The impact of scaffolding and feedback practices on ESL collaborative writing performance

Abstract

This action research (AR) study explores how various scaffolding and feedback practices impact the writing performance of students writing collaboratively. Sociocultural theory (SCT) was employed as the theoretical framework for the study. Through the assessment of student interactions in two collaborative writing (CW) activities and texts produced collaboratively, the study found that the scaffolding and feedback practices incorporated in the CW activities significantly enhanced the students’ writing performance. The study revealed that the teacher employed eliciting, inferential questioning, hints and correctional feedback to scaffold student writing. Similarly, the students used correctional and validation feedback, prior knowledge links and explanations as scaffolding techniques. The study found that these scaffolding and feedback practices enhanced the students’ CW performance. It was observed that correctional feedback (CF) by both the students and the teacher was the most used and beneficial scaffolding practice to support student writing. This was because it allowed the students to rectify their faulty sentence structures and unclear expressions, and clarify doubts about grammar usage. As both teacher and student scaffolding practices could be effective in supporting student writing, future CW research might consider exploring the most effective scaffolding and feedback practices to facilitate improved ESL writing performance.