COLLABORATIVE WRITING IN SECONDARY SCHOOL ESL CLASSROOMS: STUDENT AND TEACHER PERCEPTIONS

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the attitudes of secondary school students, and English teachers towards collaborative writing in the ESL classrooms in Munshiganj District, Bangladesh. Questionnaires and open-ended responses were used to gather data from 80 students and 18 teachers. Collaborative writing practices, perceived benefits, classroom support, challenges, and preferred writing arrangements were explored. The results indicate that the writing process experience of collaborative writing is familiar to most of the students, as 78.7% indicated that they sometimes used the writing process experience that involved the collaboration of classmates. Students’ preference was group or pair writing and the advantages teachers reported were those of idea generation, peer support, language development, confidence and engagement. But not enough training, not enough time, not enough participation, shyness and noise in the classroom were listed as significant challenges. In general, the results indicate that collaborative writing can be used as a help for secondary ESL learners if the writing tasks are structured, the roles are determined, the teacher is able to provide monitoring and guidance, and the learners can see the difference between their own and the other group's contributions.