s (2002) model of dyadic interaction, I investigated patterns of interaction that the ASL students formed during their online collaborative writing activities. Data analysis identified five patterns of interaction: cooperative, collaborative, active/passive (active/passive/passive for triads), facilitator/contributor (facilitator/contributor/contributor for triads), expert/novice). The findings show that pairs and triads formed relatively stable patterns of interaction across the four CW tasks and most pairs formed more collaborative patterns in the last CW task. Cooperative and collaborative patterns were the predominant patterns of interaction. The findings also identified salient features associated with each pattern of interaction. This study also examined the relationship between the size of the group (pairs vs triads) and language learning. The findings showed that pairs and triads focused on language, content, and structure related episodes during their online interaction. However, triads produced more language-related episodes (LREs) and were able to correctly resolve most of their LREs than pairs. The findings also revealed that pairs and triads used the two online tools (Google Docs and WhatsApp) simultaneously to foster their online collaboration. Students deliberated over language in Google docs while the WhatsApp chats showed more discussion of content and structure-related issues. Multiple factors emerged from the interview data to explain students’ online behaviour and the patterns of interaction. Using Sociocultural theory and Activity Theory that informed this study, these factors were categorized as individual, tools, group, task-related factors and were discussed. The study concludes by proposing several implications for theory and L2 learning pedagogy. Particularly, this study provides new insights into learners’ interaction in synchronous and asynchronous online collaborative L2 writing activities, and the opportunities that provide for language learning.