A Study On Web-based Collaborative Learning In College English Writing

The low efficiency in improving Chinese college students' EFL writing has always been a headache among Chinese instructors. After a comprehensive review into the feasibility of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in English as foreign language (EFL) writing, cognitive process writing theory, social construction theory and collaborative learning, the researcher attempted a tentative solution to the problem: incorporating asynchronous CALL into EFL writing instruction. The purpose of this empirical research is to explore whether the online system has the potential to provide a supporting and caring environment where learners' EFL writing competence is able to be improved, their EFL writing motivation fostered and the ability of their autonomous and collaborative learning cultivated.The study involves one experimental group whose writing process, collaboratively from preparing, drafting, revising, editing to publishing, is exposed to the online system, and a control group who does the writing assignment individually. After 16 weeks' treatment, the experimental group made significant progress over the control group and especially they had significant improvement in the writing components of content and language use over the control group, but not in writing structure. The outcome of peer revision activities from the forum shows participants were more enthusiastic about writing than those in traditional way. Students' peer revision also focused more on content and language use than on writing structure. A questionnaire investigation on students' perception of the online forum enhanced writing environment was conducted. And the descriptive statistics obtained from SPSS indicated that it was the interactivity and collaborativeness of the threaded forum, collaborative writing's potential to boost motivation for and interest in communication and cooperation among students that contributed to the supporting and caring EFL writing milieu. Therefore, web-based collaborative writing in college English can be applied to college English teaching as a collaborative and autonomous activity.The present study may shed light on research of similar kinds and serve as reference to college English teachers and students. But due to constraints of time and condition, the findings are limited and some aspects are ignored. Research of larger scale on these aspects is expected.