Iranian EFL Learners’ Reactions to Different Feedbacks in Writing Classrooms: Teacher Written Comments (TWC) vs. Peer Written Comments (PWC)

Iranian EFL Learners’ Reactions to Different Feedbacks in Writing Classrooms:

Teacher Written Comments (TWC) vs. Peer Written Comments (PWC)

Mitra Rabiee[1]

Shahreza Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahreza, Iran

     The teaching of writing has recently begun to move away from a concentration on the written product to an emphasis on the process of writing. Feedback is a fundamental element of the process approach to writing. It can be defined as input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to the writer for a revision. This study reports on the effectiveness of two types of feedback provided by two different sources– the teacher and the peers– on students’ overall writing quality in an EFL context. To fulfill such an aim, a group of 60 Iranian Persian native speakers aged between 22 and 25 majoring in English Translation were chosen from among a greater population of 98. They were assigned to three homogeneous groups based on their scores on Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and a sample writing assignment on a given topic by emphasizing the expository genre through providing some reasons. They covered five topics before and after receiving feedback– ten written texts– in the span of a 15-week semester. Then, the papers were rated analytically. The findings revealed that feedback had a noticeable effect on the students’ draft editing, and of the two sources of feedback, the students benefited from teacher’s feedback more than their peers’ feedback. Other possible implications interpreted from this study supported the occurrence of a change in students’ roles in communicative foreign language learning settings and that, they could take the role of autonomous learners and turn into common respondents to other students’ writings and in this way their L2 knowledge construction and implementation increased.
Keywords: Communicative Language Learning (CLL), Paragraph, Peer Feedback, Teacher Feedback, Writing Instruction

The fact that people frequently have to communicate with each other in writing is not the only reason to include writing as a part of second-language syllabus. Raimes (1983) believes that there is an additional and very important reason: “writing helps students learn” (p. 3). She further enumerated the reasons why writing is helpful. In her opinion, first of all, writing reinforces the grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabulary that teachers have been teaching their students. Second, when students write, they also have a chance to be adventurous with the language, to go beyond what they have just learned to say, to take risks. Third, when they write, they necessarily become very involved with the new language; the effort to express ideas and the constant use of eye, hand, and brain is a unique way to reinforce learning. As writers struggle with what to put down next or how to put it down on paper, they often discover something new to write or a new way of expressing their idea. They discover a real need for finding the right word and the right sentence. The close relationship between writing and thinking, in her idea, makes writing a valuable part of any language course.

One of the greatest obstacles, for both the instructor and the learner, is the difficulty that most students face when trying to write a coherent and concise piece of writing in the second language. Many college and university students, with the experience of many years of learning another language behind them are still unable to express themselves clearly, correctly, and comprehensibly in writing. With so much writing in foreign language classes over so many years, one would expect to find highly efficient approaches for teaching this skill and marked success in learning it.

Literature Review

The evolution of recent advances in writing analysis shows a major paradigm shift in composition theory and research: The emphasis has moved from the product to the process of writing. According to Hairstone (1982, cited in Connor, 1987, p. 677), the product-centered, traditional paradigm stressed expository writing, made style the most important element in writing, and maintained that the writing process is linear, determined by writers before they start to write. The process-centered paradigm, however, focuses on writing processes; teaches strategies for invention and discovery; considers audience, purpose, and context of writing; emphasizes recursiveness in the writing process; and distinguishes between aims and modes of discourse.

Within this paradigm, the process-centered, research on corrective feedback is developing fast. A student who is given the time for the process to work, along with the appropriate feedback from readers, the teacher, or other students, will discover new ideas, new sentences, and new words as he plans, writes a first draft, and revises what he has written for a second draft.

In this approach, according to Raimes (1983), instead of writing on a given topic in a restricted time and handing in the composition to the teacher to correct, the students explore a topic through writing, showing the teacher and each other their drafts, and using what they write to read over, think about, and move them on to new ideas. The idea of unique benefits that language learners could provide each other has given rise to peer response as part of the process approach to teaching L2writing. Peer response is an umbrella term to designate what is normally referred to as peer feedback, peer review, peer editing, or peer evaluation in teaching L2 writing (Bartels, 2003). Peer response according to Liu and Hansen (2002) is:

 

The use of learners as sources of information and interactants for each other in such a way that learners assume roles and responsibilities normally taken on by a formally trained teacher, tutor, or editor in commenting on and critiquing each other’s drafts in both written and oral formats in the process of writing. (p. 1)

 

Process writing theory, collaborative learning theory, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and interaction and second language acquisition are the four theoretical bases which support the use of peer response activities in teaching L2 writing classes from both cognitive and psycholinguistic perspectives.  Studies based on these theoretical stances have provided substantial proofs that peer response activities, in fact, help second language learners develop not only their L2 writing abilities but also their overall L2 language skills through the negotiation of meaning that typically takes place during the process of peer response (Rabiee, 2008) .

