Two Collaborative Feedback Models in EFL Writing Instruction: Do They Make a Difference?

 

Two Collaborative Feedback Models in EFL Writing Instruction: Do They Make a Difference?

 

Mitra Rabiee

Islamic Azad University-Shahreza Branch

 

Research in L1 writing has found numerous benefits of employing collaborative learning in the classroom. The research findings on group work provide clear evidence that engaging learners in group activities increases opportunities for students to engage in the negotiation of meaning, which further leads to better acquisition. The present study, implementing two different collaborative feedback models, based on various sources and modes of feedback, examines the effect of each on the students’ writing quality. Sixty Iranian students, majoring in English Translation, were assigned into three homogeneous groups based on their obtained scores on Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and sample paragraph writing. They covered five topics in a sequence of ten written texts − before and after receiving feedback − over a 15-week semester. The results revealed that students incorporated both the teacher’s and peers’ oral/written comments in the process of draft editing, and that they benefited from the two collaborative feedback models almost equally. The interview results also confirmed co-operative learning as an effective teaching strategy that could be used to enhance achievement and socialization among students and to improve attitudes towards learning and working in groups, especially in EFL settings.

 

Keywords: Collaborative Learning, Group Teaching, Oral/Written Feedback, Peer/Teacher Feedback

 

 

 

Clearly, teacher-response is an essential step in the writing process. There are several studies demonstrating the efficacy of various kinds of feedback from the teacher for improvement in the accuracy and fluency of L2 students’ writings (Ferris, 1997; Ashwell, 2000; Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Chandler, 2003). On the other hand, for many years, the unique benefits that language learners could provide each other were ignored in L2 writing classrooms. Such a failure to recognize the contributions that L2 learners can make has given way to an active effort to tap the potential of learners as teachers in L2writing processes.

This idea has given rise to peer response as part of the process approach to teaching L2writing. Peer response activities, in which students work together to provide feedback on one another’s writing in both written and oral formats through active engagement with each other’s progress over multiple drafts, have become a common feature of recent L2writing instruction. Peer feedback, according to Bartels (2003), is “a key component in the process approach to composition. It is also known as peer review, peer response, peer editing, and peer evaluation, in which  students read each other’s papers and provide feedback to the writer, usually answering specific questions the teacher has provided” (p. 34).

Why should peer response activities be used in teaching L2 writing? There are four theoretical stances, which in fact complement and, to some extent, overlap each other, and support the use of peer response activities in the writing classroom from both cognitive and psycholinguistic perspectives. These four theoretical stances are “process writing theory, collaborative learning theory, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and interaction and second language acquisition” (Liu & Hansen, 2002, p. 2). Research based on these theoretical stances has provided substantial evidence that peer response activities, in fact, help second language learners develop not only their L2 writing abilities but also their overall L2 language abilities through the negotiation of meaning that typically takes place during the process of peer response.

Process Writing Theory

 

The process approach to writing emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s in L1 writing as a response to the traditional product views of writing that focused on form over meaning and the finished text, rather than on the process in which writing took place (Liu & Hansen, 2002). As such, the process approach to writing, which heavily influenced L2 writing theory and practice, focused on the process of writing, viewing writing not as a product-oriented activity, but as a dynamic, nonlinear, and recursive one.

Within this approach to writing, peer response has been viewed as an important component of L2writing instruction (Zamel, 1985; Mangelsdorf 1989; Mittan, 1989; Leki, 1990; Kroll, 1991; Mangelsdorf & Schlumberger, 1992). Peer response supports process writing with a focus on drafting and revision and enables students to get multiple feedback (e.g., from teacher, peer, and self) across various drafts. Additionally, it builds audience awareness, helps make reading-writing connections, and builds content, linguistic, and rhetorical schemata through multiple exposures to a text.

