Promoting Peer Assessment ’Learner to Learner’ Feedback in a Multilingual High School English First Additional Language Setting

Abstract

Feedback, further known as assessment in this research, is critical to learners’ growth and learning. This study is grounded in verbal and written peer experiences acquired throughout peer evaluation in a multilingual context. This study aims to determine the problems of Grade 11 EFAL learners with peer assessment and how to develop peer assessment practices in a multilingual setting at the high school level. There were 27 learners in the class. Designated three learners gave three demonstrations on various matters premised on a requisite Grade 11 literature set book and were graded by their classmates. The perspectives of the learners who were assigned to work in groups were elicited by requesting them to respond to open ended questions in writing after their classmates’ presentations. According to the findings, some peer assessments can be subjective depending on the bond between the assessor and the assessed. The learners had a natural feeling of inadequacy in their assessments. When giving feedback in a multilingual setting, it becomes important to give it in a language they are most comfortable with. Similarly, helping students relate new information from peers to the knowledge that they already have helps them to understand and organise information in meaningful ways.

Language Brokering and Code Switching as Teaching and Learning Tools in Multilingual Settings: Reflections of Two Immigrant Children

“…Subsequently Claire mastered English and she started to explain things in English to her mother and other immigrants who were still learning English. This happened at meetings in schools or in other social gatherings (Zano, 2022;Alemayehu-Dheressa, 2022).…”

Instructional Design to Promote Translingual Practices in an English First Additional Language Context

“…Helping students bring to mind prior knowledge can have a strong positive impact on learning. Similarly, helping students relate new information from peers to the knowledge that they already have aids them to understand and organise information in meaningful ways (Zano 2022a;Zano 2022b;Zano 2020a;Zano 2020b). The respondents noted thus:…”

Enhancing plurilinguistic abilities through group work in an english first additional language context: teachers’ perspectives

“…Among the compelling reasons to teach idioms to learners of second languages are that doing so increases learners' lexical and etymological knowledge, their knowledge of grammar and syntax and, even more importantly, their knowledge of usage (i.e., of the formal properties of idiomatic phonological, lexical, and grammatical systems) and of the use of idioms in communicative situations (i.e., of how to convey meaning through constructing idiomatic discourse). Perhaps the best reason of all, however, is the unique opportunity to teach both language and culture from a multitude of sociocultural perspectives [37][38][39][40], leading to learners' development and attainment of idiomatic competence. To cement the above, the participants had the following to say:…”