Using Wikis To Develop Summary Writing Abilities Of Students In An EFL Class

Abstract

The research studied and compared students’ English summary writing ability before and after they were taught through wiki, a powerful tool, promoting collaborative learning environments among students.  The research design is a kind of one group pre-test post-test.  The target group was 35 students who enrolled in EN 111 course (Fundamental English I) in the first semester of the academic year 2010 at Bangkok University. Students in groups of four or five designed a wikispace and worked together for eight weeks in order to produce five pieces of summary written work. The members in each group worked through editing and revision on web pages until the team got a final paper and submitted that to the teacher for evaluation. The instruments used in this study included (1) summary writing tests, (2) a questionnaire surveying their attitudes toward this instruction, and (3) a reflection on cooperative learning through wikis. The results revealed that after the students were taught through wikis pages, their English summary writing mean score of the posttest was higher than that of the pretest and they had positive attitudes towards this learning. Regarding cooperative learning experience, most students thought that this is a new experience to work with the members on-line. They worked very hard; it took many times to read and reread the members’ postings in order to add new information.