 

Collaborative Learning Theory

 

Another theoretical justification for the present study comes from the use of collaborative group work in collaborative learning theory. A central tenet in collaborative learning theories is that learning, as well as knowledge itself, is socially constructed. Bruffee (1984, cited in Liu & Hansen, 2002, p.3) defines collaborative learning as the type of learning that takes place through communication with peers. He further states that there are certain kinds of knowledge that are best acquired in this manner. Collaborative learning theories have had a major impact on L1 writing instruction and more recently have begun to have an impact on both theoretical and pedagogical aspects of L2 writing.

Research in L1 writing has found numerous benefits of employing collaborative learning techniques in the classroom. Studies have found that in writing groups students negotiate meaning as they help each other revise their papers and since learning in writing groups is reciprocal, such a process improves students’ work (Gere, 1987).

L2writing group researchers have also found that there are a number of linguistic gains of collaborative writing and revising. For example, according to Hirvela (1999), researchers have found that collaborative writing groups can lead to decision making, “allowing learners to compare notes on what they have learned and how to use it effectively” (p. 8) and can provide learners with “increased opportunities to review and apply their growing knowledge of second language (L2) writing through dialogue and interaction with their peers in the writing group” (p. 8).

 

Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

 

A third theoretical stance that supports the use of peer response in the writing classroom is based on Vygotsky’s (1978) belief that cognitive development is a result of social interaction in which an individual learns to extend her or his current competence through the guidance of a more experienced individual. The space between the person’s actual level of development (i.e., what can be done independently) and the potential level of development (i.e., what can be done with the help of someone else) is called the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Higher cognitive processes are hypothesized to emerge as a result of interaction, resulting in the individual’s independent completion of the task, with the language use within the interaction serving as the “critical device for mediating cognitive development” (DiCamilla & Anton, 1997,
p. 614).

While Vygotsky originally developed the notion of the ZPD to account for child development and considered the novice as a child and the more experienced individual as a guiding adult, his work has since been further developed by L1 researchers who employ the term ‘scaffolding’ to describe the supportive conditions that occur within the ZPD.

Results of the research studies indicate that collective scaffolding occurs in group work, wherein “the speakers are at the same time individually novices and collectively experts, sources of new orientations for each other” (Donato, 1994, cited in Liu & Hansen, 2002, p. 5) , and guides through this complex linguistic problem solving  Furthermore, long-term language development was found as a result of this collective scaffolding. In addition, peer response activities “foster a myriad of communicative behaviors” (Villamil & DeGuerrero, 1996, p. 69)  that benefit all members of a study group.

Vygotsky’s theoretical framework has also been employed by L2 writing researchers (DeGuerrero & Villamil, 1994; Villamil & DeGuerrero, 1996; DiCamilla & Anton, 1997) to examine how peer response activities during group work in the second language writing classroom influences language learning.

 

Interaction and Second Language Acquisition

 

Over the past 20 years, researchers (Long & Porter, 1985; Doughty & Pica, 1986) have recognized that there are a number of psycholinguistic rationales for using group work. The findings of the research on interaction and second language acquisition provide clear evidence that engaging learners in group activities that require students to negotiate meaning, such as peer response activities, enables learners to gain additional practice in the target language.

Group work increases opportunities for students to engage in the negotiation of meaning, and this may lead to increased comprehension, which further leads to faster and better acquisition. Furthermore, group work pushes learners to produce comprehensible output which is necessary for second language acquisition to take place (Swain, 1985, cited in Liu & Hansen, 2002, p. 6). Long and Porter (1985) list a number of other psycholinguistic reasons for group work: “(1) increased quantity of practice, especially in two-way communication tasks; (2) increased range of language functions utilized; (3) similar levels of accuracy in student production as in teacher-led activities; (4) increased error correction in group work; and (5) increased negotiation of meaning” (pp. 221-222).

According to sociocultural theory, teaching is the process of helping students in developmental functioning (Gallimore & Tharp, 1990, cited in Roebuck, 2001, p. 209). That is, the instructor helps the learner pass through the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and provides him/her with the means and resources necessary to complete the task. These same means and resources will be used independently by the student and, later on, internalized in the completed acquisition of the function.

