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Effects of structured small-group student talk as collaborative prewriting discussions on Chinese university EFL students' individual writing: A quasi-experimental study.

ABSTRACT: Prior studies have reported inconsistent findings with regard to the effects of small-group student talk on developing individual students' English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) writing ability. To further explore the question under discussion, we designed a quasi-experimental study that included a pretest, a posttest, and a delayed posttest, and implemented it in two English-major groups at a university in China. We randomly assigned the students to an intervention group and a comparison group to investigate whether employing structured small-group student talk as collaborative prewriting discussions would effectively facilitate individual students' EFL writing development and whether such effects could be retained. The immediate and sustained effects after the quasi-experimental study was completed were measured by the analytic scores on five components of the writing task (content, organization, vocabulary, language, and mechanics) and the holistic writing scores cumulated of all these components. Statistical analyses revealed that the two groups were significantly distinguished by their analytic and holistic scores, indicating that students in the intervention group outperformed their comparison group peers in writing performance. The effects of collaborative prewriting discussions in the form of structured small-group student talk were found statistically significant in facilitating students' writing improvement in the content, organization, vocabulary, and language use, but not mechanics. The effects on content, organization, and vocabulary were retained as seen from the delayed posttest, while those on language use were not. The comparison group showed little improvement in their writing performance across the three tests. We concluded this study with a discussion on the implications for English-as-a-second/foreign-language (L2) writing instruction.

SUBMITTER: Li HH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8162705 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:In previous research, the majority of university students seemed to lack proficiency in many areas of writing (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, organization, and sentence construction). This illustrates the challenging nature of writing (as a skill) and the frequent focus on the product rather than the process of writing instruction. Previous research focused on primary and secondary education; only a few studies investigated and compared the perceptions and self-reported practices of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university instructors in relation to the product- and process-based writing approaches. Therefore, this study aims to examine this issue by surveying Moroccan EFL writing instructors' responses and comparing the findings with those of previous empirical studies from diverse educational levels. The following research questions guided our study: 1) What are the instructors' perceptions of product- and process-based writing? 2) What are their self-reported practices regarding these writing approaches? 3) Is there any alignment between their perceptions and their self-reported practices of product- and process-based writing instruction? For this purpose, a questionnaire was developed to collect data from 51 instructors. Since the questionnaire items regarding perceptions and practices were identical and covered five subscales under the two overall approaches, comparisons could be performed. The findings showed that the instructors agreed on the value of the subscale of Engagement in the writing revision process more than the other subscales. They also indicated that the two subscales of Engagement in the writing revision process and Writing as a final product were their most frequently reported writing practices. Based on the comparison between their perceptions and self-reported practices, consistencies were found in all five subscales. This study not only validated the questionnaire on the two approaches to teaching EFL writing in Moroccan universities but also showed the extent to which instructors' perceptions and self-reported practices matched one another.

Dataset Information

Effects of structured small-group student talk as collaborative prewriting discussions on Chinese university EFL students' individual writing: A quasi-experimental study.

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