近年來臉書越來越受到歡迎，研究學者對臉書在第二語言學習的應用上開始感興趣，而廣大的使用者和學生在臉書上日常的書寫習慣也使臉書成為學習英文寫作的理想平台。臉書具有增進寫作技巧的潛力，當學生將線上非正式寫作經驗的策略應用於學術寫作時，就會考慮到寫作目的和讀者因素。另一方面，書寫身分認同代表著書寫者立場、自信和想法的展現，或是書寫者真實聲音的呈現，然而研究者指稱學生常難以建立第二語言的身分認同。儘管研究指出臉書有助於學生增進英文寫作能力，然而前人文獻於第二語言寫作身分對網路讀寫能力發展上尚未全面探討。為了彌補研究空缺，此研究援用共同對話理論，以說話者在對話當中解決問題並建立知識的角度來探究臉書如何促進學生寫作和發展書寫身分認同。研究發問為：(1) 學生於臉書上互動之特色為何？ (2) 臉書的共同對話如何改善學生作文並增進寫作能力？ (3) 學生如何經由臉書的共同對話發展書寫身分認同？

此研究受試者來自於台灣一所大學的寫作課程，共十六位學生。學生分成四組，每組必須於一學期當中在臉書上共同完成一篇敘事文或議論文。他們於臉書上互相激發想法、寫文章、給予同儕回饋並修改文章。為了了解學生的書寫身分認同發展，八位學生參與了三次個別訪談。研究資料包含臉書線上互動紀錄、訪談、學生省思心得及學生作文。研究方法使用內容分析和開放編碼以呈現與寫作技巧和書寫身分認同相關議題。

根據研究發現指出學生於臉書上討論主題廣泛，其中涵括任務管理、建議、評估、替代、澄清、作者對讀者的回應和要求參與。從與同儕討論當中，主動的學生不僅改善作文的語言(如：文法更正、用字和句子長短)也增進寫作能力(如：擴充想法、組織和引言)。此外，臉書使學生從同儕回饋當中了解共同寫作的優點、和同儕討論寫作困境、考慮讀者的背景知識等，並將寫作的態度從完成必須的作業轉變為自我挑戰的任務，因而賦予他們充滿自信的書寫者身分認同。此研究發現臉書的互動特色有助學生考慮讀者的期待並發展出對寫作的責任，這些可視為寫作身分認同的發展。

由上述的結果可見臉書可作為英文寫作教學的理想平台，使學生在互動當中增進英語寫作能力並發展第二寫作身分認同，未來的研究可嘗試融入不同的寫作任務或文類以促進臉書在第二語言寫作教學上的應用。

Due to the popularity of Facebook all over the world, a number of researchers have been interested in the application of Facebook to second language learning (Blattner & Fiori, 2011; Kabilan et al., 2010; Mitchell, 2012). With the multitude of audience and students’ everyday literacy practice of Facebook, Facebook has been promised to be an optimal environment to learn English writing. Furthermore, Facebook has the potential to improve writing skills in terms of writing purpose and consideration of audience when students are asked to recall the strategies they used in online informal writing experiences and encouraged to apply these strategies to academic writing (Yancey, 2009). Research indicated that Facebook helped students improve writing skills (Shih, 2011; Yunus & Salehi, 2012; Yunus et al., 2012). Some studies discovered the role of audience of Facebook in shaping the written texts or encouraging students to employ various writing strategies (Depew, 2011; West, 2013).

Although previous literature has shed light on the ways Facebook is used to language learning and especially English writing, few empirical studies examined how interactions on Facebook help students improve writing skills and develop writer identities. To fill the gap, the purpose of this study is to investigate how Facebook facilitate student writing and develop their writer identities by drawing on the theory of collaborative dialogue (Swain, 2000). This study asks the following questions: (1) What are the characteristics of students’ interaction on the Facebook? (2) How does the collaborative dialogue of Facebook help students refine writing compositions and improve writing skills? (3) How do students develop their writer identities via the collaborative dialogue of Facebook?

This study was conducted with 16 students from a writing class in a college in Taiwan. The students were divided into four groups; each group had to complete a collaborative writing task of a narrative essay or an argumentative essay on Facebook in a semester. They brainstormed ideas, wrote two cycles of writing, responded to peers’ writing, revised their own compositions on Facebook. Eight students were recruited for three individual interviews in order to know their identity transformation during the semester. Data were collected through Facebook online logs, repeated interviews with students, students’ reflection journal entries, and students’ compositions. As for data analyses, the categories of topics were mainly based on some categories from Liu and Sadler (2003) and the pilot study. Besides, content analysis was used to show the themes in relation to writing skills and writer identities.

Results suggest that the students talked a wide variety of topics on Facebook, including task management, suggestions, evaluation, alternation, clarification, call for involvement, and responses to readers/ co-authors. Through talking with peers, the students not only improved the language use in their compositions (e.g. grammar correction, vocabulary use, and length of sentences), but polished the employment of writing skills (e.g. elaboration of ideas, organization, and quotations) as well. Additionally, Facebook helped endow the students with a sense of writer identity as a confident writer who can understand their strengths of writing from peer feedback, discuss writing difficulties with peers, consider audience’s background knowledge, and even regard writing as a self-challenging task rather than completing the task merely for submitting a required assignment via Facebook interaction. More importantly, Facebook per se has the potential to benefit students in appealing to the audience and claiming the responsibility of the writing content due to the interaction feature of Facebook, which signaled the development of writer identity.

With the findings presented in the study, Facebook can serve as an optimal platform for English writing instruction and development of writer identity. Future studies can implement different kinds of writing tasks and genres to compare the effects of Facebook writing integrated with different tasks or genres or use different sources, such as picture, music, videos, or other hyperlinks, in Facebook writing.

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