Research in second language writing suggests that using the draft process for revising essays can be an effective tool for learning to write more proficiently in another language. Wauters (1988) notes that the student can benefit from a second opinion, as it were, and may indeed become more aware of problems if both the instructor and the peer comment on the same issues.

 

Statement of the Problem

 

Due to the problematic nature of writing, the composition class offers learners a valuable opportunity to develop their linguistic and writing competencies, while challenging the instructor to create pedagogical situations and activities that enhance the students’ development. For some teachers, difficulty lies in focusing the course, choosing an appropriate text, and the right teaching method, as well as dealing with the varied skill levels of the students.

Regarding the above-mentioned points, the focus 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/peer response activities had any impact on Iranian EFL learners’ writing quality. To fulfill such a goal, this study aimed at extending peer response research and set out to examine the teacher and student interaction and feedback in mixed peer and teacher response groups in EFL composition classes. More specifically, interaction was examined in terms of different modes and sources of feedback. The main research questions addressed in this study were:

1. Do EFL students incorporate teacher and peer comments when revising their drafts?
2. Which mode of teacher and peer-provided feedbacks in the two interactive feedback groups is more effective: written or oral?

In order to explore the above-mentioned research questions empirically, the following null hypotheses were stated:

1. EFL students do not incorporate comments made by their teacher and peers when revising their drafts.
2. There is no significant difference between the two interactive feedback groups, that is,  written teacher and peer-provided feedback and oral teacher and peer-provided feedback.

 

Method

 

This section features the framework of the present study. The purpose of this study as mentioned earlier was to determine whether there was/was not any progress in EFL students’ writing performances in a sequence of ten written texts over a 15-week semester. To achieve such a goal, the researcher compared the students’ rough and final drafts, before and after receiving feedback, on five topics analytically to track any improvement in the two experimental groups and assayed the effects of different feedback forms--written or oral--by different sources--teacher and peers.

 

Participants

 

A group of 60 Persian native speakers aged between 22 and 25, both males and females,  majoring in English Translation and taking Advanced Writing course at university level were selected as the eligible members of the sample participating in this study after completing the first phase of the experiment--the OPT & a sample paragraph writing.

They were assigned to three homogeneous groups--two experimental and one control--based on the above-mentioned criteria. Each group consisted of 20 subjects. The three groups participating in this study were respectively as follows:

Group One            : Teacher’s and Peers’ Written Comments (TPW)

Group Two           : Teacher’s and Peers’ Oral Comments (TPO)

Group Three         : Control Group (CG)

 

Instrumentation

 

The instruments employed in this study were the standard proficiency test OPT  (version 1985) , a sample paragraph on the given topic, a writing handout composed of seven units covering the topics pertinent to the advanced writing course collected by the researcher from different writing books, a peer response sheet for a one-paragraph composition leading the students’ feedback on each other’s drafts by providing them with a list of characteristics that were important to their success on the paragraph writing assignment, an audio-taped feedback suggestion list developed by Boswood and Dwyer (1996), and both teacher and student guidelines for preparing EFL students for peer response suggested by Berg (1999) . A list of marking codes was also developed by the researcher for marking the type of the errors. In addition to these, the students wrote on five topics all focusing on giving reasons using an expository genre. Roebuck’s (2001) analytical scoring rubrics for composition was also used for scoring the students’ papers (for more information on this section see the appendices in the end).

 

Specific Procedures for Each Group

 

In this section, the specific procedures implemented for each group are discussed in details based on the different modes and sources of feedback each group received during the study.

 

Teacher’s and Peers’ Written Comments’ Group (TPW)

 

The students’ first drafts on the first topic were collected by the teacher. The teacher made two copies of each paper, one for herself and one for the peer. The teacher kept her own and distributed the others among the students while each paper was assigned a coded number and student’s name was deleted to prevent any prejudgements affecting the students’ impressions (the 1^st session). The corrective feedback provided by both the teacher and the peer to each paper involved coded error correction in which both the type and location of each error were indicated in writing on the paper.

