HOMEPAGE MAKING AND INTERACTION: EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN COLLABORATIVE TASKS ON SOCIAL INTERACTION AND L2 WRITING

Thirty-seven sophomore students at a Japanese university participated in an extensive writing and homepage building task. Three questionnaires were disseminated throughout the study to investigate the students ’ perceptions about their English writing competence. Their in-class interactions were audio- and video recorded, and their writing samples before and after the task were collected. These writing samples were fed into Nation’s (2005) Vocabulary Range Programme to identify the variety in vocabulary use. Focus is made on two groups: the most and the least interactive groups. The questionnaire results indicate that most students perceived collaborative work to be effective in improving their quality of English writing. The video- and audio-recordings revealed how student interaction was largely in L2, but their L2 interaction often reverted to L1 in discussing technology and when a student refused to take part in L2 interactions. The results of the Range Programme showed that both social and non-social groups benefited from the task, suggesting that while interaction is in general beneficial, is not an indispensable factor for those who hold negative perceptions towards group work. Finally, technological component adds extra need for group interaction, but L2 vernacular needs to be introduced first to assure L2 use. (199 words