Students in Japanese Departments of Taiwanese universities usually take Japa- nese writing courses starting in their second year. To alleviate students’ anxiety and improve their Japanese writing ability, this teaching practice research introduced a “collaborative writing” learning method into the “Paragraph Writing” unit of the Japanese writing class.
The Japanese writing class in this teaching practice research was conducted during the first semester of 2022. There were 26 students who had junior and inter- mediate level Japanese ability and were beginners in Japanese writing.
The results of the teaching practice research indicate that collaborative writing can provide peer scaffolding for introverted students or students with low Japanese proficiency and help develop students’ metacognition, such as paragraph structure and reader awareness.
However, the effectiveness of collaborative writing is dependent on students’ classroom participation and self-directed learning abilities. To improve the effec- tiveness of collaborative writing, this study suggests the following points should be considered in future implementations:
1) Creating an environment where students can actively interact 2) Paying attention to students who do not participate well in class 3) Strengthening students’ self-correction ability and motivation.
