USING WIKIS TO DEVELOP WRITING ACADEMIC SKILLS AMONG PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS
Authors: Marina SamalievaKeywords: Wikis,
English for Academic Purposes,
EFL writing,
Collaborative writingAbstract:RACT This study aimed at investigating the effect of using wikis to develop prospective English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' academic writing performance. The eleven participants were third year German/French and English pre-service teachers at Plovdiv University. Students, divided in five groups, designed a wikispace and worked together for fourteen weeks (two hours a week) in order to produce four pieces of academic writing. The student’s members of five groups worked through editing and revision on web pages until the team got final papers of four written pieces and submitted that to the tutor for evaluation. In this study the used instruments included: writing essay pre- and post-test and self-report questionnaire. The data analysis indicate that using the wiki for writing activities made students pay close attention to grammatical correctness and structural coherence. About 73% of the students reported that writing on the wiki made them consider their audience. Their English essay writing mean score of the posttest was higher than that of the pretest. These results revealed the effectiveness of using wikis in developing prospective EFL pre-service teachers' writing performance.
Download article