Peer Review In EFL Writing Class In High School

Teachers' Feedback is widely used in helping EFL students to learn to write, yet studies show negative effects on improving students' writing skills. Peer review, as a kind of peer feedback, is reported to have more advantages over teachers' feedback; nevertheless, as how it can help students improve writing ability, there are mixed findings. The present experimental study attempts to find whether peer review activities in the writing class help students improve their writing skills and change their attitudes towards peer review. The results from the experiment indicate that peer review promoted accuracy and thus students achieved higher scores in the writing exams. Peer review can help students develop planning and revising strategies for better writing, and they hoped to continue peer review activities in their future writing class. Peer review is thus an effective approach in EFL writing class, which offers students opportunities to practice in becoming critical readers, who may in the end develop self-editing skills and become a better writer. However, the class needs to be carefully set up and trained so that the benefits of the peer feedback activity can be fully realized.