Publications

Abstract

Individual differences (IDs) play significant role in second language acquisition (SLA) (Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015; Pawlak, 2021; Pawlak & Kruk, 2022), especially when the assessment of learners’ performance is concerned (Pawlak, 2017). In the case of conducting research with collaborative tasks, individual variables such as learners’ engagement in the task and their willingness to communicate (WTC) in an L2 should be considered (Munezane, 2013). The aim of this study was to analyse the impact of (1) WTC, (2) willingness to participate in communicative activities, i.e., interactional mindset (IM), (3) language analytical ability of young learners (YLs) of English as Foreign Language (EFL), and (4) their knowledge of grammar on their collaborative writing task performance. The evolution of these ID factors over time was also examined.

The participants were 67 Basque-Spanish bilingual learners (10-11 years old) from a semi-private school in Spain. Researcher-selected dyads of similar language competence –based on English test scores– engaged in a series of picture-retelling (oral + written) collaborative tasks, over the span of eight weeks. YLs’ individual variables were analysed in order to explore their impact on the written production at two different points in time. The analysis showed how the interplay between the learners’ individual factors might affect their subsequent repeated written collaborative performance.

Keywords: YLs, IDs, WTC, interactional mindset, EFL, language analytical ability