Statement of the Problem

 Although in recent years the use of peer feedback in ESL writing classrooms has been generally supported in the literature as a potentially valuable aid for its social, cognitive, affective, and methodological benefits (Mendonca& Johnson, 1994; Villamil&DeGuerrero, 1996), doubts on the part of many ESL teachers and students are not uncommon. According to Rollinson (2005), teachers may question peer feedback’s value within their particular context, or wonder how such a time-consuming activity can be reconciled with course or examination constraints. In the light of the above issues, both advantages and disadvantages of peer response activities, and since there has been little research on peer reviews in EFL contexts, particularly in Iran, the aim of the present study was to provide an opportunity for EFL students to learn through a process of discussion and negotiation and to determine whether or not teacher and/or peer response activities had any impact on Iranian EFL learners’ writing quality. To fulfill such a goal, the researcher aimed at examining the efficiency of the two available feedback providers in classroom context--teacher and peers--on EFL Iranian students’ writing quality. More specifically, the source of feedback was of great concern in this study. The main research questions addressed in this study were:

1. Do EFL students incorporate teacher/peer comments when revising their drafts?

2. Which source of providing feedback is more effective: teacher or peer?

To find empirically-based answers to the questions posed above, the researcher put forward the following two null hypotheses:

1. EFL students do not incorporate comments made by their teacher/peers when revising their drafts.

2. There is no significant difference between the two sources of feedback, that is, teacher or peer.

 

Method

This section depicts the framework of the present study. The purpose of this study, as stated earlier, was to determine whether there was any improvement in EFL students’ writing performance in a span of ten written texts over a 15-week semester after receiving written comments from the two feedback providers--teacher or peers. To get the goal, the students’ first and final drafts before and after receiving feedback on the whole tasks –drafting, commenting, and revising the five topics--were compared analytically by the researcher  to trace any change in the two experimental groups and the effect of the two written feedback sources were examined.

Participants

Primarily, a group of 98 EFL students, 46 males and 52 females, participated in this study. They were all Persian native speakers aged between 22 and 25. They were English Translation majors taking Advanced Writing course at Islamic Azad University.

All participants took the pre-test phase prior to the main phase of the experiment. The pre-test consisted of two sub-parts: first, administering the standard English proficiency test--Oxford Placement Test (OPT)--and second, developing a one-paragraph assignment on a given topic.

After the completion of the first part, 72 of the whole population whose scores were within the Intermediate domain of OPT placement chart, from upper intermediate to lower intermediate, were selected. Then, based on the students’ abilities in paragraph development, 60 of them were chosen and considered to be the eligible members of the sample participating in this study.

Then, the sixty participants were assigned to three homogeneous groups--two experimental and one control. Each group consisted of 20 subjects and named respectively as:

Group One : Teacher’s Written Comments (TWC)

Group Two:Peers’ Written Comments (PWC)

Group Three           : Control Group (CG)

Instrumentation

The standard proficiency test of Oxford Placement Test (OPT), a sample paragraph on a given topic, a writing handout covering the topics pertinent to the advanced writing course, a peer response sheet for a one-paragraph composition, a list of marking codes developed by the researcher for marking the errors in the texts, and the Berg’s (1999) guidelines for both teacher and peer response were among the instruments used in this study. Also, the students wrote on five topics all focusing on providing reasons using an expository genre. Modified version of Roebuck’s (2001) analytic marking was also the other instrument used for scoring the students’ paper (see the appendices for more information on this part).  

Just as a reminder, it seems necessary to state that the participants in this study, in addition to their course book Paragraph Writing Simplified written by Ostrom and Cook (1993), received a writing handout whose content validity was approved by the researcher’s colleagues who were all experienced writing instructors. Also, the peer response worksheet with some focus questions on it offered a systematically organized format that students could follow to analyze the written work of their classmates. In addition to these, the researcher found it helpful to explain to the students the reasons and benefits of having their peers, as opposed to just the teacher, respond to their writings. At first, the students expressed skepticism about their ability to read and respond to writing in English when they did not know the language very well. So, it seemed to the researcher that giving the students some guidelines would be a good idea to prepare them for peer response. The guidelines developed by Berg (1999), for both teacher and peer response, were adapted by the researcher in this study.

