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MPB 1713
Seminar
Annotated Bibliography
Dr. Adlina bte Abdul Samad

Prepared by: Safynaz Kazem Bt. Syed Hamid

MP091195
st
1 September 2010
Franco, (2008). Novitas-Royal; Using Wiki-Based Peer Correction to Develop Writing Sills of Brazillian EFL
Learners. Retrieved on 20th January, 2010 from http://novitasroyal.org/franco.html
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Summation: This paper looks at the use of a wiki and its peer-evaluation possibilities in enhancing
students’ writing skills through collaborative writing. Wiki was used to provide learners with the
appropriate technological functions that would encourage an independent, student centred
approach of language learning. The researcher intends to see whether the use of collaborative
learning method among peers through the use of technology (wiki) would actually help with the
students’ writing skills. The research questions were as follow;

1) Do learners develop their writing skills if cooperative learning strategies were applied into the
digital context namely through wikis?
2) How do learners of English evaluate the process of collaborating in the digital environment to
improve their writing skills?

The researcher found that there was an increasing interest in students wanting to belong to an
online community. Apart from developing better writing skills, it was found that students developed
their social skills in a way that they no longer compete and they begin to cooperate. In terms of
motivation and interest, there was a very positive feedback. It was seen that the students that were
poor in writing were more aware of their mistakes because of peer-correction.

Research Method: This research looks at the production and the interaction among the students of
an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) course within a private wiki site that was designed to cater to
the needs of the students that were mostly an active user of the Internet itself. Both collaborative
learning process approaches to writing and social-cultural approach was made a priority in order to
interpret both students’ participation on wikis and responses from the online questionnaire. Besides
that, the researcher also looked at the writings and the comment posted on the private wiki that
was set up. The tasks and assignments that were given out through the wiki were adapted from the
students’ course book.

Critical Review: The researcher found that more than half of the students would rather write using a
wiki than writing on paper. Many felt that the applications provided by a wiki (especially the peer-
correction) made it more interesting for them thus motivating them to use it further with their
writing. The students claim that wikis are better because their peer could spot and correct their
mistakes for them. The students were very pleased with the wiki because it was not as time
consuming as it would have been to write on paper. Contradicting to that finding, it is found that
nearly half of them resided to drafting on paper before posting it up on the wiki and the researcher
failed to present the reasons to this. A limitation that the research may have not highlighted is that
peer-correction or giving comments may be something new and incomprehensible to certain culture
groups. A tight facilitation also had to be made if the researcher intends to look at the corrections
because students may be correcting wrongly or adding things to the wiki that might not be helpful.
This too has to be made about the comments; are they usable comments or just simply comments to
flatter the author and not actually help with the writing or its production of English. There was also
an interesting number in the results regarding the use of internet because seven out of 18 students
answered that the never used the internet.
Mak, B. & Coniam, D. (2008). Using wikis to enhance and develop writing skills among secondary
school students in Hong Kong. Science Direct.
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Summation: This paper investigates how wikis were used as a collaborative writing platform to
produce a wiki site that describes the different facilities and features of their school. After looking at
how wikis function in terms of editing and revision, the paper describes the process one group of
learners went through. The students’ final draft became a printed brochure of their ‘new’ school to
be distributed to parents. By providing the students with an opportunity to produce something that
is of use in the real world with audience, the paper discusses the place of authentic writing, situated
within the domains of creativity and task-based learning, in a school’s ESL programme. The research
questions were as follow:

1. How students engage in collaborative writing through wikis?

2. What are the effects that wiki-based collaborative writing has on the finished product?

The researcher found that the length of words written by the students increased over phases and
that the students did more than just adding up sentences to their wiki site per visit. They also did
much reorganizing and correcting. It gave the students confidence to be writers and an opportunity
to tap into their creativity for a change.

Research Method: Over a period of two months, as an integral part of their ESL homework, groups
of students designed and put together, through a series of successive drafts, a description of their
secondary school which they had joined from primary school a few months previously. Each group is
responsible for describing a particular facility in or aspect about the school which would be included
in a publicity brochure about the school. The students were put through three different stages
where they were prepared and taught about utilizing the wiki, actually doing their project and
printing and presenting their brochures out to parents. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches
were used to find out the number of writings produced by each student and to see how wikis
allowed them to expand, correct and organize their writing during that duration of time.

