COLLABORATING ON COLLABORATION: SOME REFLECTIONS

Emma Y. W. Poorn ； Gail Schaefer Fu

《Asian Journal of English Language Teaching》 5卷 (1995/12) Pp. 53-58

摘要

The authors' experience of coauthoring an article on the teaching of writing in Hong Kong led them to reflect on issues which arise from collaboration: ＂ownership＂ of the work, ＂authority＂ over the process, the way the product is valued, and the conventions apply. The experience of collaboration and greater awareness of its processes, the authors assert, can lead to better understanding of how groups operate and of the collaborative work that we set our students. It can also lead to greater openness and interaction between colleagues, thus benefiting the collaborators as individual educators and the language teaching profession as a whole. ＂When I received the invitation to write an article on the teaching of writing in Hong Kong for a journal, I was very pleased. I was also immediately aware that I would be unable, by myself, to handle the brief put by the editor, i.e., to discuss 'the teaching of writing in the national language and in the first foreign language in each polity' of Asia (in my case, Hong Kong). I thought through the names of my Chinese reading/speaking colleagues and almost immediately determined that I would ask Emma if she would be interested and willing to join me in the project. Her familiarity with the Hong Kong education system and her abilities with the Chinese language were my primary consideration: Next, having known her for several years and feeling that we could work together harmoniously were important considerations. It crossed my mind too, as a third and not unimportant fact, that Emma might appreciate the opportunity to collaborate and the experience of working on an invited article.＂ Gail Schaefer Fu (GF) ＂I was involved in developing materials for our university's self-access centre when Gail invited me to be her coauthor on a paper about the teaching of writing in Hong Kong. I accepted immediately and eagerly, as I felt would benefit from a new challenge after a lengthy period of materials development.＂ Emma Y. W. Poon (EP) And so the earlier collaboration which inspired this present article got off to a promising start. The discussion and research were spread over nearly eight months but the writing period itself was only four weeks. When the article was finished, refereed, and accepted by the journal, we were so satisfied with our efforts and with the results that we wished to share our experiences and reflections with colleagues. Further discussion, research on the literature of collaboration, and the reexamination of the many drafts of the earlier article yielded more insights-both in understanding the dynamics of collaboration and in assessing their implications for us all as professionals and as teachers of language. It yielded also a commitment to the benefits of collaboration and to encouraging it for ourselves and for our colleagues.