Computer-Mediated L2 Collaborative Writing: L1 vs. L2 Interaction Effect on Complexity, Accuracy, Fluency (CAF) and Overall Quality of EFL Learners’ Texts

Despite research studies regarding collaborative writing (CW), the effect of using L1 as the medium of collaboration has been underexplored in computer-mediated L2 CW. This study investigated the effect of the language that the learners employed for collaboration (L1 vs. L2) on their L2 texts and examined whether learners participating in online CW using Google Docs produced better subsequent individual L2 texts. Participants consisted of 45 Iranian upper-intermediate English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) male and female learners, with Farsi as their mother tongue and their ages ranging from 19 to 24. They were divided into three groups (two experimental groups and one control group). The essays were analyzed in terms of complexity, accuracy, fluency (CAF), and overall quality of the texts to see which language (L1 or L2) led to superior L2 texts. The researchers employed Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis, and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to analyze the test data. The results showed that collaboratively written L2 texts were superior in terms of accuracy and overall quality compared to those generated by the control group. Furthermore, the L1 group performed better regarding complexity, whereas the L2 interaction group was superior in terms of fluency and overall quality of the texts. Based on the findings, the way collaboration is done may play a more important role than the language utilized for collaboration. The findings promise implications for the use of collaborative-based processes to contribute to EFL learners’ quality writing.