Using peer review with Chinese ESL student writers

Abstract

Peer review has a prominent place in process-oriented writing instruction. In this paper, I share my developing use of peer review in an academic writing course for Chinese ESL learners. After reviewing the relevant literature, I describe the context in which I implemented peer review and conducted practitioner research into its productive use. Next, I present and discuss the training activities and follow-ups I used to prepare my students for effective peer review. The various instructional practices have been experimented with and refined in a 3-year action research effort to best facilitate my students’ acquisition of academic writing skills and hence enhance the quality of classroom life. In conclusion I summarize student performance in my most recent writing class and consider several instructional changes that are likely to help students understand better and thus benefit more from peer review.

EFL Arab Learners’ Peer Revision of Writing in a Facebook Group: Contributions to Written Texts and Sense of Online Community

“…Its pedagogical value is attributed to its role in motivating learners to become sources of corrective feedback rather than the instructor (Hu, 2005;Hyland & Hyland, 2006). Peer revision plays a role in assisting learners to revise their texts in terms of vocabulary, organization, content (Mulligan & Garofalo, 2011;Hansen & Lui, 2005) and meaning (Berg, 1999).…”

A Case Study of Combined Peer-Teacher Feedback on Paragraph Writing at a University in Thailand

“…The high percentages of valid comments by students in this study are in line with those in the literature (Crookes, Davis, & Caulk, 1994). Furthermore, because the response guidelines were provided (Appendix A), these students commented on both global (contentorganization) and surface (language-mechanics) levels although their focus was centered more on the latter, which was similar to Chinese students in Hu (2005). Despite a very small percentage, selfdiscovered feedback was present though most was on content and organization, like adding, deleting or rearranging details, but all was found to be valid in this study.…”

“…This could be due to various issues associated with the use of peer-review, such as time constraint, teacher roles and student characteristics (Rollinson, 2005). Furthermore, Hu (2005) indicates that students' limited knowledge of the target language and its rhetorical conventions, the "surface" nature of students' comments, and students' various inappropriate attitudes towards peer-review are likely to hinder the implementation of peer-feedback in L2/EFL writing classes. Moreover, Zhang (1995) states that cultural background was presumed to render peer-feedback ineffective, especially for Asian students who were used to teacher-dominated pedagogies and preferred to incorporate teacherfeedback because the teacher was considered as the expert and the only source of authority (Carson & Nelson, 1996).…”

How Proficiency-Pairing Affects Students’ Peer-Mediated Revisions of EFL Writing: Three Case Studies

“…This is particularly prominent in L2 writing context, since students as second language learners may be at differing stages of L2 development and thus have differing abilities to provide accurate, informative and useful feedback on L2 writing (e.g., Nelson & Murphy, 1993;Yang et al, 2006;Zhang, 1995). Students generally regard their teacher as the only authority capable of giving feedback on their L2 writing (e.g., Sengupta, 1998), which may well explain why there has been abundant L2 writing research comparing the efficacy of teacher and peer feedback for students' draft revisions and writing quality improvements (e.g., Chaudron, 1984;Connor & Asenavage, 1994;Crookes, Davis, & Caulk, 1994;Jacobs & Zhang, 1989;Mei & Yuan, 2010;Paulus, 1999;Shih-hsien, 2011;Tsui & Ng, 2000;Zhao, 2010) or exploring the effects of training on improving peer feedback quality and usage (e.g., Berg, 1999aBerg, , 1999bHu, 2005;Liou & Peng, 2009;Min, 2005Min, , 2006Min, , 2008Rahimi, 2013;Rollinson, 2005;Stanley, 1992;Zhu, 1995). Moreover, except for a few exceptions (e.g., Berg, 1999a), most of the previous research on peer feedback in L2 writing examined a relatively homogeneous group of students in terms of language proficiency.…”