Collaborative Written Feedback Experience: a Case Study of Indonesian EFL Students in an Essay Writing Class

Implementing collaborative written feedback instruction is a way to develop students' awarenes of writing as a process, the benefits of peer review and feedback, and the important roles of peer interaction for learning. The current research aimed at understanding students' experiences of providing and responding to written feedback in group. It specifically sought to answer these questions: 1.) What are students' perceptions toward collaborative written feedback experience? 2) What are students' collaborative written feedback practices? and 3). What factors affect students' collaborative written feedback experience? Conducted as a qualitative case study, the research reported the collaborative written feedback experiences of a group of three undergradutae EFL students in Essay Writing course. Data were drawn from observations, focus group interview, student reflective essay, and collection of related documents and artifacts. The findings show that students have positive perceptions toward collaborative written feedback instruction citing that it helps them improve their writing and develop their interpersonal skills. The study also reveals that changing roles in the group and the use of media paltform to communicate are among the strategies employed in collaborative written feedback practices. Factors such as peer's characteristics, level of confidence and task seemed to have affected these practices. Suggestions on the ways in which collaborative written feedback instruction can be implemented effectively are also provided.


INTRODUCTION
English academic writing is an integral part of academic life of students who particularly major in English language. It is the main way lecturers use to assess the VWXGHQWV ¶ NQRZOHGJH FRPSHWHQFH DQG SHUIRUPDQFH 7DQJ :KHQ WDNLQJ courses, for example, lecturers usually assign students with written assignment or tasks, be it an essay, a paper, a proposal, or even a thesis. To perform such tasks well, students must be able to develop thorough and justified arguments in the manners that meet the rules or conventions of the language. To put it in other words, writing well in English means being able to produce a text with good unity, coherence, and cohesion while conforming to the grammatical and syntactical rules as well as the mechanics of ZULWLQJ 7KXV VDLG VWXGHQWV ¶ JRRG FRPPDQG LQ DFDGHPLF ZULWLQJ LV RQH RI WKH parameters that determine success in their study.
Such tasks as mentioned above are especially challenging for students in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) higher education context because English is not the language with which they are familiar (Celce-Murcia, 2001;Richard & Renandya, 2002). This situation has urged writing teachers or instructors to implement various writing instructions to assist students to write in English better. Advocated by theories such as sociocultural theory (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006;Vygotsky, 1978), interaction hypothesis (Long, 1996) and output hypothesis (Swain, 2000), one such instruction is collaborative writing. When used in class, collaborative writing instruction requires students to write together with their peers either in pairs or in groups (Storch, 2013).
Collaborative writing especially in L2 (English is additional language) context has been researched quite extensively either in the classroom or online mode of learning. 5HVHDUFKHUV IRFXVHG WKHLU LQYHVWLJDWLRQV RQ LWV HIIHFWLYHQHVV WRZDUG VWXGHQWV ¶ ZUiting TXDOLW\ VWXGHQWV ¶ SHUFHSWLRQV UHJDUGLQJ LWV EHQHILWV DQG FKDOOHQJHV LQIOXHQWLDO IDFWRUV as well as group dynamic during collaborative writing activities (e.g., Fernández Dobao, 2012; Mutwarasibo, 2013;Pathinathan & Yong, 2012). Among other findings, these studies present evidence that L2 collaborative writing affords learners with opportunities to develop their English oral as well as written skills by interacting with one another to discuss and negotiate ideas (Storch, 2013;. In addition, a study by Fernández Dobao (2012) showed that students perceived working collaboratively in small groups more effective than in pairs arguing that more members meant more ideas to share. They reported that this led to more opportunities to use the target language. Research conducted by Pathinathan and Yong (2012) and  also add support to L2 collaborative writing in that in addition to language OHDUQLQJ FROODERUDWLYH ZULWLQJ DOVR KDV LQIOXHQFHV RQ VWXGHQWV ¶ DIIHFWLYH VNLOOV Specifically, it allowed learners to increase their confidence to contribute to the group and develop their social or interpersonal skills including being responsible, openminded, and respectful.
Nonetheless, while writing (and thus reviewing it) individually might require one to utilize his or her own knowledge and skill, writing collaboratively compel writers to negotiate ideas and come to an agreement (Storch, 2013). This process of collaborative writing might be challenging as conflicts due to individual differences possibly occur. /HDUQHUV ¶ OHDUQLQJ VW\OHV DQG WKHLU OHYHO RI (QJOLVK ODQJXDJH SURILFLHQF\ PLJKW HLWKHU promote or inhibit learning through collaboration Mutwarasibo, 2013; 6WRUFK 7KXV VWXGHQWV ¶ IDPLOLDULW\ WR FROODERUDWLYH ZULWLQJ DFWLYLWLHV LV NH\ WR LWV effective implementation (Storch, 2013).
In essence, peer feedback is a form of collaborative act as it involves collaboration between two or more individuals. Feedback from and to peers has also characterized collaborative writing activities. It is one of the writing stages the students must do when they produce a piece of writing together as a group. Nevertheless, the previous body of research has examined collaborative writing as a whole writing process (i.e., from the beginning stage of collaboration until the text is produced). Moreover, these studies were mostly conducted in L1 or ESL settings. Little has been done to explore specifically the ways in which students provide and respond to feedback on the collaboratively produced writing (henceforth called collaborative written feedback), particularly in EFL higher education context. To bridge these research gaps, this study repoUWHG WHUWLDU\ ()/ VWXGHQWV ¶ SHUFHSWLRQV WRZDUG FROODERUDWLYH ZULWWHQ IHHGEDFN WKH ways in which they went about the collaborative written feedback experiences, and factors that influenced their meaning making of these experiences.
Despite the benefits claimed by the research above, many teachers particularly in EFL writing context are still hesitant to implement peer feedback in their classes (Yu & Lee, $PRQJVW WKH FLWHG FRQFHUQV DUH VWXGHQWV ¶ (QJOLVK ODQJXDJH SURILFLHQF\ WKHLU limited knowledge about writing and lack of feedback skills that could prevent them from giving useful feedback to their peers (Burkert & Wally, 2013;Hu & Lam, 2010;Hyland & Hyland, 2006;Yu & Hu, 2016). Furthermore, there are also worries about whether peer feedback can be embraced by lower and higher English language proficiency learners. These lead to more research conducted to find out factors that affect peer feedback activities and its effectiveness toward student learning and writing.
The literatures surveyed above indicate that writing collaboratively is beneficial for L2 OHDUQHUV DQG WKDW SURYLGLQJ IHHGEDFN WR RQH DQRWKHU ¶V ZULWLQJ DIIRrds those learners more opportunities for language learning and writing development. Nevertheless, the fact that teachers still have concerns regarding the effective implementation of peer feedback and that evidence is limited to peer feedback conducted on LQGLYLGXDO ¶V ZRUN the claim made in the current study is that more research is needed to investigate peer feedback in various contexts and classroom settings. Additionally, an in-depth XQGHUVWDQGLQJ RQ ()/ OHDUQHUV ¶ SHHU IHHGEDFN H[SHULHQFH ZKHQ SURYLGLQg and responding feedback to writing that results from group collaboration may provide sound evidence on the ways in which peer feedback can be further explored for more learning  (Yin, 2014). The bounded case presented here was collaborative written practices and perceptions of one collaborative group in a-one semester EFL Essay Writing class.

