Storyboarding-based collaborative narratives on Google Docs: Fostering EFL learners’ writing fluency, syntactic complexity, and overall performance

Abstract

This study examined the impact of storyboarding- based collaborative narrative writing using Google Docs on EFL learners’ writing fluency, syntactic complexity, and overall performance. For this purpose, a cohort of 30 EFL college learners was selected and exposed to a nine-week intervention where they collaboratively wrote storyboarding-based narratives on Google Docs. This study adopted a pretest posttest quasi-experimental mixed-method design in which both quantitative (writing tests) and qualitative (reflection as well as group and self-evaluation cloud forms) data were collected and analyzed. Results of the study revealed significant differences between students’ pretest and posttest mean scores on writing fluency and overall writing performance with a large effect size. Conversely, there was no significant difference between their mean scores on syntactic complexity. Qualitative results showed that most students appreciated the storyboarding-based collaborative narrative writing activities on Google Docs and reported that they were of much benefit to them.