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Article published In:
Language Teaching for Young Learners
Vol. 2:1 (2020) ► pp.73–100

Collaborative writing and feedback

An exploratory study of the potential of models in primary EFL students’ writing performance

| Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
| Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea

Research on collaborative writing and models as a form of written corrective feedback has been conducted with adult participants but research with children is scarce despite the growth of early EFL learning in school settings in the past twenty years. The aim of the present exploratory study was to analyze what EFL primary school children noticed and incorporated during a three-stage task and completed in collaboration. The participants were 12 children (11–12 years old) divided into a treatment group, which received a model, and a control group, which self-edited their texts. The findings showed that what children noticed at Stage 1 were mostly grammar LREs, whereas at Stage 2 both groups focused most of their attention on content and lexical LREs, with statistically significant differences between the treatment group and the control group. Significant differences were also found between Stage 1 and 3 regarding lexical LREs in the treatment group. Pedagogical recommendations will also be discussed in light of these findings.

Keywords: collaborative writing, feedback, models, EFL, primary school children
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Young learners and corrective feedback
    • 2.2Written corrective feedback and models
  • 3.Research questions
  • 4.The study
    • 4.1Context and participants
    • 4.2Tasks and procedures
    • 4.3Analysis
    • 4.4Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 March 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ltyl.19007.luq
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