An Empirical Study Of Peer Feedback In Teaching Vocational College English Writing

It is well known that writing is very important in developing students'comprehensive ability in English. However, the actual level of students'writing is still far from satisfying. Currently, peer feedback, an indispensable part of process approach to writing, has drawn more and more attention in the educational world. This study attempts to explore the effect of peer feedback on Chinese vocational college students'writing. The following questions are to be addressed in this study.(1) What are students'attitudes towards peer feedback?(2) Can Chinese vocational college students be trained to give their peers beneficial comments on their writings? Are students writers able to revise their writings based on their peers'comments?(3) How does peer feedback affect the writing quality of Chinese vocational college students?(4) Do students prefer peer feedback to teacher feedback? Why?Based on the previous studies on peer feedback, the author designs an experimental study to answer the above questions. The subjects involved in this study are two classes of students from Shangdong Agricultural Management College (enrolled in the year of 2009), majoring in accounting. One class is chosen randomly as the experimental class, the other control class. During the 10 weeks'period of English writing teaching, each student writes four compositions. In the control class students receive the traditional teacher feedback and are required to make corrections based on the teacher's comments, while students in the experimental class comment their peers'writing and incorporate peer feedback in their own writings after receiving feedback training. The author uses SPSS 13.0 to analyze the data collected from pretest & posttest, questionnaire and interview. The study shows that Chinese vocational college students in the experimental class have a positive view on peer feedback: they believe that peer feedback provides them with an authentic audience and arouse their interest in English writing; students are capable of providing valid feedback for their peers'writing, and they can modify their writings according to peer feedback; peer feedback is beneficial to improve the level of students'writings and the whole level of students'writing develops evenly; peer feedback can not be a substitute for teacher feedback, peer feedback is a complementary form of teacher feedback. The author suggests that peer feedback should be combined with teacher feedback scientifically in writing teaching.