Maryam Zeynali - University of Sistan and Baluchestan
Giti Mousapour Negari - University of Sistan and Baluchestan

The current study pursued Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory to explore the differences between WhatsApp and Email scaffolding on the multimodal freewriting complexity of EFL learners. ۸۴ participants were randomly assigned to three groups; two as experimental groups and one as a control group. For the pre-test, a picture, podcast, and movie were shared, and they were asked to complete their freewriting tasks individually within the allocated time. For treatment, one experimental group was scaffolded in a by sending messages on WhatsApp, and the other experimental group experienced scaffolding via email. The results indicated that WhatsApp and Email scaffolding is beneficial. However, no significant difference was found between the writing complexity of WhatsApp and Email groups.

Email, Multimodality, Scaffolding, WhatsApp, Writing complexity