Collaborative writing in pairs and small groups: Learners' attitudes and perceptions

This study explored learners' attitudes and perceptions toward collaborative writing in pairs and small groups. Fifty-five intermediate level learners of Spanish as a foreign language were asked to complete a collaborative writing task as part of their classroom activities. Half of them worked in pairs and the other half in groups of four. Afterward, they all received the same post-task questionnaire. Learners' reactions to the collaborative writing experience were overall very positive and only 4 out 55 said they would have preferred to write individually. The learners who wrote in pairs tended to prefer this condition, because it offered more opportunities for active participation. However, those who wrote in groups felt that there were more ideas and knowledge to share, and therefore more possibilities for language development. Most of them saw a positive impact of collaboration on both the grammatical and lexical accuracy of their texts. These learners' perceptions concur with the findings of most previous research on collaborative writing.