The Effects of Collaborative Writing Strategies on Malaysian ESL Learners' Writing Fluency

Abstract

Difficulty in writing can be considered as one of the major common problems in ESL classroom and writing fluency is one of aspects in writing. Therefore, this study was aimed to investigate the effects of collaborative writing strategies on learners' writing fluency and the focus was on word counts, content elaboration and organization of the writing. An action research design was employed in this qualitative study. Ten form five (age 17) secondary school students in Kluang, Johor Malaysia were selected as participants and they were exposed to sequential and parallel collaborative writing strategies for 12 lessons spanning 6 weeks after their first writing task. The final writing task was conducted after the implementation of collaborating strategies .The analysis of their first and final writing tasks was used as the instruments for this study to find out the effects of collaborative writing strategies on learners' writing. The result finding showed the effects of collaborative writing strategies when learners exhibited increment of word counts, enhancement on content elaboration and proper organization of their essays. In short, collaborative writing strategies were undeniably one of the classic yet feasible and interesting strategies that teachers in this 21^st century educational setting could practise to help enhance ESL learners' writing skills.