Next session, both the teacher and the students brought the papers with their written comments back to the class. The teacher attached the deleted names to the papers and gave these comments and her own to the student writers. The teacher asked the students to revise their drafts for the next time using the two sources of feedback. Before leaving the class, the student writer had short conferences with both the teacher and the peer who provided him/her comments.

In the last session, the students came to class with their revised papers and handed them in to the teacher (the 3^rd session). The papers were collected by the teacher for further analysis. The same procedures repeated for other four writing tasks. The writing procedure of this group is shown in Figure 1.

 

 (1^st session)                 (2^nd session)                                         (3^rd session)

           -  

input

                                -                                                                         -                      

input

  --------   ----------------------- F ---------------------   --------- > revising the draft

(CC)

 

Teacher’s & Peers’ Readings and Providing Written Comments

 

(TPW)

 

 

 

                 

 

 

 F: Feedback                                        TPW: Teacher’s & Peers’ Written Comments

 -: Draft                                                               CC: Comments Corrections

Figure 1. Implementation of TPW on students’ drafts of writing

 

Teacher’s and Peers’ Oral Comments’ Group (TPO)

 

After covering the first topic by the students, the teacher collected the papers. Then, the teacher made two copies of each paper, one for herself and another for the peer--the same as TPW Group. The teacher kept her own and then distributed the copies among the peers with names of the student writers deleted (the 1^st session). This time, both the teacher and the peers recorded their responses to the paper. When they had something to say, they simply numbered the place on the paper by using the abbreviated markings to indicate the location and the type of the error, then switched on the recorder, and talked.

The next session, all the students and the teacher brought the papers and their recorded comments to the class. The teacher attached the students’ deleted names to the papers and gave the peers’ and her own papers and tapes together to the student writers and asked them to revise their first drafts (the 2^nd session).

The students used the recorded comments provided by both the teacher and the peers to revise their drafts. The last session, they brought the revised versions to the class (the 3^rd session). The teacher collected the papers for later investigation. These procedures were repeated for four other times. Figure 2 shows the writing procedure of this group.

 

 

(1^st session)              (2^nd session)                                         (3^rd session)

input

   -                                   -                                                                              -                         

input

 

Teacher’s & Peers’ Readings and Providing Oral Comments

  --------   ---------------------- F -----------------------------   --------- > revising the draft

(CC)

 

(TPO)

 

 

 

 

 

F: Feedback                                          TPO: Teacher’s & Peers’ Oral Comments

-: Draft                                                                CC: Comments Corrections

Figure 2. Implementation of TPO on students’ drafts of writing

 

Control Group (CG)

 

A group of twenty students who received no treatment made up the Control Group in this study. This decision was made by the researcher in order to make sure that the changes in the behavior of the experimental groups did not occur in the behavior of the control group.

Neither the teacher nor the peers provided the students in the Control Group with any type of feedback mentioned above. Instead, whenever the teacher found a special problem in the students’ paragraphs, she explained it to the class, not individually, without using any type of special comments or marking the location and type of the error(s).

The presence of this group was just for the sake of comparison purposes, contribution to the internal validity of this research, and interpretation of findings with more confidence. The writing process of this group is graphically presented in Figure 3.

 

     (1^st session)           (2^nd session)                          (3^rd session)

input

        -                            -                                                           -                   

input

      --------   ---------------- F -------------------   ------------ > revising the draft

Teacher’s Reading (GC)

 

(CC)

 

 

 

 

F: Feedback                                          GC: General Comments

-: Draft                                                      CC: Comments Corrections

Figure 3. Implementation of no feedback on students’ drafts of writing

 

Results and Discussion

 

As stated earlier, the three homogeneous groups completed the five writing tasks in the span of a 15-week semester. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the students’ scores before receiving any type of feedback, and Figure 4 shows the results graphically.