Research context and participants
As part of a larger study on collaborative written feedback in an EFL class, this research was conducted in a teacher training institution of a state university in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The study involved eighteen third semester student-teachers majoring in English language education enrolled in the Essay Writing class. Their ages ranged from 18 to 23 years old and only three of them were male. Based on the results of TOEFLlike placement test administered at the beginning of their study, the majority of these students can be categorized into low to high intermediate level of English language proficiency.
Essay Writing was one of the compulsory subjects for bachelor degree completion in the department. Before taking Essay Writing, these students have passed two prerequisite writing subjects offered earlier, that is, Writing for General Communication and Paragraph Writing. Essay Writing was a two-credit course and comprised of 100 minute-weekly meeting. In total, there were 16 meetings in one semester including mid term and final exam.
In general, the participants were used to doing pair or group work in their courses and giving feedback to their peers. However, at the time the study was conducted, none of them had experienced writing and doing peer feedback collaboratively as a group. During the semester, the students were assigned to write four types of essay collaboratively in pairs and in small self-formed groups and due to time constraints, they were allowed to finish the writing outside the class. The instructor allocated some time in between the writing assignments of different types of essay to train students how to do peer feedback across pairs or groups. The instructor provided guidelines and explanation on how and what to focus when students did collaborative written feedback activities. The students also went through different designs of collaborative written feedback tasks. The one reported here was when all groups posted their group writing on the wall and they took turn to evaluate and provide feedback collaboratively on other JURXSV ¶ ZULWLQJ 7KHUH ZHUH VL[ JURXSV RI WKUHH VWXGHQWV LQ WKH FODVV EXW WKH FXUUHQW UHSRUW IRFXVHG RQO\ RQ RQH JURXS ¶V FROODERUDWLYH ZULWWHQ IHHGEDFN SHUFHSWLRQV DQG experiences. The group consisted of one male and two female students of slightly different English language proficiency. To maintain the confidentiality of the research participants, they were presented using pseudonyms: Ijul, (male, 20), Soraya (female, 19), and Krisda (female, 18).

