Application Of Computer-mediated Peer Response In College English Writing

Peer response in which students work together in dyads or small groups to critique and provide feedback on one another's writing is compatible with communicative approaches to foreign language teaching and process approaches to teaching of writing.Computer-mediated communication has been considered a feasible tool for both two aspects.There is,however,scant information on how computer-mediated peer response functions in foreign language writing.This study investigated how college English learners provided feedback to their peers and how the feedback impacted on the revision of their compositions.It also examined how they perceived peer response activity and the use of computers for peer response.The combination of qualitative and quantitative research method was used to collect and analyze data.The data was from four writing tasks which were conducted for 10 weeks by 20 participants chosen from freshmen at the second semester of Chinese College in Qufu Normal University.Data sources consisted of written feedback,first and second drafts,second feedback commentaries,pre and post questionnaires.This study indicated students used mainly "pointing","collaborating","reacting" and "advising" language functions when providing feedback.Also,it showed that the participants gave feedback depending on their purposes.Students' comments showed two purposes,which can be identified their approaches to providing feedback.Those that had a "supportive" approach started their feedback by giving positive comments to their peers.They used "reacting" and "encouraging" language functions in their commentaries.Others that had a "collaborative" approach to providing feedback first would mention that there were some mistakes in their partners' texts.And they used mostly "advising" and "collaborating" language functions in the commentaries.In fact,both approaches were employed in the commentaries by most participants for four tasks.Results showed that participants focused mostly on the aspects of content, vocabulary and grammar.They cared about content because they viewed it much more important than the form.They were concerned about vocabulary and grammar,because they regarded them as the most basic factors to influence their meanings.The revisions made by the participants were in keeping with the idea that peer feedback directly influences revision.More than 80%revisions were made by the participants' suggestions given by their peers.Analysis of revisions,which were based on peers' suggestions,verified that the impact of peer response was strong on clearness of sentence meaning,as well as on the length,structure of the texts;and,limited impact on the essays' rhetorical machining which was more difficult or relatively higher requirement for students.The students considered that using the word processing language tools and rich information available on line allowed them to learn about language and focus on content.Computer-mediated peer response not only gave them an opportunity to learn from each other,promote the communication,but also helped them grow to know each other through the mails.However, computer-mediated peer response had drawbacks of its own,which inevitably influenced participants' view about it.Based on the major findings,some reflections on the study and implications for instruction are made in the paper,hoping computer-mediated peer response activity could fully bring into play in English writing.