 

Table 1

Descriptive statistics of the students’ scores before feedback

TPO: Teacher’s and Peers’ Oral Comments

TPW: Teacher’s and Peers’ Written Comments

CG: Control Group

 

Figure 4. Graphical representation of three groups’ means before  receiving feedback                    

      

In order to make sure that the three groups were homogeneous before the treatment (feedback), the researcher applied a one-way ANOVA to the students’ scores obtained before receiving any type of feedback. Table 2 demonstrates the results of this one-way ANOVA.

 

Table 2

The results of the one-way ANOVA on the students’ scores
before feedback

 

 

Table 2 indicates that there is no significant difference between the three assigned groups (F= 2.658, p= .079). Therefore, it can be claimed that the groups were homogeneous at the beginning of the study.

 

Investigation of the First Null Hypothesis

 

EFL Students’ Incorporation of Comments Provided by Their Teacher and Peers

 

To empirically investigate the first null hypothesis, the students’ final scores after receiving feedback were analyzed through using a one-way ANOVA. It should be noted that for this analysis the scores of each student on the five topics were added together to obtain the total score for each. Table 3 shows the descriptive statistics of the students’ final scores after receiving feedback. Figure 5 shows the graphical representation of these scores.

 

Table 3

Descriptive statistics of the students’ final scores after feedback

 

It can be seen in Table 3 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 4 presents the results of the ANOVA.

 

 

Figure 5. Graphical representation of the students’ final scores after feedback

 

 

Table 4

The results of the one-way ANOVA on students’ final scores
 after feedback

 

Table 3 shows that the amount of F-observed is significant (F=10.642, p=.000). To find out the exact area(s) of significant difference(s), a Scheffe post hoc test was applied. Table 5 shows the results of this test.

 

 

Table 5

The results of Scheffe on the students’ final scores after feedback

 

Group	Groups	Mean Difference	Sig.
TPO	TPW	-.60	.981
	CG	11.80*	.001
TPW	TPO	.60	.981
	CG	12.40*	.001
CG	TPO	-11.80*	.001
	TPW	-12.40*	.001

* The mean difference is significant at the .05 level

 

According to Table 4, the differences between the two experimental groups and control group were significant. Therefore, the first null hypothesis stating that the students do not incorporate the comments--written/oral--provided by their teacher and peers in the process of revising their drafts is safely rejected.

 

Investigation of the Second Null Hypothesis

 

Comparison between the Two Interactive Feedback Groups: T-PW and T-PO

As mentioned before, there were two interactive feedback groups--one oral and one written--who received feedback from two sources, that is, the teacher and peers. The students’ scores in the two interactive feedback groups after receiving feedback from the two sources were separately calculated. As indicated above in Table 3, the means between the two experimental groups--TPO (m= 68.4) and TPW (m= 69)--were different. The results of the One-way ANOVA and the Scheffe post hoc test (Tables 4 and 5) revealed that this difference was not statistically significant. Thus, the second null hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference between the two interactive feedback groups, TPO and TPW, is retained.

 

 

 

Discussion

 

Generally speaking, this study reveals that,  feedback--in its general sense--affects students’ writing performances, which subsequently means that the students do incorporate suggestions made by their teacher and peers while revising their drafts.

Clearly, as Hyland (1990) claims, “teacher-response is an essential step in the writing process” (p. 279). Diligent marking provides students with an idea of the criteria by which their work is judged, and offers useful information that will help them avoid similar errors in the future. Students can certainly learn from their mistakes, but this depends on adapting appropriate feedback methods that encourage them to return to their work after it has been assessed. In other words, feedback should always provide a platform from which students can reassess and redraft their work. In this way, drafting and revising become indispensable stages in the production of a piece of written work, which can lead to spectacular improvements in the students’ final drafts.

Concerning the second null hypothesis, of the two mixed feedback groups--receiving written/oral comments from both teacher and peers--none of them had superiority over the other as far as the students’ writing progress was concerned. This might be because of simultaneous delivery of the two comments provided by both the teacher and the peers. As Liu and Hansen (2002) claim, there is a great change upon the time of receiving feedback. In this study, the students received the teacher’s comments at the same time as peers’ comments. Maybe, extending the time of drafting from single to multiple, each time focusing on one aspect of written discourse and receiving the two comments not immediately one after another, would change the result. For example, students write multiple drafts. The teacher may respond to the first draft and then utilize peer response for the second draft, or vice versa.

