The impact of collaborative learning on L1 and L2 college students' apprehension about and attitudes toward writing

Writing apprehension has always been considered a serious obstacle for L1 and L2 teachers and students alike and, in most cases, it could impede students' language learning. Accordingly, a considerable number of students develop a great concern about and negative attitudes toward writing, and avoid situations where writing is required. The treatment procedure employed in this study, which was assumed to reduce students' writing apprehension, was a collaborative approach to learning. In this approach student writers work collaboratively in groups to explore, analyze, and negotiate meaning and solve problems in a non-threatening atmosphere. Therefore, this study was intended to investigate the impact of collaborative learning on L1 and L2 college students' apprehension about and attitudes toward writing.; Three hundred forty nine L1 students and 12 L1 writing teachers, and 77 L2 students and 3 L2 writing teachers participated in this study. Both L1 and L2 Students responded to the Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test twice, once as a pretest and another time as a posttest. The purpose was to find whether students' levels of writing apprehension decreased from the pretest to the posttest. Both L1 and L2 teachers responded to two questionnaires, the Composition Opinionnaire and the Writing Course Activity Questionnaire. The purpose was to investigate the relationship between collaborative learning and teacher's attitudes on the one hand, and a reduction in students' writing apprehension and a change in their attitudes toward writing after having taken a writing course on the other.; The result showed that students' writing apprehension had decreased significantly from the pretest to the posttest. Additionally, their attitudes toward writing had positively changed from the pre to the posttest. The findings also revealed significant differences between L1 and L2 students in terms of the levels of their writing apprehension. Significant relationships were found between collaborative learning and a reduction in L1 writing apprehension as well as a change in writing attitudes. Such correlations did not exist regarding L2 students. Significant correlations were also found between teachers, attitudes and collaborative learning in both L1 and L2 samples. However, the findings revealed no significant gender differences in apprehension.