In order to reduce marker errors and contribute to the reliability and validity of the scores given to each paper in this study, the researcher employed the Roebuck’s (2001) analytical scoring rubrics for composition. The researcher modified Roebuck’s rubric. Roebuck’s sample scoring rubric had six parts, each consisting of a four-point scale for measuring the respondent’s reaction to the composition. But, in the modified version of the same rubric developed by the researcher (Rabiee, 2006), the six parts in the body of the rubric were reduced to the four main parts of vocabulary, grammar, organization, and mechanics used in any type of analytical scoring criteria grids and in the popular Likert scale of five-point format based on the pertinent literature in this domain. The content validity of this modified rubric was established on the basis of the existing literature, and three well-experienced instructors teaching writing courses confirmed its content. The reliability of the modified version of Roebuck’s rubric was also determined based on a pilot study carried out by the researcher with a small number of similar participants attending the main phase of the experiment.

Procedure

In this section, the procedures implemented for each group are discussed in details based on the source of feedback each group received during the study.

 

Group 1: Teacher’s Written Comments (TWC)

The teacher asked the participants in this group to write a paragraph on the first topic given to them (the 1^st session). After collecting the papers, the teacher wrote her comments on students’ first drafts which were then given directly to the writers of the papers. The corrective feedback provided by the teacher involved coded error correction in which both the type and location of each error were indicated in writing on the paper.

After receiving this written feedback, the participants were given time to read the comments and ask any questions or seek clarification about what their teacher had written--student-teacher conferencing--(the 2^nd session).The participants were then asked to rewrite their paragraphs based on the received written comments from their teacher and bring them back to the class (the 3^rd session). Then the papers were collected by the teacher and put in an archive for later analysis.

 

Group 2:  Peers’ Written Comments (PWC)

The participants in this group were asked to write their paragraphs on the first topic. Next, the teacher collected the papers, deleted the participants’ names, and assigned a coded number to each paper to prevent any pre-judgements in evaluating the papers and giving comments by the respondent(s). Then, she distributed them among the participants and asked them to write their comments (the 1^st session). Then as an out-of-class activity, each participant read the other participant’s paper and prepared his/her response to that, using the focus questions provided by the researcher on a worksheet.

In the next class time, all the participants brought the papers and written comments back to the class and handed them in to the teacher. The teacher attached the deleted names to the papers on the basis of the coded numbers, gave them back to the writers, and asked them to revise their drafts (the 2^nd session).

And finally, each participant used this feedback to rewrite his/her paper and gave it back to the teacher (the 3^rd session). The papers were collected by the teacher in a separate file for later analysis.

Group 3: Control Group (CG)

According to Farhady (2006), one of the distinct features of the experimental studies is to enable the researcher to make causal statements about variables. To achieve such a goal, twenty of the participants formed the control group of this study who received no specific treatment. The researcher made this decision to make sure that any change(s) in the performance of the experimental groups did not occur in the performance of the control group.

The participants in the control group did not receive any type of feedbacks. Instead, whenever the teacher found a special problem in their writing tasks, she explained it to the class, not individually, without using any special type of feedbacks or marking the location and the kind of the error(s). Accurate groups’ performance comparisons, contribution to the internal validity of this study, and interpretation of research outcomes with more precision were among the main purposes of having the control group in this study.

Results and Discussion

As it was previously stated, this study was an attempt to find evidence to accept or reject the two null hypotheses formulated earlier. This section investigates the hypotheses empirically one by one and reports the findings.

Investigation of the First Null Hypothesis

Iranian EFL Students’ Incorporation of Comments Provided by Their Teacher/Peers

As mentioned before in procedures section, the three homogeneous groups completed the five paragraph writing tasks in the whole term (the span of fifteen weeks). Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the participants’ final scores after receiving feedback. It should be noted that for this analysis the scores of each participant on the five topics--after receiving feedback--were added together to obtain the total score for each of them. Figure 1 shows the graphical representation of the scores.