Data collection and analysis
Data for this research were collected through classroom observation, group interviews, reflective essays, and document and artifact collection. The classroom observation took place during the semester and data were recorded through field notes and documentDWLRQ RI FODVV DUWLIDFWV LPDJHV DQG VWXGHQWV ¶ WH[WV $GGLWLRQDOO\ IRFXV JURXS LQWHUYLHZV ZHUH KHOG RQFH DW WKH HQG RI WKH VHPHVWHU WR REWDLQ GDWD DERXW VWXGHQWV ¶ perceptions and the ways they made meaning of their collaborative written feedback experience in the Essay Writing class. Using a semi-structured interview guided by several main questions (Marshall & Rossman, 2011), the participants were interviewed in groups in which they used to work together during the collaborative written feedback activities. The researcher herself conducted the interviews which were audio-recorded and then transcribed verbatim. The interviews were held for 30 to 45 minutes for each group and the language mostly used in the interviews was English. However, the participants were free to respond in English, Indonesian, Malay, or a combination of these languages. Furthermore, to triangulate the data collection and analysis, the UHVHDUFKHU DOVR FROOHFWHG VWXGHQWV ¶ UHIOHFWLYH HVVD\V RQ WKHLU FROODERUDWLYH ZULWWHQ feedback experience, sample of their collaborative work, and classroom artifacts.
Furthermore, qualitative data analysis was employed in the study in which the researcher coded, explained, understood, and interpreted the data that has been collected. The process also involved simultaneous coding of raw data, reorganization, categorization into themes, as well as comparison of information (Creswell, 2014) LGHDV WKDW KH DQG KLV SHHUV could share also resonate with his other group member, Krisda. Krisda stated that with more minds working on a project, there were likely more ideas and varieties of perspeFWLYHV ZKLFK FRXOG SUHYHQW WKHP IURP JHWWLQJ ZULWHU ¶V EORFN 5HIOHFWLYH HVVD\ In addition to diversity of opinions, Krisda added in her note that numerous writers mean better division of labor and multiple proofreaders. This goes in line with the benefit of working collaboratively which offers opportunities to pool knowledge from wider sources, that is peers in the group (Fernandez Dobao, 2012;Shehadeh, 2011, Storch, 2013 Writing is supposed to be purposeful in way that it should meet the needs of targeted audience. Having peers who could help identify mistakes in a piece of writing and assist with ways to revise it equal to having projected readers (Storch, 2013) and this may LQFUHDVH OHDUQHU ¶V DZDUHQHVV RI DXGLHQFH McAllister, 2005). Ijul, Soraya, and Krisda all agreed in the group interview that collaborative written feedback activities affected their own writing and thinking skills. They stated that providing and responding to feedback collaboratively had built their awareness to think more carefully when writing in order to avoid mistakes, for example related to parallel structure, mechanics of writing, and inappropriate use of transition words. improve their essay writing skill and to work with others well. These positive findings yielded more implementation of collaborative written feedback instruction especially in EFL writing context.

