The Application Of Peer Response To Teaching EFL Writing In Junior Middle School

The present study attempts to investigate the feasibility and the effect of peer response on junior middle school students' English writing.Four research questions are raised:1) What are the junior middle school students' attitudes towards peer response activities? Can junior middle school students benefit from peer response in their English writing? 2) Can junior middle school students be trained to use peer response well and quickly find the language errors in their group members' writings? 3) What's the effect of peer response suggestions on junior middle school students' English writing? Can it help improve the students' writing facility in both surface error collection and global context? 4) Can students in Experimental Class make fewer language errors than those in the Controlled Class?In order to answer the above questions,the author obtained the data from the pre and post tests,questionnaires,semi-structured interview and a case study. Comparison of the results indicated the following interesting findings:1) Most of the students hold a positive attitude towards peer response.They think it can broaden their minds from peers,reduce writing anxiety and increase motivations to write and rewrite.2) Junior middle school students can be trained to use peer response well and quickly find the language errors in their group members' writings after appropriate training.3) According to peers' suggestions,the students can not only make a revision,but also pay attention to the similar language errors in case they would make mistakes again.Therefore,the students' writing facility in both surface error collection and global context has obviously improved.4) Compared with Controlled Class,the students in Experimental Class could write with fewer mistakes,especially in misspelling and subject-verb agreement.The results of the research show that peer response to English writing is an efficient methodology.However,teacher's direction and organization of the class as well as appropriate peer response training and reasonable grouping of the students are vital to the efficiency of peer response to teaching EFL writing in junior middle school.