 

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics of the Students’ Final Scores after Feedback

Note:

TWC:Teacher’s Written Comments

PWC: Peer’s Written Comments

CG:Control Group

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1. Graphical representation of the students’ final scores after feedback

It can be seen in Table 1 that the means of the three groups are different. In order to find out whether the differences are statistically significant or not, a one-way ANOVA was applied to the results. Table 2 presents the results of the ANOVA.

 

 

 

Table 2

The Results of the One-way ANOVA on Students’ Final Scores after Feedback

 

Table 2 shows that the amount of F-observed is significant (F= 13.381, p= .000). This means that the students do incorporate the comments provided by their teacher/peers in revising their drafts. In order to make sure that the differences between the Control Group and the other two experimental groups were significant, a Scheffe post hoc test was applied. Table 3 shows the results of this test.

 

Table 3

The Results of Scheffe on the Students’ Final Scores after Feedback

Note:

TWC: Teacher’s Written Comments

PWC: Peer’s Written Comments

CG: Control Group

* The mean difference is significant at the .05 level

 

According to Table 3, the differences between the following groups were significant.

1. TWC Group and PWC Group

2. TWC Group and Control Group

On the basis of the above results, the first null hypothesis stating that the participants do not incorporate their teacher’s/peers’ comments in revising their drafts can be safely rejected.

Investigation of the Second Null Hypothesis

Comparison Between the Two Feedback Providers: Teacher & Peers

In this study, as stated earlier, there were two feedback-supplier sources, teacher and peers. In order to track any difference between these two sources, therefore, the participants’ scores in the two experimental groups were separately calculated.

According to the results shown in Table 3, the difference between the two sources of feedback is statistically significant at the level of (p= .000). Therefore, the second null hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference between the two sources of feedback is safely rejected.

Discussion

The two null hypotheses formulated at the beginning of this study were empirically rejected. Regarding the first null hypothesis, in the process of editing the drafts, the participants incorporated both their teacher’s comments and   peer’s comments based on their group division. This implied the point that receiving different types of feedback could affect the participants’ writing quality in the span of a 15-week semester. This has also been in line with what Keh (1990) asserted that through feedback, as the input from a reader to writer with the effect of providing information to the writer for revision,  the writer learns where he/she has misled or confused the reader by not supplying enough information, illogical organization, lack of development of ideas, or something like inappropriate word-choice or tense.

Regarding the second null hypothesis, the participants benefited from the written teacher’s comments more than that provided by their peers. Clearly, as Hyland (1990) claims, “teacher-response is an essential step in the writing process” (p. 279). This might be due to the high reliance the students have towards their teacher’s comments, and most of the time they generally prefer to receive constructive comments from their teacher. Research investigating teacher feedback on students’ writing has shown that students generally expect and value their teacher’s feedback on their writing and that various types of teacher comments lead to substantive student revision (Shin, 2002). This preference for the teacher’s feedback is also consistent with the findings of other researchers (Ferris, 1995; Zhang, 1995; Nelson & Carson, 1998).

In other words, peers’ written comments had no significant effect on the participants’ writing performances when compared with teacher’s comments. There could be three possible reasons for this. The first reason is the fact that EFL students lack enough competency in English proficiency. More specifically, peers do not rely on comments from their peers because they think peers are at the same level of knowledge, so the comments provided by them cannot be taken so seriously for later revisions.

 Second, most of the participants were extremely uncomfortable launching into self-directed work. In this study, using peer response activities, students themselves had to investigate information, explore ideas, and make decisions in order to accomplish their job as student respondents cooperating with their peers. But, as a matter of fact, students participating in this study were accustomed to more traditional, teacher-directed classrooms who would generally respond with anxiety and confusion expected to take responsibility for decision making too soon. They appreciated receiving step-by-step guidance from their teacher not their peers. Not all students are ready to make transition from teacher-directed into more student-directed approach to instruction at the same time, however. Therefore, it seems quite logical to apply collaborative learning strategies to help students make more effective transitions to real-world settings, where they will draw upon their experiences and skills to communicate, negotiate, build consensus, cooperate, and learn with others.

 And the third reason for observing the significant difference between the two sources of feedback might be related to the fact that the participants in this study were not properly trained for peer response interactions. They just had two briefing sessions, before the experiment, on the issue of how to use peer response activities in writing classrooms. It seems to be a good idea to continue instructions during and after peer response activities. Also, according to Zhu (2001), trained peer response is found to “result in more and better quality peer feedback and peer talk, and increase student engagement and interaction during peer response” (p. 252).