Critical Review: It is a task-based approach in writing that can easily be used in a classroom with
easy internet access. The project’s impact could be seen to be significant in two ways. First, the
task’s real outcome (the brochure) boosted students’ confidence as writers that were seen in the
progress of amount of writing that was put in by the students. An interview or a personal survey to
ask about this matter would have been interesting to really see how the students reacted to the task
given. Second, it tapped students’ creative skills, which is generally not a major concern of ESL
teachers or students. This in itself is an interesting point of view usually neglected by ESL teachers as
some are too exam-oriented. The fact that students had to consider a specific audience (their
parents) resulted in them being creative in ways that would never have occurred to them had they
been merely writing ‘compositions’. Engaging in collaborative work in writing is generally rare since
writing tends to be something that students do on their own. The emphasis placed on peer review
was therefore a new, but yet rewarding, experience for the students.
Liang, M. (2010). Language Learning & Technology: Using Synchronous Online Peer Response Groups in EFL
Writing: Revision-Related Discourse. Retrieved on 5th February, 2010 from
http://llt.msu.edu/vol14num1/liang.pdf
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Summation: This article describes a study of synchronous online interaction among the small peer
groups in a Taiwanese undergraduate EFL writing class. This research was looking at the students’
online discourse in two writing task showed that meaning negotiation, error correction, and
technical actions seldom occurred and that social talk, task management, and content discussion
pre-dominated the chat. The researcher intended to see if the two writing tasks promoted different
types of discourse within the progress of the work. The research questions were as follow:

1. What are the different types of interaction in synchronous online L2 discourse?

2. How does synchronous online peer revision-related discourse facilitate subsequent writing
and revision?

It was found that in terms of revision-related discourse, meaning negotiation and error correction
were less frequent than content discussion and task management. This study also found that
students could co-construct meaning and content while enjoying social talk in dynamic Internet
discourse. The researcher argued that the cause of this may be that synchronous online
conferencing does not allow time for correcting errors or clarifying meanings in writing as compared
to other forms of electronic peer response, such as peer comments on blogs and Word documents.

Research Method: Students participated in synchronous online peer response sessions in a

computer lab during the class time as part of the class requirement. They were placed in three
groups. The online sessions offered students opportunities to discuss and review peer drafts at
different stages of the writing process (Prewriting & Drafting, Revising & Editing, Presentation &
Submission) via MSN Messenger and blogs.

Critical Reflection: Using peer response groups in EFL writing enables students to collaboratively
brainstorm, share and review text. On the other hand, there are possible reasons why synchronous
online peer response groups might be fun but not very effective. Revision-related online discourse in
small-group synchronous writing task can provide potentially useful pedagogical insight and tools for
the teaching of writing. The use of instant messaging is not enough to provide the environment of
peer-correction as well as discussion on the context. The use of collaborative activities such as this is
not only to see ideas merge together but also to let students correct own mistakes and other. This
state of awareness will guide students in remembering and avoiding the mistakes to reoccur the
next time. A suitable web facility that provides an opportunity of both peer-correction and review
would be Wikis. Various wikis provides users the opportunity to post up their writing work and also
post threads that could intentionally be used as a synchronous online peer response application. By
giving a task that would direct them more towards the awareness of the language use rather than
content wise would help in teaching them the grammar functions as well as writing skills.
Incorporating technological application will still be an eye opener to students as long as teachers are
constantly aware of the purpose of the digital context. If the use of technology is only for the sake of
the technology then the learning does not happen, and it might be fun but not very effective.
Lin, H. (2005). Online Collaborative Writing with Wiki Technology: A Pilot Study. Department of
Applied Foreign Languages, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
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Summation: The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of using Wiki technology to
assist collaborative writing among college EFL learners. Data were collected through both qualitative
and quantitative approaches, including surveys, interviews, online discussions, learning logs, and the
reflective diary from the researchers. The research objectives were as follow:

1. to explore the relationship between language learning and the uses of Wiki to further reveal
the technology’s strengths and weaknesses.
2. to examine the effectiveness of using Wiki technology to assist collaborative writing among
college EFL learners.

The major findings of this study indicated that collaborative writing serves to improve writing ability,
foster contribution to peers, raise awareness of the forms and functions of English. And one further
significant finding revealed that lower-lever students can be empowered to learn and contribute
even more through Wikis.

Research Method: The pilot study was carried on for 8 weeks to two groups of 20 students majoring
in Applied Linguistics. None of the participants were familiar to the wiki usage at the beginning of
the course. A Wiki-based Website was created for this research from a free Wiki hosting service. The
participants were given a questionnaire at the end of the course to evaluate their overall satisfaction
about their collaborative writing tasks and before their grades were given out, another survey was
done to see their overall satisfaction of learning effectiveness and learning conditions.

Critical Review: The major findings of this study indicated that collaborative writing with Wiki
assisted language learning environment serves to improve writing ability, foster contribution to
peers, raise awareness of the forms and functions of English. And one further significant finding
revealed that lower level students can be empowered to learn and contribute even more through
Wikis. Though it was only a pilot study, the chances are that using wikis in collaborative writing
classes are not just limited to proficient language users as the researcher stated that it can
encourage. This in itself gives light to further researches that can be done to test this hypothesis.