The Effect of Collaborative Writing on EFL Students’ Grammatical Accuracy

Abstract

Writing is considered as an activity which is done individually and the role of thumb for its feedback is thought to be provided by teachers and instructors. Although there has been a growing body of research on using pair and small group activities in second or foreign language learning in relation to oral skill (e.g. Speaking), on writing there are only a few well-documented researches. This research describes a study exploring the effect of collaborative writing on EFL student’s grammatical accuracy in their writing. A total of 50 Iranian Advanced students of English all male and with the age range of 20 to 24 participated in this study. The subjects were engaged in tasks in which they worked on each other’s writing and gave feedback on grammatical points to each other. Obtaining corrective feedback from their fellows, enabled students to pinpoint their grammatical errors better and subsequently improve their grammatical accuracy in their upcoming writings. The results suggest that collaborative writing (CW) is beneficial in allowing EFL learners to make gain in grammatical accuracy.