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While the participants in this class were assigned the same types of tasks when doing collaborative written feedback activities in class, they seem to have displayed various strategies or ways to work on the tasks. The most noticeable strategies that the studHQWV ¶ employed when doing collaborative written feedback activities were proofreading all sections and discussing feedback together as a group from beginning to end. They also GLVFXVVHG DQG YHULILHG ZKDW DQG KRZ WR UHVSRQG WR RWKHUV ¶ IHHGEDFN RQ WKHLU JURXp writing together. In addition, since sometimes these students had to continue working outside the class, they tackled difficulties to maintain contact by creating group chat on various platforms such as Line and BBM. Finally, the ways in which the participants went about the collaborative written feedback was visible from the types of feedback WKH\ SURYLGHG RQ RWKHU JURXSV ¶ HVVD\V $OO WKHVH SUDFWLFHV DUH HYLGHQW LQ WKH FDVH RI ,MXO 6RUD\D DQG .ULVGD ¶V JURXS DV GLVFXVVHG EHORZ First, while the participants occasionally divided jobs to write a specific part of an essay (Lai, 2011) on individual basis and later to be discussed together as a group, they approached the collaborative written feedback quite differently. Ijul, Soraya, and Krisda asserted that they went about proofreading, reviewing, and providing feedback collaboratively without labor divisions. They all worked at the same time, paying attention to various aspects of writing including the content, organization, grammar, and mechanics of writing. In other words, they did not assign members a specific element of ZULWLQJ WR ZRUN RQ LQGLYLGXDOO\ (DFK PHPEHU DWWHPSWHG WR UHYLHZ RWKHUV ¶ HVVD\V ZKLOH at the same time discussed the appropriate feedback they should give. Soraya contends, ³:H GLGQ ¶W GLYide the job, we just read the writing together, step by step. Then, we were OLNH RK WKLV LV ZURQJ WKLV LV FRUUHFW :H GLVFXVVHG WRJHWKHU´ )RFXVHG JURXS LQWHUYLHZ /LNHZLVH ,MXO VXSSRUWHG 6RUD\D ¶V VWDWHPHQW VD\LQJ ³:H GRQ ¶W KDYH SULRU agreement so wH MXVW VHH RWKHU JURXS ¶V ZULWLQJ DQG ILQG ZKDWHYHU PLVWDNHV ZH FDQ ILQG´ )RFXVHG JURXS LQWHUYLHZ 0RUHRYHU WKH UHVHDUFKHU ¶V REVHUYDWLRQ DOVR FRQILUPHG WKDW these three participants engaged themselves in peer reviewing collaboratively in that each had hiV RU KHU RZQ SHQ WU\LQJ WR HYDOXDWH WKH RWKHU JURXSV ¶ HVVD\V WRJHWKHU DQG talked to one another to discuss their thoughts (10/04/17/ Fieldnotes).
The next strategy that the students utilized to approach collaborative written feedback tasks especially when they had to continue working outside the class was by chatting through BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). As elicited in the interview, Ijul, Soraya, and Krisda stated that since they had different agenda and that they lived far away from one another, they agreed to create a BBM group chat to facilitate dialogues and FROODERUDWLRQ 6RUD\D DQG . Overall, the group whose members were Ijul, Soraya, and Krisda had experienced collaborative written feedback activities by deploying various strategies based on common goals. Such strategies include addressing all elements of essay writing, creating BBM chat group to bridge communication when working outside the class, providing direct and indirect feedback, and motivating their peers through positive feedback. 7KH ODVW PDMRU IDFWRU DIIHFWLQJ VWXGHQWV ¶ H[SHULHQFHV LQ FROODERUDWLYH ZULWWHQ IHHGEDFN is the types of task they were assigned to do. In the assigned tasks reported, the students were required to post thHLU JURXS ¶V ZULWLQJ RQ WKH ZDOO DQG WKHQ WR FLUFXODWH LQ WKH URRP ZKLOH SURRIUHDGLQJ DQG JLYLQJ IHHGEDFN WR VHYHUDO RWKHU JURXSV ¶ ZULWLQJ :KLOH VXFK collaborative written feedback activities might be beneficial in that learners could give and receive meaningful feedback from their peers on their writing, time could hinder learners from performing as expected. Ijul, Soraya, and Krisda also expressed this concern that they often time could not provide much feedback due to running out of time (Focused group interview; Classroom observation). Although this did not happen WR ,MXO ¶V JURXS LW FDQ EH UHSRUWHG KHUH WKDW DIWHU WKH WDVNV ZHUH DVVLJQHG WR VWXGHQWV more then once, some of the students seemed unenthusiastic to perform the tasks.

)DFWRUV $IIHFWLQJ 6WXGHQWV ¶ Collaborative Written Feedback Experience
To conclude, the major IDFWRUV WKDW FRQWULEXWHG WR VWXGHQWV ¶ H[SHULHQFHV LQ FROODERUDWLYH written feedback reported in this study were individual characteristics, perceived level of English proficiency, and task types.

CONCLUSION
Making students aware that writing is a process that requires them to pay attention to writing rules and convention is important to improve the quality of their writing. Classroom instructions that require students to proofread, edit, review, and revise their writing are crucial. In order to promote these skills, students could be encouraged to accomplish them together with their peers as advocated by peer feedback supporters. Relying on the unique experiences of one EFL Essay writing class, the findings of the research could not be generalized to other larger context. Nevertheless, they can serve as sound evidence of the benefits or drawbacks of collaborative written feedback instruction when implemented in EFL writing classes.