Conclusions

The results of this study yield some insights into the negotiations that occur during student-teacher conferencing and  peer reviews and the ways those negotiations shape L2 students’ revision activities. The study also supports the claim that teacher and/or peer reviews, each with its own limited effect, can be valuable forms of feedback in L2 writing instruction. An important feature of this kind of task, therefore, is the way in which it defines writing as a communicative activity in its own right, taking writing from the socially decontextualised world of the gap-fill or the controlled composition and transforming it into an opportunity for sharing and discussion, with the skills of reading, speaking, and listening fully integrated into the production of the students’ own texts. It is this aspect, however, which also suggests that the task may have a wider role in developing language learning abilities, not simply those related to writing.

Since foreign-language students are often anxious about their writing ability, they often need to be encouraged to see it as a means of learning, rather than demonstrating learning. Instead of considering writing as a goal of language instruction, it would be better to focus on it as a means of developing language competence in such a way that the emphasis shifts from learning to write and moves in the direction of writing to learn.

In pedagogical practice, viewing writing as a process-oriented activity can produce a sense of reader- awareness among L2 learners and encourage them to engage in multiple drafting and consider writing as occurring in stages that may differ to some extent among different writers. It also helps the syllabus designers and material developers write books which encourage students to engage in brainstorming activities, outlining, drafting, rewriting, and editing. This is in congruence with what Vygotsky (1978) argues that people learn by doing. Thus it is important to give learners many opportunities to do and learn from their writing.

The Author

Mitra Rabiee holds a Ph.D. in TEFL from IAU, Science & Research Campus in Iran. She is currently an assistant professor in English Dept. at IAU & has been teaching English since 1992. She has presented almost twenty papers in National & International seminars & conferences and published a couple of articles in different ELT journals.  Her major academic interests include SLA issues, ELT methodology, and psycholinguistics.

 

References

Bartels, N. (2003). Written peer response in L2 writing. English Teaching Forum, 41(1), 34-36.

Berg, E.C. (1999). The effects of trained peer response on ESL students’ revision types and writing quality.Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(3), 215-241.

Connor, U. (1987).Research frontiers in writing analysis.TESOL Quarterly, 21(4), 677-696.

Farhady, H. (2006). Research methods in applied linguistics (8^thed.). Tehran: Payame Noor University Press.

Ferris, D. R. (1995).Student reactions to teacher response in multiple-draft composition classrooms.TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 33-53.

Hyland, K. (1990). Providing productive feedback.Elt Journal, 44(4), 279-285.

Keh, C. L. (1990). Feedback in the writing process: A model and methods for implementation. ELT Journal, 44(4), 294-304.

Liu, J., & Hansen, J. G. (2002).Peer response in second language writing classrooms. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Mendonca, C. O., & Johnson, K. E. (1994). Peer review negotiations: Revision activities in ESL writing instruction. TESOL Quarterly, 28(4), 745-769.

Nelson, G. L., & Carson, J. G. (1998). ESL students’ perceptions of effectiveness in peer response groups. Journal of Second Language Writing, 7(2), 113-131.

Ostrom, J., & Cook, W. (1993).Paragraph writing simplified. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers.

Rabiee, M. (2006).Interactive feedback model: Modeling a collaborative learning approach inproviding feedback in writing classrooms. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Islamic azad University, Science and Research Campus, Tehran, Iran.

Rabiee, M. (2008). Two collaborative feedback models in EFL writing instruction: Do they make a difference? The Journal of Applied Linguistics, Tabriz, IAU, 1(3), 134-163.

Raimes, A. (1983). Techniques in teaching writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Roebuck, R. F. (2001). Teaching composition in the college level foreign language class: Insights and activities from sociocultural theory. Foreign Language Annals, 34(3), 206-215.

Rollinson, P. (2005). Using peer feedback in the ESL writing class.ELT Journal, 59(1), 23-30.

Shin, S. J. (2002).Ten techniques for successful writing tutorials.TESOL Journal, 11(1), 25-31.

Villamil, O. S., &DeGuerrero, M. C. M. (1996). Peer revision in the L2 classroom: Social-cognitive activities, mediating strategies, and aspects of social behavior. Journal of second language writing, 5(1), 51-75.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Zhang, S. (1995).Re-examining the affective advantage of peer feedback in the ESL writing class.Journal of Second Language Writing, 4(3), 209-222.

Zhu, W. (2001).Interaction and feedback in mixed peer response groups.Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 251-276.

