Using information and communication technologies to promote participation and peer co-operation during collaborative literacy tasks for English-language learners

Collaborative learning tasks have been used extensively to enhance the literacy development of English language learners for many years. In some cases, however, peer-assisted activities stifle language learning due to dominant– passive interaction patterns and the onset of performance anxiety. The proliferation of web-based information and communication technologies has provided an alternative to face-to-face interactions that can potentially overcome these limitations of collaborative literacy tasks. This paper will investigate the use of applications such as Google Docs, Facebook, Internet blogs and wikis in both school and home environments. The benefits of using such technology to increase the participation, co-operation and literacy development of English language learners during collaborative learning tasks will be discussed.