Collaborative writing and patterns of interaction in young learnersThe interplay between pair dynamics and pairing method in LRE production

  1. Basterrechea, María 1
  2. Gallardo-del-Puerto, Francisco 2
  1. 1 Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU
  2. 2 Universidad de Cantabria
    info

    Universidad de Cantabria

    Santander, España

    ROR https://ror.org/046ffzj20

Journal:
VIAL, Vigo international journal of applied linguistics

ISSN: 1697-0381

Year of publication: 2023

Issue: 20

Pages: 49-76

Type: Article

DOI: 10.35869/VIAL.V0I20.4354 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: VIAL, Vigo international journal of applied linguistics

Sustainable development goals

Abstract

A considerable body of research within the Socio-cultural theory (Lantolf & Appel, 1994) examines how learners express their linguistic gaps verbally, or question their own or others’ language use when writing collaboratively, i.e., produce Languagerelated episodes (LREs; Swain & Lapkin, 1998). Several studies have also explored the effect that different patterns of interaction (Storch, 2002) have on the production of LREs with adult learners (e.g., Mozaffari, 2017; Storch & Aldosari 2013), but little research has compared the effect of these patterns of interaction and pair formation method (i.e., student-selected and proficiency-matched) on young EFL learners’ ability to attend to language, and much less on the type of grammatical features they focus on in LREs. This study examines young EFL learners’ (aged 10-12) production of LREs and pair dynamics in student-selected vs. proficiency-matched groups while completing a collaborative writing task. It was found that young EFL learners mainly exhibit a collaborative type of dynamics and resolved more LREs accurately, together with expert-novice groups. Matched proficiency was more beneficial, as these groups produced more target-like LREs. As per the type of form-focused LREs produced, these young learners focused primarily on spelling issues and less on grammatical knowledge-induced ones.

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