Peer Review How to make it work for you 1

In your experience… What have you tried? ▫What worked? ▫What didn’t work? What were the students’ responses? 2

What are the advantages of peer feedback? Peer feedback gives more control and autonomy to students. Peer feedback increases audience awareness and sense of ownership. Peer feedback enhances the ability of peer reviewers to evaluate their own work. Successful peer review gives writers self- confidence. (Tsui & Ng, 2000; Hyland, 2000; Lundstrom & Baker, 2009) 3

What is the impact of peer feedback on subsequent drafts? Students tend to self-correct more than those receiving teacher feedback. Students tend to make more meaning-change revision. High and Low proficiency students showed good improvement, high proficiency making more global comments and low more local comments. Students make more gains by giving feedback than receiving feedback (Miao et al., 2006; Kamimura, 2006; Lundstrom & Baker, 2009) 4

What are students’ perceptions of peer feedback? Students tend to trust their teacher more than their peers. Students tend to be more positive about peer feedback when they see the value of it. Even those students who take peer advice prefer advice from their teacher and feel the teacher can give better advice about major issues (e.g. organization). (Zhang, 1995; Jacobs et al., 1998 ; Tsui & Ng, 2000; Miao et al., 2006; Hyland & Hyland, 2006; Min, 2008) 5

The impact of the process 1.The importance of peer review is the process of students collaborating and not the specific comments given. 2.Students are likely to reconstruct their revisions based on their own inspirations and their understanding of their partners’ comments. 3.The students’ writing level greatly affects how they apply feedback. 6

General Guidelines Help students understand their roles and writer/reader authority Help students understand the goal (independence, future techniques) Develop a training scheme that includes ▫Guidelines for conducting the peer commenting ▫Guidelines for turn taking, interaction, respect ▫Examples of useful and helpful questions to ask Give a grade to commenting assignment to hold students accountable 7

Peer Groupings Overall IssuesGroup Details Goals: ▫Trust, respect, feel comfortable with each other Who decides? Size (3–4) Proficiency (mixed) Language (??) 8

Training Scheme TrainingGoal 1.Feedback Guidesheets 2.Teacher conference about own paper 3.Teacher conference about comments for partner 4.“Talk aloud” 1.To help them to trust each other’s ability, to help them be well trained on the writing features of the course, to assist them in the language for giving advice as well. 2.To help build students’ ability with evaluating writing (their own) 3.To help build their trust in their partner’s ability to give feedback, to build their own ability to give feedback, to ensure that all students have meaningful comments to talk to their partners about. 4.To help students see a real example of what to look for in a draft and to understand the mechanics and the procedure for thinking about comments and writing comments. (Liu & Hansen, 2002; Hu, 2005; Min, 2008) 9

Sample Sample of GuidesheetGuidesheet What can I look for? What can I say or write in my comment to help? Does the thesis sentence contain too much information or something not important? There are too many ideas and I can’t see your main point. Content: Focusing Idea Development: Analysis and Organization What can I look for? What can I say or write in my comment to help? Does the writer always use the same structure to analyze the idea? Try to use various sentence structure to make your arguments more interesting Expression: Clarity and Readability What can I look for? What can I say or write in my comment to help? Looking at words around, are the same words repeated? Use other words with similar meanings, or restructure your sentence 10

Other Types of training Feedback Guidance sheet (Liu & Hansen, 2002) Teacher “Talk alouds” (Hu, 2005; Min, 2006) ▫Clarifying the writer’s intentions ▫Identifying the problem ▫Explaining the reason for the comment ▫Making a specific suggestion Teacher conference about peer’s papers (Min, 2008) Reviewer feedback stances (e.g., prescriptive, probing, collaborative, tutoring) (Min, 2006) Reviewer feedback types (e.g., questions, suggestions, evaluative) (Liu & Hansen, 2002) 11

References Connor, U., & Asenavage, K. (1994). Peer response groups in ESL writing classes: How much impact on revision? Journal of Second Language Writing, 3 (3), Conrad, S. M., & Goldstein, L. (1999). Student revision after teacher written comments: Text, contexts and individuals. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8 (2), Chaudron, C. (1984). Effects of feedback on Student's Composition Revision. RELC, 15 (2), Ferris, D. (1995). Student reactions to teacher response in multiple- draft composition classrooms. TESOL Quarterly, 29 (1), Hu, G. (2002). Potential cultural resistance to pedagogical imports: The case of communicative language teaching in China. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 15 (2), Hu, G. (2005). Using peer review with Chinese ESL student writers. Language Teaching Research, 9,

References Hyland, F. (2000). ESL writers and Feedback: Giving more autonomy to students. Journal of Language Teaching Research, 4 (1), Hyland, K. & Hyland F. (2006). Feedback on second language students' writing. Language Teaching, 39(2), Jacobs, G., Curtis, A., Braine, G. & Huang S Feedback on Student Writing: Taking the Middle Path. Journal of Second Language Writing, 7(3), Kamimura, T. (2006). Effects of Peer Feedback on EFL Student Writers at Different Levels of English Proficiency: A Japanese Context. TESL Canada journal, 23(2), Liu, J & Hansen, J. (2002). Peer Response in Second Language Writing Classrooms. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press. 13

References Liu, J. & Sadler, R. (2000). The effects of peer versus teacher comments in both electronic and traditional modes on ESL writers’ revision. Paper presented at the 34 th annual TESOL Convention, March, Vancourver, British Columbia, Canada. Lundstrom, K. & Baker, W. (2009). To give is better than to receive: The benefits of peer review to the reviewer’s own writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 18, 30–43. Miao, Y., Badger, R. & Zhen, Y. (2006). A comparative study of peer and teacher feedback in a Chinese EFL writing class. Journal of Second Language Writing, 15, 179–200. Min, H. (2006). The effects of trained peer review on EFL students’ revision types and writing quality. Journal of Second Language Writing, 15, 118–141. Min, H. (2008). Reviewer stances and writer perceptions in EFL peer review training. English for Specific Purposes, 27, 285–

References Paulus, T. (1999). The Effect of Peer and Teacher Feedback on Student Writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8 (3), Tsui, A & Ng. M. (2000). Do Secondary L2 Writers Benefit from Peer Comments? Journal Of Second Language Writing, 9(2), 147– 170. Zhang, S. (1995). Reexamining the Advantage of Peer Feedback in the ESL Writing Class. Journal of Second Language Writing, 4 (3),