 

Appendices

Appendix A: A Sample Peer Response Sheet for a One-Paragraph Composition

 

Sample Peer Response Sheet for a Paragraph

Respondent : …………………     Author : …………….

Practice No : …………………      Date : ……………….

 

Please answer the following questions, keeping in mind that the purpose of peer          response is to help each other write better.

1. What is the topic and purpose of this composition? Is it clear?
2. Does this composition seem to be well organized? Does it have a clear beginning and end?
3. Is there logic to the argument? Is it well supported with examples or pertinent details? On the other hand, are there irrelevant details?
4. Is this composition interesting? If not, what might the author add to make it more interesting?
5. Are there areas that needed more information?
6. Is the title appropriate to the composition?
7. Is this composition grammatically well-formed?
8. Is this composition well-organized with appropriate choice of vocabularies?
9. What are the strong points to this composition?
10. Make one or two concrete suggestions for improvement.

 

      After you have answered these questions, discuss your answers and the paragraph with the author. Remember that you are trying to help your classmates improve their writing, so it’s important that they understand your answers. Please tell the author (student writer) what you think because it can help him/her write a really good paragraph.

 

 

 

Appendix B1: At-a-Glance Teacher Guidelines for Preparing ESL Students for Peer Response Developed by Berg (1999)

 

1. Create a comfortable classroom atmosphere that promotes trust among students by conducting a number of in- and out-of-class, get-to-know-you activities.
2.  Establish the role of peer response in the writing process and explain the benefits of having peers, as opposed to just teachers, respond to students’ writing.
3. Highlight the common purpose of peer response among professional and student writers by examining the acknowledgements in textbooks and other publications, and discuss how both ask others to read their work.
4.  Demonstrate and personalize the peer response experience by displaying several drafts of a text written by someone who the students know that demonstrate how peer comments helped improve the writing.
5. Conduct a collaborative, whole-class response activity using a text written by someone unknown to students and stress the importance of revising the clarity and rhetorical-level aspects rather than sentence-level errors.
6. Address issues of vocabulary and expressions by comparing inappropriate comments with appropriate ones.
7. Familiarize students with the response sheet by showing samples and explaining its purpose as a tool designed to help them focus on important areas of the writing assignment.
8. Involve students in a response to collaborative writing project  by having them use the peer response sheet to respond in pairs or groups to a paragraph written by another group of students. Based on the responses, have the pairs or groups then revise their original collaborative paragraphs.
9. Allow time for questions and expressions of concern by talking to students about their writing, the peer response, the revisions they made, the difficulties in judging classmates’ comments, and lack of confidence in their revision abilities.
10. Provide revision guidelines by highlighting good revision strategies and explaining that peer response helps authors understand the difference between intended and perceived meaning.
11. Study examples of successful and unsuccessful peer responses using videotapes or printed samples to examine level of student engagement, language used, and topics discussed.

 

Appendix B2: At-a-Glance Student Guidelines for Preparing a Peer Response. Developed by Berg (1999)

 

1. Read your classmate’s writing carefully several times.
2. Focus your attention on the meaning of your classmate’s text.
3. Because it is difficult for writers to separate information they wish to express from the actual words on their page, you can help your classmate discover differences between his or her intended meaning and what he or she has actually written.
4. Avoid getting stuck on minor spelling mistakes or grammar errors unless they prevent you from understanding your classmate’s ideas.
5. Keep in mind that peer response is used by writers of all ages and types, including student and professional writers who want to know if their writing is clear to others.
6. In responding to writing, try to be considerate of your classmate’s feelings, and remember that it is very difficult for most writers to write clearly.
7. Realize that you have the opportunity to tell your classmate what you do not understand about his or her writing, to ask questions about it, and to point out what you like about it. This is important information to the writer.
8. When a peer responds to your writing, remember that you, as the writer, have the ultimate responsibility for making final changes.
9. The peer response activity provides several sources of ideas for how to improve your writing, including your classmate’s comments about your writing; your classmate’s texts, from which you may learn new words, expressions, and ways of organizing writing, as well as discover errors you may have made in your own text; and discussions of issues you may not have thought about before.

*If you have any questions or do not know how to respond to your classmate’s writing, be sure to ask teacher for help.

