Peer-interaction patterns in a Chinese as a foreign language pair writing task
A conversation analytical perspective
Research on peer interaction patterns over the past three decades has provided insights regarding how
relationships formed among peers can influence task performance. Six pairs of intermediate Chinese learners participating in a
collaborative writing task were recruited, and their pair-interaction patterns were investigated for detailed evidence of how such
patterns were constructed through their co-participation measured by two indices proposed by Storch (2002a), equality and mutuality. Furthermore, taking a Conversation Analytical (CA) perspective, this study
also examined the fine-grained detail of several interactional practices displaying participants’ orientation to the peer
relationship. This revealed that each pair displayed a distinctive interaction pattern that was constructed through diverse
participatory practices which are contingent upon the ongoing interaction as it unfolds. The findings shed new light into
analyzing pair interactions in collaborative writing from a CA perspective in CFL settings and have important implications for
studying interaction patterns and implementing collaborative writing tasks.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Literature review
- Benefits of collaborative writing
- Analysis of peer interaction pattern
- Methods
- Participants
- Materials and procedures
- Data coding and analysis
- Results
- Research question 1: How differently are interaction patterns exhibited by dyads in terms of equality and mutuality?
- Research question 2: How are low/high equality and mutuality constructed through peer interactions?
- High equality
- Low equality
- High mutuality
- Low mutuality
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Notes
-
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