The effects of wiki-based collaborative writing on Hong Kong primary students' English writing development

Abstract

In the Hong Kong educational context, collaboration and information technology skills are two of the core advocated generic skills in the English language curriculum in the 21st century (Curriculum Development Council, 2004). As noted in the curriculum document (2004), one of the overall aims of the language curriculum is “To enable every learner to prepare for the changing socio-economic demands resulting from advances in information technology...” (p.11). However, in Hong Kong as a rather traditional educational context, integration of IT into writing instruction is generally not in full swing. All these gave insight to this research study as ‘The effects of wiki-based collaborative writing on Hong Kong primary students' English writing development’.

The research study is one of the few local studies on the use of a wiki for students’ English writing development. It sheds light on both students’ writing product and process as student interaction in the wiki. The findings of this study illustrate that wiki-based collaborative writing is conducive to local primary school students’ ESL/EFL writing development, and student interaction positively impacts on their wiki writing products. It also illuminates on particular appealing student interaction rarely discussed in other studies on wiki use for ESL/EFL writing learning.