FOSTERING LANGUAGE LEARNER AUTONOMY THROUGH INTERDEPENDENCE: THE POWER OF WIKIS

Year 2021, Volume: 22 Issue: 1, 194 - 208, 31.12.2020

Shirin Sadaghıan Susan Marandı

https://doi.org/10.17718/tojde.849907

Cited By: 2

Abstract

The present study reports on a collaborative writing project initiated and completed by 18 Iranian English
language learners enrolled in an online writing course. Using a wiki as the core element of the project, the
aim of the course was fostering learner autonomy in online settings based on the collaborative autonomous
language learning framework proposed by Kessler and Bikowski (2010). The outcome of collaborative
writing project was a text created in a wiki, which was manually analyzed from the very beginning of
writing to the final revisions and reflections to find autonomous alterations made by student writers. The
findings of the study revealed student-writers’ autonomous contributions in the form of alterations to the
text which were accomplished interdependently with peers through alterations such as commenting as an
instance of scaffolding to reach a shared goal. Other types of autonomous alterations such as adding new
information; deleting existing information; correction of information; clarification; synthesis; and reflection were
observed in the final product. Frequent occurrence of peer correction with regard to content and form was
a discriminating finding of the current study. Also, despite the initial goal which was completion of the
project exclusively by learners, teacher intervention was witnessed throughout the process. To study the role
of teacher in depth, a semi-structured interview about the roles of a teacher in a collaborative autonomous
learning was conducted. The data from the interview went through a manual thematic analysis to find the
themes related to the learners’ perceptions of teacher’s roles. The findings revealed a need for a teacher as a
facilitator and resource, which highlighted students’ demands for motivation and content knowledge from
teacher in an autonomous contribution to completing a collaborative project.

Keywords

Learner autonomy, collaborative writing, wiki,, online education, interdependence.

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