Comparison of Different Types of Writing and Individual, Pair, and Group Work on English Writing Tasks

This study investigated the effects of different types of student grouping on their English writing. 37 students who took ‘Basic English Composition’ class participated in the study. The data collection consisted of a survey with closed and open-ended questions, and an individual interview with a selected group of students. The survey questionnaire was analyzed through descriptive statistics with closed-ended questions and content analysis with open-ended questions. The class observation and the transcript of the students’ interview were examined by constant comparison. First, the researcher found that students considered ‘opinion’ writing the most difficult while ‘narrative’ writing the easiest one: however, they also reported that ‘opinion’ writing was the most enjoyable because they enjoyed the challenge of doing more research and expressing their own ideas logically. In addition, nearly half of the students preferred individual work to pair work or group work because they thought their writing skills were improved more while working independently: pair work was their second choice, followed by group work. However, many students also recognized the positive effect of collaborative writing as they could share ideas and receive feedback from other students even though some reservations were also identified. Pedagogical implications drawing on the findings were discussed.