Effects Of Collaborative Writing On Chinese College Non-English Major Learners’Writing

The study aims to investigate the effects of collaborative writing mode on Chinese college non-English major learners’CET-4writing in terms of content, organization, grammar, vocabulary and mechanics as well as learners’attitudes towards this kind of writing mode by a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. The present research proposed three research questions:(1) Does collaborative writing have an effect on Chinese college non-English major learners’ writing performance?(2) If so, in what ways? Content, organization, grammar, vocabulary or mechanics?(3) What are learners’attitudes towards collaborative writing? The study involved72first year non-English major undergraduate students in two parallel classes of which31students were selected as the experimental group and41as the control group. There were five steps in the experiment:pilot study, pretest, treatment, posttest and questionnaires for the experimental group. All the participants were required to finish a writing task alone at the beginning and end of the experiment respectively to be the pretest and posttest of the present study. In the treatment, the participants in the experimental group need to finish the three writing tasks in group of three while the participants of the control group finished the three writing tasks alone. Finally, the participants in the experimental group were required to fill a questionnaire. All the writing materials were chosen from CET-4and the titles of the writing were related to the topic of each unit in their English textbooks. The writing tasks were implemented at the end of each unit, that is, the participants wrote a composition every two weeks. The study lasted for almost one semester, including5writing tasks in all. All the compositions were measured with knowledge of the topic and development in detail for content, fluent expression and logical sequencing for organization, relative complex sentences and accurate grammar for grammar, complex range and accuracy for vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc. for mechanics. The results were obtained by comparing the scores of pretest and posttest by using Paired-Samples T test and Independent-Samples T test. The results showed that there were significant differences between the two groups with the mean of total scores and the scores of content, organization, grammar and vocabulary of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group after three collaborative writing tasks on the basis of the similar previous writing proficiency, but there existed no significance with respect to mechanics. The results indicated that collaborative writing had a positive effect on learners’writing proficiency in terms of content, organization, grammar, vocabulary and mechanics, with the exception of mechanics. Meanwhile, the researcher analyzed the questionnaires and recordings collected and the results of questionnaires suggested that most learners hold a positive attitude towards collaborative writing. They thought that this kind of writing mode could create a relaxed and harmonious atmosphere in which they could have more opportunities to speak English and communicate with classmates. This was helpful not only to their English learning but also to the improvement of their self-confidence and the relationship with their classmates, thus they hoped the teacher to implement this writing mode in the future writing classes. At the same time, they held that discussion was the biggest difficulty they encountered, for members in group may have different or even conflict ideas. Finally, the research results were analyzed and discussed based on Vygotsky’s social constructivist theory, cognitive load theory and Long’s interaction hypothesis. The present study provided evidence for the effects of collaborative writing on non-English major learners’writing. Collaborative writing is a kind of effective teaching mode to be implemented in college English writing teaching class. Some limitations existed in the present study, such as the group-dividing and the recording.