Appendix C1: The Two Analytic Scoring Rubric SamplesRoebuck’s (2001) Analytic Scoring Rubric

Paper addresses the major areas of the task1  2  3  4

• Answers questions proposed in assignment
• Includes all necessary information
• Participates in planning activities and peer reviews
• Completes components on time

Vocabulary

Comments for improvement:                             1  2  3  4

• Accurate and appropriate, minor errors
• Usually accurate, occasional inaccuracies
• Not extensive enough, frequent inaccuracies, may use English
• Inadequate for the task, inaccurate

Grammar

Comments for improvement:                            1  2  3  4

• May contain some minor errors that do not interfere with comprehensibility
• Some minor errors that may interfere with comprehensibility, some control of major patterns
• Many errors that interfere with comprehensibility, little control of major patterns
• Almost all grammatical patterns incorrect

Message/Content

Comments for improvement:                           1  2  3  4

• Relevant, informative; adequate level of creativity and detail; well-organized, well written, logical
• Generally informative, may lack some creativity and detail
• Incomplete; lacks important information and creativity; poorly developed, lacks coherence
• Not informative; provides little or no information, lacking key components, organized incoherently

Drafts and outline1  2  3  4

• Completes drafts/outlines and makes appropriate revisions

Overall Assessment1  2  3  4

Comments:

Appendix C2: Analytic Scoring Rubric Modified by Rabiee (2006)

1. VOCABULARY             1   2  3  4  5

Comments for improvement

      Completely accurate and appropriate, no errors

      Usually accurate and appropriate, few minor errors

      Frequently accurate, occasional inaccuracies

      Not extensive enough, frequent inaccuracies, limited vocabulary

      Completely inadequate and inaccurate, lots of major errors

1. GRAMMAR                               1   2  3  4  5

       Comments for improvement:

      Complete mastery over grammar, variety in sentence structure and lengths, no errors

      May contain few errors that do not interfere with comprehensibility

      Some minor errors that may interfere with comprehensibility, some control of major patterns

      Many errors that interfere with comprehensibility, little control of major patterns

      Almost all grammatical patterns incorrect, lots of major errors leading to complete incomprehensibility

1. ORGANIZATION                      1   2  3  4  5

Comments for improvement:

      Relevant, fully informative; adequate level of creativity and detail; well-organized,  logical

      Generally informative, may lack some creativity and detail

      Usually informative; occasional lapses in organization and/or coherence

      Incomplete; lacks important information and creativity; poorly developed, lacks coherence

      Not informative; provides little or no information, lacking key components, organized incoherently

1. MECHANICS                         1   2   3   4   5

Comments for improvement:

                              Completely accurate and appropriate, no errors

                              Generally accurate, few minor errors

                              Usually accurate, frequent inaccuracies not interfering with comprehensibility

                              Usually inaccurate, interfering with comprehensibility

                              Completely inaccurate, lots of major errors

      ___________________

Note:

             5: No errors

             4: 1-3 errors

             3: 4-6 errors

             2: 7-9 errors

             1: 10 and over

Appendix D: List of Marking Codes

Sp                    Spelling Error……………………..…………..….غلط دیکته ای

e.g., …Europian countries …

WO     Word Order Error………………….…. ترتیب ناصحیح کلمات

e.g., … French old car …

T                     Tense Error……………………….…………….. زمان فعل

e.g., She has eaten pizza yesterday.

Art      Article Error …………….... a, an, the کاربرد حرف تعریف

e.g., He is a richest man …

Pp                   Preposition Error…………………..….. کاربرد حروف اضافه

e.g., They are interested at …

WW    Wrong word……………………….….…. کاربرد نابجای کلمه

e.g., This book is very better …

D                     Disagreement……………,,….…………..…. عدم هماهنگی 

e.g., This books are expensive …

SV       Subject and Verb Disagreement عدم تطابق فعل و فاعل............

e.g., They goes to …

SS                    Sentence Structure Error…………...…. ساختار ناصحیح جمله

e.g., How long you have ever been typing?

P                      Punctuation…….…………….…...…. نشانه گذاری ناصحیح

e.g., are you ready.

WF      Word form……….……………..….… کاربرد ناصحیح فرم کلمه

e.g., Sometimes people loss their confidence.

Missing Word or Letter……………..……. جاافتادگی حروف یا کلمات

e.g., Who know the answer?

X                     Extra…………………………..…… حذف مورد اضافی

e.g., You can’t never do it.

^          Gap…………………………………….……. اعمال فاصله

e.g., There are afew people.

??                    Meaningless……………………………………….. نامفهوم

e.

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