Peer Feedback

One of the audiences that provide feedback for the writer is his or her peers. Peer feedback is a practice in which a person or a group of people give feedback to another. Some studies state that peer feedback follows naturally from implementation of the process approach to teaching writing (Emig 1967; Flower and Hayes 1981; Zamel 1976).

According to Dippold (2009), peer feedback is “a technique that is increasingly used by educators instead of, or in addition to, tutor feedback, due to its potential to develop students’ understanding of standards, to initiate peer feedback, and to engage the student in the process of learning and assessment’’. Peer feedback is usually used in writing classes where students work together to check each other’s work and provide feedback to each other. Their feedback could take different forms such as opinions, making suggestions, asking questions, correction, giving additional related information and so on. Peer feedback also illustrates the basic principles of cooperative learning as recommended by Johnson and Johnson (1998) which are:

1-Positive interdependence 2-Individual accountability

3-Face-to-face promotive interaction 4-Interpersonal and small group skills 5-Group processing

Peer feedback is important in that students have the opportunity to learn from each other and benefit from others ideas or opinions; “peer feedback was said to provide a means of both improving writers’ drafts and developing readers’ understanding of good writing’’ (Hyland, 2003: 103).

3.8.1.1.Effectiveness of Peer Feedback

The effectiveness of peer feedback has been discussed in the pedagogical literature of both the higher education and language teaching field. One of the studies which examined peer feedback is Nelson and Murphy (1993). It was a case study consisting of four EFL learners who were examined to see

if they use peer suggestions in revisions. The results showed that students were influenced by their peers’ response and made some changes in their writing. These results were similar to Johnson and Mendonca’s (1994) study which found that students used their peers’ comments in more than half of their revisions.

Rolliston (2009) argued that some of the main advantages of peer feedback in L2 writing is that students write for an audience, and they are therefore encouraged to “formulate their writing in line with the characteristics and demands of the reader’’. Dippold argues that “peer feedback can encourage a collaborative dialogue with two-way interaction, and it operates at a level that is less formal and potentially more accessible than tutor feedback’’ (2009: 20). These studies have shown that peer feedback is one of the cornerstones of writing as a process, because students get the opportunity to do more practice in writing. Also, students do not stick with the class routine that encourages them just to listen to teachers’ instructions, but work with their peers and share opinions. Not only do students have to read others’ work but they also take more responsibility that they both receive and provide feedback. This strategy works in some cases as a motivation tool for students.

3.8.1.2.Limitations of Peer Feedback

Despite the advantages of peer feedback, it also has its drawbacks, especially in ESL/ EFL classrooms. One of the most common problems that students face is the lack of ability to give feedback; other students may have insufficient knowledge and struggle with providing feedback, as observed by Dippold (2009): “the fact is that no guidance was offered to students as to how to give feedback, what to give feedback on, how to use this feedback and how to react to it.’’ (2009:.33).

While some researchers found that writers benefit from peer feedback as mentioned previously, some researchers’ findings were quite the contrary. For instance, Zhang (1995: 214) conducted a study of ESL university students to examine the advantage of peer feedback in their writing. Their response indicated that they preferred teacher feedback in comparison with peer feedback, with learner-centered self-feedback the least popular option. Min (2006) interviewed university students in Taiwan, regarding the types and the quality of revision. The study identified that the lack of peers’ concrete suggestions was one of the reasons of the failure of the peer review. The study concludes that with extensive training trained peer review feedback can positively impact on EFL Students’ revision. Moreover, further studies (Amores, 1997; Chaudrom, 1984; Sengupta, 1998) have shown that students cited their preference for teacher feedback as they and their peers lack the necessary experience to provide effective feedback (Nelson & Carson 2006: 43). This confirms Liu & Hansen’s (2002) belief that EFL students generally trust and appreciate teachers’ feedback; while they do not appreciate the feedback from their classmates who have the same language abilities as themselves which results in them feeling discouraged about revising their

writing. Allaei and Connor (1990) consider peer feedback useless as they think students are weak themselves; thus, they do not have the ability to spot weaknesses in their colleagues’ essays and provide them with feedback.

Moreover, some researchers claim that students do not trust each other’s comments (Carson and Nelson, 1996) and that some students cannot provide feedback because they think it is a problem when they criticize their peers.

Thus, it seems that peer feedback loses track of its original rationale to help others improve unless the learners are trained and guided on certain criteria for providing feedback. Based on the above factors, teacher feedback has more influence on students’ work.

After reviewing surveys taken by ESL learners concerning feedback, Hyland and Hyland (2006) concluded from this research that teacher feedback is generally more valuable than peer feedback (cited in Dippold 2009: 21).