The students in this study were also asked to talk about their opinions on receiving simultaneous written/oral feedback from both their teacher and peers. Some of the students’ comments in their own words without any corrections illustrate the ways that they thought these two collaborative feedback models helped them learn from their audience’s responses.

 

Comments from T-PW

 

The following opinions show the T-PW’s reactions to this type of comment.

“I had both of peer and teacher comments and it was so good. And I think it was a good course for improving our writing abilities, and find out what was wrong with our writing.”

“At first I think this process was hard and boring for me but after learning some good points, I motivated to rewrite with more interest. I got high self-esteem, interest and hard working.”

 “The time for writing a paragraph was limited. If we had more time, we could write better because we didn’t know something subject of paragraph. The comments from the teacher can help better because peer are not so advanced to help.”

 “I think that if the peer group have three or four members and a specified topic has been given to each group separately then each group member will write a better paragraph and consequently will able to improve his/herself inside the group and in a broad view regarding the guidelines of the teacher.”

 

Comments from T-PO Group

 

Here are some of the comments provided by the members of T-PO group.

“Peer groups will help us to get more practice and also lead us to the sense of cooperation. It helped to understand the weaknesses and also helped to revise ourselves. During this course we could improve our writing and especially writing the essay, and also to talk about it.”

“In my opinion this course was very useful for my writing. For example, in  this group  I received comments from both teacher and peer. I became familiar to errors of writing and practiced conversation.”

“Thank you for planning such a procedure. I think peer groups are better to do their responsibility more carefully. But in general the procedure was very useful for us; at least for me. I practiced writing and found most of my problems in this field. I noticed your comments more than peer ones.”

“Before this practice, I had fear from English writing. But now I feel more relaxed and less frightened from writing in English. It also helped me to rise my self-confidence.”

“Thanks, that was a good activity and it really helped us to improve our writing ability. I think receiving comments from teacher and peer really work.”

 

Conclusions

 

A substantial amount of research has been done over the last two decades into the value of different kinds of response offered to student writers, both in L1, and increasingly in L2. The findings of this study support the following contentions made by other researchers in ESL contexts. The contention by Youngs and Green (2001) stating that “in second language writing using the draft process for revising essays can be an effective tool for learning to write more proficiently in another language” (p. 550). Han (2002) also believes that in communicative language teaching, corrective feedback remains an important vehicle for facilitating L2 knowledge construction and enhancing knowledge use.

This study is also in line with what Keh (1990) believes that peer feedback is versatile, with regard to focus and implementation along the process writing continuum. In addition to this, students feel peer feedback is valuable in gaining a wider sense of audience. In this study, as the students themselves declared, they were actively involved in the learning process, rather than being passive learners. This is in harmony with what Previdi (1999) claims, “communication among the students and information sharing contribute to actively involving the students in the class and enrich their experiences” (p. 33).

Ferris and Roberts (2001) concur that indirect feedback occurs when the respondent indicates in some way that an error exists but does not provide the correction, thus letting the student writer know that there is a problem but leaving it to him/her to solve. They maintain that second language theorists and ESL writing specialists alike argue that indirect feedback is preferable for most student writers because it engages them in “guided learning and problem solving” (p. 164).  According to what some of the students in this study claimed, this type of giving feedback--indirect feedback--helped them think about their own problems in writing, analyze the written text, and choose the best form, in their opinion, to express in writing what they had in their minds.

The students in this study, to some extent, appear to agree with what Mangelsdorf (1992) and Liu and Hansen (2002) claim, that is, peer review has the potential to be a powerful learning tool.  Mangelsdorf further states that “peer reviews can harness students’ communicative power, their power to learn from each other through language” (p. 283). Liu and Hansen also discuss this potentiality with its own specific strengths and weaknesses in four major areas as follows.

