Online interaction, emotions, and EFL learners’ grit in collaborative writing

Abstract

This case study addresses both online interaction and the EFL students’ emotions and grit in a collaborative writing project. While benefits of collaborative writing are confirmed in the literature, little is known about learners’ diversified emotions and L2 grit in the process, and the connections between interactions and their affective changes. Via a ten-week online collaborative writing project, two groups (n=6) out of 24 students provided peer feedback and worked together on their collective drafts. An emotion questionnaire and a grit questionnaire elicited the participants’ responses with their posts on emotions. Both groups showed much more positive emotions which may stimulate their motivation for task accomplishment with improved writing performance over time. The two groups demonstrated slight variations on interaction dynamics with mutuality or equality in active participation associated with their perseverance and interest on the writing tasks. Our study is among the first that examined both interactions and grit and emotions in online collaborative writing and shows success in two cases. The collaborative task design provides a chance for mutual scaffolding among peers. Future studies can design online collaborative writing tasks aiming to benefit EFL students’ writing performance while fostering positive feelings and more grit.