April 2012 Volume 15 Number 2 - Educational Technology & Society

their self-esteem to be partners in collaborative work with others.
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The instructor allows students to choose the piece of the activity he or she wants to contribute towards. In intra-group
work, the approach of having students choose sub-task(s) themselves can provide opportunities for giving full play to
their specific knowledge and skills. Volunteerism becomes quite natural for a mature group, in which all the students
have known how to do collaborative work.
In the comprehension of a piece of text, the instructor poses comprehension questions or tasks in the public space.
The instructor can also pose new vocabulary for the students to further explore. Students choose the question or task
they are interested in, and work on them.
4. DEMOCRATIZING KNOWLEDGE
Everyone in a group has a right to and can contribute to the group’s cognition and to producing the group
artifacts. The group task should not be dominated by one or two members.
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The group task, including several sub-tasks, should be designed with different difficulty levels, and it is necessary to
make sure that the task cannot be completed independently by one or two group members in a short time. Thus each
student must do their part in completing the task, regardless of their second language proficiency.
In learning new vocabulary, the instructor designs a template, which is uploaded as the background organizer in the
group space for the students to collaboratively complete their task of learning about the target vocabulary words.
The subtasks may include explaining the meaning of the word, giving a few homophones or similar characters as the
main character of the word, word formation, etc. After posting their own contributions, individual students need to
evaluate and organize their information within the group. Different groups are in charge of different vocabulary
words, so that all students can learn more words by doing a gallery walk of other group boards.
5. EPISTEMIC AGENCY
In some groups, some students, especially those students with weak L2 proficiency, face challenges. They may
merely focus on finishing their own piece of task, and do not care about what others are doing. Students with
high L2 proficiency may be contented with just completing own group work, but rather than consider what
they can learn from other groups.
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Spontaneous participation is the premise for the form of epistemic agency. A comfortable group environment ensures
epistemic agency in group members can be cultivated successfully. Democratizing knowledge and epistemic agency
are two interrelated concepts. Many opportunities for intra- and inter-groups interaction should be provided so that
students may be encouraged to take responsibility not only for their own but also for one another’s learning.
An activity on collaborative writing which focuses on inter-group interaction is to have different groups follow a
sequence to complete the different portions of a story. As several groups or a whole class is required to create a
story together, they have to constantly change ideas or negotiate with others throughout the writing process.
6. IDEA DIVERSITY
Language learning, especially L2 learning, may be too concerned with learning linguistic knowledge,
neglecting another aspect of using language, namely, the creative capacity. Students may be accustomed to
absorbing linguistic knowledge from teachers. Thus their L2 learning may include such elements of rote
learning. Students’ own thinking and emotions are seldom foregrounded in L2 writing and reading.
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