Effects of paired writing on Hong Kong ESL students' writing motivation and performance

Abstract

The present study is to evaluate the effects of Paired Writing on both tutors’ (high-ability Paired Writers’) and tutees’ (low-ability Paired Writers’) writing performance and motivation to write, in terms of self-efficacy and intrinsic interest, while controlling for the instructional procedures and teachers’ effect. Participants were 143 secondary one students of a local secondary school. The results showed that Paired Writers outperformed the individual writers after the intervention and made significant improvement in grammar. Regarding the effects on tutors and tutees, tutors performed significantly better than high-ability individual writers, especially in relevancy & clarity and creativity; whereas tutees made significant improvement in grammar only. Additionally, tutors had significant gain in self-efficacy following the intervention in comparison with high-ability individual writers.