Cognitively speaking, according to Liu and Hansen (2002), peer response activities help students take charge of their own learning, build critical thinking skills, and consolidate their own knowledge of writing although sometimes comments could be questionable and thus difficult to incorporate in revision. In terms of social effects, peer response activities can enhance students’ communication, build their social skills, and provide them with a supportive social network, although they sometimes can also be anxiety provoking and lead to communication breakdown. Linguistically, peer response activities are considered good opportunities for students to build their own linguistic knowledge, enhance participation, and improve both oral and written discourse although students tend to overemphasize local structural and/or grammatical comments. And from a pedagogical perspective, peer response activities can be done across students’ proficiency levels and at different stages of writing although time-efficiency is of great concern.

 

 

 

The Author

 

Mitra Rabiee is currently an assistant professor in English Department at IAU and has been teaching English since 1992. She has presented over fifteen papers in national and international seminars and conferences and published a couple of articles in different ELT journals. Her major academic interests include SLA issues, ELT methodology, psycholinguistics, CALL, & curriculum design.

 

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Wauters, J. K. (1988). Non-confrontational critiquing pairs: An alternative to verbal peer response groups. The Writing Instructor, 7, 156-166.

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Appendices

 

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

 

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 of 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 C: AUDIO-TAPED FEEDBACK (ATF) SUGGESTION LIST Adapted from Boswood & Dwayer (1996)

 

This list provides some suggestions for maximizing the effectiveness of the use of ATF.

OVERALL

• Use the feedback medium (writing, ATF, or conferencing) that best suits the kinds of feedback you want to give within your resource constraints.

 

INTRODUCING ATF

• Discuss feedback on writing with your students, get them to explore their own experiences.
• Introduce the technique and discuss it with your students first.
• Model ATF in class.

 

RECORDING YOUR COMMENTS

• Always consider how your listener is going to use the tape.
• Guide your listener by relating the taped comments to the page (e.g., use some kind of numbering system or marginal marking).
• Give immediate reactions (thinking out loud) as you first read through the text, followed by a considered response as summary.
• Structure your comments clearly, even when they are immediate reactions.
• Avoid rambling − be precise, succinct, concise; if you find yourself rambling, stop the tape and record that section again.
• Be sensitive to the writer’s self-image.
• Refer back on the tape to classroom instruction.
• Adopt the role(s) which will be most effective for the written genre and the kind of feedback (e.g., reader, editor, user, proof-reader, manager, client).
• Give the listeners time to find the place in the text you are talking about.
• Allow the listener time to process your recorded comments.
• Suggest activities for the listeners to do while listening (e.g., “Stop the tape and find one other example of … on this tape”).
• If you stop the tape to read on or check something, tell the listener before and after the break.
• Check how the students used the tapes and problems they had in understanding the feedback.
• Ask students to tell you what kind of comments they found most useful.

 

LOGISTICS

• Check that the students have the necessary technology, and a place to use it.
• Ask the students to hand in their tape with their written work.
• Ask the students to cue their tape and label it (and the box) clearly before handing it in.
• Practice with the technology first, check the qualities of your recordings.
• Find a quiet, comfortable place for recording.

 

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT of ATF

• Ask students to note down questions about their writing on their text for you to answer on tape.
• Encourage students to record their questions on the tape for you to listen to before responding.
• Exchange tapes − work toward a taped journal.
• Encourage your students to use ATF for peer feedback among themselves.
• Use ATF for feedback on other kinds of activities (e.g., oral presentations, in teacher education).

 

Appendix D: Roebuck’s (2001) Analytic Scoring Rubric

 

Paper addresses the major areas of the task      1  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 outline                                          1  2  3  4

• Completes drafts/outlines and makes appropriate revisions

 

Overall Assessment                                       1  2  3  4

Comments:

 

Appendix E: 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 agreement……… 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.g., I couldn’t hear the sun, because the radio didn’t know.

 

 

 

 

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